CALL FOR PAPERS
The Third Coffee Break Conference of Aesthetics
Warsaw, Poland, August 27-30, 2026 (Thursday-Sunday)
Organized by the Society of Dialogical Aesthetics and University of Warsaw
Major topic of investigation: Crisis Aesthetics
The Third Coffee Break Conference of Aesthetics
Warsaw, Poland, August 27-30, 2026 (Thursday-Sunday)
Organized by the Society of Dialogical Aesthetics and University of Warsaw
Major topic of investigation: Crisis Aesthetics
Welcome to The Third Coffee Break Conference of Aesthetics!
Do you remember that highly inspiring discussion you were having with a fellow speaker in one of the last conferences you participated in about his/her paper, when the organisers suddenly reminded you of the end of the coffee break, and you had to rush back to listen to the next speaker? Do you remember the exhausting days of the conference that are fully packed with presentations, with barely any time to have more leisurely chats with other participants (except if you skip an otherwise surely interesting talk, hence causing dilemmas and bad conscience...). Do you remember how refreshing it is when in a conference you have excursions, city visits, common dinners, hiking or even sauna sessions? And finally, do you remember how much we all missed, during Corona-times and amidst the zoom-conferences that we can finally meet in person again, and have thorough conversations not necessarily only about a paper, but on anything else, like in a good coffee break?
The Coffee Break Conference of Aesthetics is a new platform targeting precisely this sort of experience. It is a scholarly meeting, in which the proportions of a traditional academic conference are inverted: while normally in conferences we have long lecture sessions of passive listening and short coffee breaks for some talk, this time the focus is on the discussions – both regarding each other’s academic research and beyond.
However, this inversion of the proportions does not jeopardize the scholarly nature of the meeting: The idea of the Coffee Break Conference of Aesthetics is to first share texts on-line among the participants and (this is a must for all participants) to then comment on them BEFORE the meeting. In this way we “gain” a significant amount of time: in other words we do not spend most of the conference time by simply listening to a presentation for the first time and ask basic questions or express our first-impression-reactions, but we can use the time we will spend together to go deeper in the ideas, concepts and insights developed in the participants’ texts that by then we all already know. Besides that, we understand the papers better, as we read them, and we do not, so, have to work on straightening misunderstandings, which often is the case after 20 minute talks. Hence, during the actual meeting we can focus more on discussing the presented issues, as well as anything else that interests us.
To further emphasise the informal nature of the conference, there are no keynotes. Better to say: all participants are keynotes, and their research will equally be in the limelight, no matter how “famous” or “well-published” they are.
Most importantly, this conference aims for a laid-back, intelligent, but not “professionalist” atmosphere. We hope everyone brings in a good spirit and a thirst for substance-driven discussions! As we share our work already before “walking in”, there is time to go deep, often in untraditional setting and circumstances – why should sitting in a lecture room be the only way to discuss someone’s paper? Can it be in a garden, or while hiking, going to sauna, or taking the metro to go to visit an artist studio?
About the topic: “Crisis Aesthetics”
Although the term “crisis” now has mostly negative connotations, it is worth remembering that it comes from the Greek word κρίσις, meaning a turning point during a disease that could lead to either the death or recovery of the patient. It is also useful to keep in mind that krísis originally meant “judgement” or “selection” and derives from the verb krínō (“to choose”, “to decide”). Therefore, crisis may imply not only the idea of decline or collapse, but also spark hope for renewal. These two opposing forces create the tension that is so characteristic of all crises – economic, social, political, and so on – and defines them as critical moments, when futures are decided.
The concept of “crisis aesthetics” we are suggesting as the topic of the conference is meant to open a space for debate on the relationship between aesthetics and the various crises that the field has experienced and witnessed throughout its history.
The papers may cover the following topics, but also go beyond them:
Practical info:
The conference fee is 195 Euros.
(For active members of the Society of Dialogical Aesthetics, the reduced fee is 165 Euros.)
The fee includes lunches, coffee/tea breaks with snacks, cultural program and attractions.
The conference starts with a snacky breakfast on Thursday August 27 and continues with sessions until the lunch session Sunday August 30.
In this type of conference, where discussion is everything, there is hardly any point in coming later than the others, or to leave earlier, as the discussion evolves more intensively, and accumulates during the process, so we highly recommend participants to carefully select their travels. We will have a welcome dinner the eve before starting (at own cost).
Note that the fee does not cover accommodation.
The conference will be held in various venues in the centre of Warsaw, including the main campus of the University. The last days of August are the perfect time to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of the late summer enriched by the various cultural events that take place outdoors. Warsaw is a lively and safe city with many accommodation options (hotels and BB apartments), hundreds of restaurants, bistros, and bars and boasts a very well-organised public transport system.
The cultural program will take us to art galleries, museums, outdoor places.
As all the best conversations take place on coffee breaks, we aim, of course, at excellence in them. Different beans and coffee preparing traditions are used.
The Society:
The Society of Dialogical Aesthetics was established in 2023. It has been officially registered in Finland. The non-profit society is a member of the International Association for Aesthetics (IAA) since 2024. Conference participation provides a three-year membership of the Society.
Deadlines:
Submission of proposals (200-400 word abstract and 100-word bio): February 28, 2026.
Information about the acceptance of the abstract will be sent no later than March 7, 2026.
For the accepted abstracts, submission of a text ready enough so that others can read it (2500-4000 words): April 30, 2026. About the text: please note that we do not expect the level of a published article – and we will remind the readers about the sketchy nature of the “talks” – but we hope that the main idea could be understood from the text.
Also the payment has to be taken care of no later than April 30, 2026.
A compilation of all the texts will be sent no later than May 10, 2026.
The texts have to be commented on no later than July 30, 2026.
All comments will be distributed no later than August 10, 2026.
Note that there is a “good read” to be done, so please reserve time for it May 10 onwards. The experience of the participants of 2024 and 2025, though, was really supportive of this practice. While one does not need to make more than one comment on each of the sent texts, for the person who wrote the text getting many helpful comments on it is something meaningful, and reading them beforehand makes the discussions deeper during the conference.
Publication opportunity:
For those who are interested, there is a possibility to submit an chapter in a book (no proceedings) we are planning to edit for a distinguished academic publisher. The organizers have earlier edited several volumes, and the book drawing out of the material of the First Coffee Break Conference has also found a distinguished home:
Zoltán Somhegyi and Max Ryynänen (eds), Trying Out New Paths in Aesthetics (Leiden: Brill 2025); https://brill.com/display/title/73172
Do you remember that highly inspiring discussion you were having with a fellow speaker in one of the last conferences you participated in about his/her paper, when the organisers suddenly reminded you of the end of the coffee break, and you had to rush back to listen to the next speaker? Do you remember the exhausting days of the conference that are fully packed with presentations, with barely any time to have more leisurely chats with other participants (except if you skip an otherwise surely interesting talk, hence causing dilemmas and bad conscience...). Do you remember how refreshing it is when in a conference you have excursions, city visits, common dinners, hiking or even sauna sessions? And finally, do you remember how much we all missed, during Corona-times and amidst the zoom-conferences that we can finally meet in person again, and have thorough conversations not necessarily only about a paper, but on anything else, like in a good coffee break?
The Coffee Break Conference of Aesthetics is a new platform targeting precisely this sort of experience. It is a scholarly meeting, in which the proportions of a traditional academic conference are inverted: while normally in conferences we have long lecture sessions of passive listening and short coffee breaks for some talk, this time the focus is on the discussions – both regarding each other’s academic research and beyond.
However, this inversion of the proportions does not jeopardize the scholarly nature of the meeting: The idea of the Coffee Break Conference of Aesthetics is to first share texts on-line among the participants and (this is a must for all participants) to then comment on them BEFORE the meeting. In this way we “gain” a significant amount of time: in other words we do not spend most of the conference time by simply listening to a presentation for the first time and ask basic questions or express our first-impression-reactions, but we can use the time we will spend together to go deeper in the ideas, concepts and insights developed in the participants’ texts that by then we all already know. Besides that, we understand the papers better, as we read them, and we do not, so, have to work on straightening misunderstandings, which often is the case after 20 minute talks. Hence, during the actual meeting we can focus more on discussing the presented issues, as well as anything else that interests us.
To further emphasise the informal nature of the conference, there are no keynotes. Better to say: all participants are keynotes, and their research will equally be in the limelight, no matter how “famous” or “well-published” they are.
Most importantly, this conference aims for a laid-back, intelligent, but not “professionalist” atmosphere. We hope everyone brings in a good spirit and a thirst for substance-driven discussions! As we share our work already before “walking in”, there is time to go deep, often in untraditional setting and circumstances – why should sitting in a lecture room be the only way to discuss someone’s paper? Can it be in a garden, or while hiking, going to sauna, or taking the metro to go to visit an artist studio?
About the topic: “Crisis Aesthetics”
Although the term “crisis” now has mostly negative connotations, it is worth remembering that it comes from the Greek word κρίσις, meaning a turning point during a disease that could lead to either the death or recovery of the patient. It is also useful to keep in mind that krísis originally meant “judgement” or “selection” and derives from the verb krínō (“to choose”, “to decide”). Therefore, crisis may imply not only the idea of decline or collapse, but also spark hope for renewal. These two opposing forces create the tension that is so characteristic of all crises – economic, social, political, and so on – and defines them as critical moments, when futures are decided.
The concept of “crisis aesthetics” we are suggesting as the topic of the conference is meant to open a space for debate on the relationship between aesthetics and the various crises that the field has experienced and witnessed throughout its history.
The papers may cover the following topics, but also go beyond them:
- crises in aesthetics
- aesthetics as a critical theory
- aesthetic as a response to cultural, economic, political, social etc. crises
- the aesthetics of crisis
Practical info:
The conference fee is 195 Euros.
(For active members of the Society of Dialogical Aesthetics, the reduced fee is 165 Euros.)
The fee includes lunches, coffee/tea breaks with snacks, cultural program and attractions.
The conference starts with a snacky breakfast on Thursday August 27 and continues with sessions until the lunch session Sunday August 30.
In this type of conference, where discussion is everything, there is hardly any point in coming later than the others, or to leave earlier, as the discussion evolves more intensively, and accumulates during the process, so we highly recommend participants to carefully select their travels. We will have a welcome dinner the eve before starting (at own cost).
Note that the fee does not cover accommodation.
The conference will be held in various venues in the centre of Warsaw, including the main campus of the University. The last days of August are the perfect time to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of the late summer enriched by the various cultural events that take place outdoors. Warsaw is a lively and safe city with many accommodation options (hotels and BB apartments), hundreds of restaurants, bistros, and bars and boasts a very well-organised public transport system.
The cultural program will take us to art galleries, museums, outdoor places.
As all the best conversations take place on coffee breaks, we aim, of course, at excellence in them. Different beans and coffee preparing traditions are used.
The Society:
The Society of Dialogical Aesthetics was established in 2023. It has been officially registered in Finland. The non-profit society is a member of the International Association for Aesthetics (IAA) since 2024. Conference participation provides a three-year membership of the Society.
Deadlines:
Submission of proposals (200-400 word abstract and 100-word bio): February 28, 2026.
Information about the acceptance of the abstract will be sent no later than March 7, 2026.
For the accepted abstracts, submission of a text ready enough so that others can read it (2500-4000 words): April 30, 2026. About the text: please note that we do not expect the level of a published article – and we will remind the readers about the sketchy nature of the “talks” – but we hope that the main idea could be understood from the text.
Also the payment has to be taken care of no later than April 30, 2026.
A compilation of all the texts will be sent no later than May 10, 2026.
The texts have to be commented on no later than July 30, 2026.
All comments will be distributed no later than August 10, 2026.
Note that there is a “good read” to be done, so please reserve time for it May 10 onwards. The experience of the participants of 2024 and 2025, though, was really supportive of this practice. While one does not need to make more than one comment on each of the sent texts, for the person who wrote the text getting many helpful comments on it is something meaningful, and reading them beforehand makes the discussions deeper during the conference.
Publication opportunity:
For those who are interested, there is a possibility to submit an chapter in a book (no proceedings) we are planning to edit for a distinguished academic publisher. The organizers have earlier edited several volumes, and the book drawing out of the material of the First Coffee Break Conference has also found a distinguished home:
Zoltán Somhegyi and Max Ryynänen (eds), Trying Out New Paths in Aesthetics (Leiden: Brill 2025); https://brill.com/display/title/73172
Communication, organisation:
Please use the Society’s E-mail for all communications:
[email protected]
Organizers: Max Ryynänen, Zoltán Somhegyi & Mateusz Salwa
See you in Warsaw, Poland 2026!
