In this unparalleled collection, over twenty of the world's most prominent thinkers on the subject including Arthur Danto, Stephen Melville, Wendy Steiner, Alexander Nehamas, and Jay Bernstein ponder the disconnect between these two disciplines.

James Elkins is E.C. Chadbourne Chair in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Head of History of Art at the University College Cork, Ireland. He is the author of Pictures and Tears, How to Use Your Eyes, and WhatPainting Is and, most recently, The Strange Place ofReligion in Contemporary Art and Master Narratives andTheir Discontents, all published by Routledge.

Series Preface , by James Elkins 1. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY Robert Gero, The Border of the Aesthetic 2. STARTING POINTS Joseph Margolis, Exorcising the Dreariness of Aesthetics James Elkins, Why Don't Art Historians Attend Aesthetics Conferences? 3. THE ART SEMINAR Participants: Arthur Danto, Thierry De Duve, Diarmuid Costello, Martin Donougho, David Raskin, Anna Dezeuze, Richard Woodfield, Dominic Willsdon, Francis Halsall, Nicholas Davey, John Hyman, David Raskin 4. ASSESSMENTS Diarmuid Costello Anna Dezeuze Dominic Willsdon David Raskin John Hyman Francis Halsall Richard Woodfield Ladislav Kesner Joseph Margolis Crispin Sartwell Paul Crowther Mary Rawlinson Jan Bakos Alexander Nehamas Ciarán Benson Wendy Steiner Mathew Rampley Keith Moxey Christine Wertheim Eva Schürmann Harry Cooper Adrian Rifkin David Getsy Michael Kelly Margaret Iversen Michael Golec Michael Newman Gregg Horowitz Stephen Melville 5. AFTERWORDS Jay Bernstein, Modernism as Aesthetics and Art History Marc Redfield, Island Mysteries Notes on Contributors