In social theory, cultural studies, and activist communities, the notion of ‘creative resistance’ is common but rarely defined. In fact, it seems to capture a variety of related but not identical phenomena. On the other hand, there is a growing literature in philosophy on politically engaged art and artistic activism, sometimes labelled creative activism. Again, the concept seems related but not identical to creative resistance as understood by the first communities. 

In this paper I distinguish between two senses of creative resistance that are conflated in these various contexts. The first sense of creative resistance points to the idea of creating things (art, craft objects, performances…) while resisting. Even within this sense, there seems to be conflation of different degrees: creating things as accompanying, illustrating, or supporting an act of resistance, and creating as resistance itself. The boundary between these degrees is blurry, but this is quite distinct from the second sense of creative resistance, which can be understood as resisting in a creative way. 

The bulk of the paper addresses this second conception, which is largely understudied in aesthetics, and yet, captures many instances of creative resistance discussed on the ground. I show how this conception of creative resistance is illuminated by the philosophical literature on creativity, and in turn, sets some interesting challenges for said literature.  

Theories of aesthetic experience can broadly be divided into externalist and internalist theories. The first set tend to identify aesthetic experiences by their contents. The second set, though, tend to identify aesthetic experiences by certain kinds of mental responses, e.g. a certain kind of aesthetic attention or attitude, pleasure, or a more complex mental state such as aesthetic appreciation. In this paper, I defend this classification of theories of aesthetic experience, and  argue that neither type can comfortably account for our experience of sequential art, i.e. artworks which are not experienced ‘in one go’, but over time - ‘sequentially’. I delineate the key features of sequential art before outlining what I call the puzzle of sequential art. tendstends 

In this paper, I identify and question a common presumption in philosophical aesthetics, according to which aesthetic experience can only occur when we are face-to-face with certain objects. To do so, I point to an empirical model in psychology which shows that, although aesthetic experience does occur during a direct encounter with an object, it extends before and after the encounter. I then suggest two things. First, that the empirical model presented might necessitate a shift in the framework aestheticians have so far endorsed to investigate aesthetic experience. And second, that other aesthetic theories related to aesthetic experience might also need to be updated to conform with the new investigative framework. 

This paper makes both a historical point and a philosophical point. The historical point concerns our interpretation of Hume’s criteria for the judgement of his ideal judges. In ‘Of the Standard of Taste’, Hume claims that beauty is entirely mind-dependent. He famously spells out five characteristics an appreciator of art must have to be an ideal judge and set the standard of taste: ‘strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice’. I interpret Hume’s standard of taste as an outline for a psychological faculty of taste, i.e. a faculty of experiencing and appreciating certain objects aesthetically, and show that his criteria point to certain psychological processes in play during an aesthetic experience. I then describe what this faculty looks like for Hume: roughly, an interaction of cognitive and affective processes, supervening on other faculties such as perception, reasoning, imagination and introspection. The philosophical point concerns our understanding of aesthetic experience in relation to Hume’s faculty. I show that there are psychological models in the contemporary literature that can elucidate Hume’s picture of aesthetic experience. In particular, I look at Leder et al.’s model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgements, but I also point to other complementary models. I conclude with a methodological point on the relevance of psychology for our philosophical treatment of aesthetic experience. I believe that currently, our best hope as philosophers to gain some kind global understanding of aesthetic experience is to assimilate the theories available in the psychology literature, or at least to interact with them. The fact that, under my interpretation, Hume was already attempting a theory of aesthetic experience in psychological terms should convince us that this is an enterprise of philosophical interest.