This project proposes to examine the concept of aesthetic experience from a philosophical, historical and neuro-scientific point of view. It gathers scholars and doctoral students the discipline of aesthetics at Södertörn University in Stockholm and a research cluster of excellence in aesthetics at the Freie Universität in Berlin.

The primary question to be examined is: how does the study of aesthetic experience in the humanities today relate to the fast developing field of neuro-aesthetics, where aesthetic experience is looked at through the responses of the brain? Launching a discussion of the multiple ways in which aesthetic experience can be conceived, the project proposes to examine aesthetic experience through certain key concepts, such as pleasure, beauty, spatial and temporal conditioning, reflective judgment, but also affectivity and embodiment.

The project aims to contribute to the analysis of contemporary aesthetic public cultures.