Sascha Bru
is Professor at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), where, as a generalist, he teaches in the literary studies and art history programmes, and also acts as the Head of the Theory and Cultural Studies Dept. Bruâs scholarly work can be situated in the field of avant-garde studies. His books include Democracy, Law and the Modernist Avant-Gardes (2009), The European Avant-Gardes, 1905â1935 (2018), and, as co-editor, The Aesthetics of Matter (2013), The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines: Europe, 1880â1940 (2013), Futurism: A Microhistory (2017) and Realisms of the Avant-Garde (2020). Bru is, among other things, a founder and former chair of the European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism studies, and heâs involved in various research projects that investigate facets of European avant-garde culture.
Valentina Hribar SorÄan
(born 1969), PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Department of Philosophy, where she received her bachelor degree in Philosophy and French Language and Literature. She currently lectures on the subjects of Philosophy of Art, Aesthetics, and Philosophical Anthropology. She is a member of the Slovenian Society for Aesthetics and The European Association for Aesthetics.
Lev Kreft
(1951), professor of aesthetics at the University of Ljubljana (retired). Research areas: contemporary art and artivism, historical avant-garde, struggles of the artistic left, Marxist aesthetics, totalitarian art and aesthetics, post-modern and post-socialist art; aesthetics of sport, philosophy of sport. Member of the first parliament of the Republic of Slovenia (1990â1992) and Deputy Speaker of the second term (1992â1996).
Tyrus Miller
is Dean of the School of Humanities and Distinguished Professor of Art History and English at the University of California, Irvine. He is author of Late Modernism: Politics, Fiction, and the Arts Between the World Wars (U of California P, 1999); Singular Examples: Artistic Politics and the Neo-Avant-Garde (Northwestern UP, 2009); Time Images: Alternative Temporalities in 20th-Century Theory, History, and Art (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009);
Maja Murnik
holds Ph.D. in philosophy and theory of visual culture at the University of Primorska, Slovenia. She graduated in comparative literature and in theatre studies. She is currently employed as the researcher at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science (University of Ljubljana), working at the national project on the sustainable digital preservation of Slovenian new media art (2021â2024). She is also a co-founder and the researcher at the Institute of New Media Art and Electronic Literature (www.inm.si) and a freelance art reviewer.
Mojca Puncer
holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Ljubljana. She is Associate Professor of philosophy at the University of Maribor. She works as a university lecturer and independent researcher, theoretician, critic and curator in the field of contemporary art. She is a member of the executive committee of Slovenian Society of Aesthetics. She is the author of the books Contemporary Art and Aesthetics (2010) and Interspaces of Art (2018).
Darko Å trajn
acquired his doctorate in the year 1984 on Fichteâs philosophy at the Faculty of Arts â University in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is a senior researcher at the Educational Research Institute and he lectures at the graduate School for Studies in Humanities (AMEU â ISH) in Ljubljana. His research comprises of topics such as aesthetics, film and media studies, politics, education and social changes. He has authored five books and many book chapters as well as hundreds of other publications. His most recent book (2017) was published in English under the title From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema.
MiÅ¡ko Å uvakoviÄ
(b. 1954, Belgrade) is at the Faculty of Media and Communication, University Singidunum. He is president of the International Association for Aesthetics â IAA (2019â2022). He has published or edited 50 books, among them: PAS TOUT â Fragments on art, culture, politics, poetics and art theory 1994â1974 (Buffalo,
Tomaž ToporiÅ¡iÄ
is a full professor in Dramaturgy and Performing Arts Studies and a vice dean of Academy of Theatre at the University of Ljubljana. From 1997 to 2003 he was the artistic director of Mladinsko Theatre before transitioning to become its dramaturg from 2003 to 2016. In 1995, he co-founded the Exodos Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts. He was a curator of several exhibitions for the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (PQ). His primary research interests are contemporary performing arts, literature, and visual culture. He is the author of books on contemporary performing arts.
Polona Tratnik
PhD in Philosophy, is full Professor at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ljubljana and senior researcher at the Institute IRRIS for Research, Development and Strategies of Society, Culture and Environment. She was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at University of California Santa Cruz and guest professor at same university, as well as at Capital Normal University in Bejing, China, at Helsinki TAIK, Finland, and at National Autonomous University of Mexico. She is the president of Slovenian Society of Aesthetics. She is also a pioneering biotechnological artist.
Her single author monographs include: Through the Scope of Life: Art and (Bio)Technologies Philosophically Revisited, with MarÃa Antonia González Valerio (Springer, 2023); Art as Capital: The Intersection of Science, Technology and the Arts (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021); Conquest of Body: Biopower with Biotechnology (Springer, 2017); Hacer-vivir más allá del cuerpo y del medio (Herder, 2013).
Ernest Ženko
studied philosophy at Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is currently holding a position of Full Professor for philosophy of culture at University of Primorska in Koper, Slovenia and is the head of the Center for Bie-modern Studies at the same institution. His research interests include philosophy, aesthetics, critical theory, film theory, theory of photography, social psychology, theoretical psychoanalysis, and philosophy of science.