Nietzsche is a thinker who places art and the aesthetic at the centre of his theoretical concerns and philosophical ambitions. In this conference we are interested in exploring the role art plays in Nietzsche's thinking and across the entire span of his oeuvre, from the artist's metaphysics which informs The Birth of Tragedy to the focus on the psychology of the artist and the physiology of art which features in his later writings such as Twilight of the Idols. In addition, we wish to open up Nietzsche's thinking on art and aesthetics to an encounter with the modern tradition (Kant, for example) and to approach his work from the perspective of contemporary concerns and debates.

Confirmed Speakers include: Marco Casanova (UERJ, Rio de Janeiro), Daniel W. Conway (Penn State, USA), David E. Cooper (Durham, UK), Robert Gooding-Williams (Northwestern, USA), Beatrice Han-Pile (Essex, UK), Rachel Jones (Dundee), Nuno Nabais (Lisbon, Portugal), Matthew Rampley (Edinburgh College of Art), Aaron Ridley (Southampton, UK), Gary Shapiro (Richmond, USA), James Williams (Dundee).

The Society invites papers exploring aspects of the conference title. Suggested themes include:

• Nietzsche and the Tragic
• Art and Metaphysics
• Nietzsche and the Individual Arts
• Nietzsche and modernism; Nietzsche and postmodernism
• The Will to Power and aesthetics
• The Physiology of Art; The Psychology of the Artist
• Nietzsche and Beautiful and/or the Sublime

• The Apollonian and the Dionysian
• Nietzsche and the tradition: Kant, Schiller, Schopenhauer, etc.
• Nietzsche, Aesthetics and Politics
• Nietzsche, Wagner and Decadence
• Nietzsche's Influence on Modern Art
• Art and Nihilism