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Published: 21 December 2010
Citation: Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol. 2, 2010 DOI: 10.3402/jac.v2i0.5877
©2010 Editorial. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
With two volumes now published, the Journal of Aesthetics and Culture continues to explore a broad range of issues within the field of humanities, trying to break down the dichotomy often established between the concepts of aesthetics and culture. Within the field of cultural studies, the question of aesthetics has often been left aside. Reciprocally, aesthetic discourses tend to exclude cultural studies issues. On the contrary, there might be good reasons to consider the field of aesthetics also from a cultural studies viewpoint and to include the aesthetical perspective.
Despite the journal being based in Scandinavia, this is not a Nordic journal. Contributions are welcomed from all over the globe.
We encourage articles that are historically grounded, thus both theorizing and contextualizing the issues considered, as well as articles dealing with the concept of aesthetics. We also welcome other forms of publications than original articles such as reviews and essays.
The non-place of Arkheion, or archive in transition
One of the most frequent topics of contemporary culture and debate has been the archive. The technological transition to digital media has increased the availability and accessibility of the archive creating a phantasm and desire of the complete archive. At the same time the archive as an institution has moved closer to its public. Whereas the previous archives had mostly been well-guarded prestigious institutions that constituted the primary locus for research and documentation—the Arkheion, the house of origin and facts—they are now, due to the Internet, transformed into places for dispersion, displaying the arbitrariness in archival practice. In the perpetual stream of the Internet, the hierarchies between different archives have become blurred and due to an increasing globalization and transnationalization the boundaries and locus of the archive have become questioned. The Internet has turned into a platform for competing archives, individual, local, or transnational, breaking the hegemony of the national archives, urging everyone to archive, appropriate, and collect. The increasing mobility and migration have impelled different groups to create their own Arkheion. For the next volume of the Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, we call for essays or artwork exploring the archive in transition, how archival practices have changed, or how the archive or archival material has been appropriated anew.
Astrid Söderbergh Widding, Chief Editor
Lars Gustaf Andersson, Associate Editor
John Sundholm, Associate Editor
Journal of Aesthetics & Culture eISSN 2000-4214
This journal is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. Responsible editor: Astrid Söderbergh Widding.