I've just stumbled upon Contemporary Aesthetics--an online peer-reviewed journal that began in 2003. it can be seen as a development of Steven Harnard's argument for the need for online self-archiving, free for all, of refereed, published research papers in the on-line PostGutenberg era.

Maybe it is an indication of a renewed interest in aesthetics that is sensitive to the objects of art without either returning to the modernist idea of the autonomous aesthetic of unique works of art that neglected neglecting the historical dimension; or collapsing aesthetics into art history. One that accepts that art and reason are always linked with systems of power (which produce and sustain them) and to effects of power (which they bring into existence).

Will it involve a rethinking of the relations between philosophy, art history and art criticism, be 'a mode of relating to contemporary reality' and locate art within contemporary visual culture. This is a questioning of the autonomous status and distinctive position of art and shifts to define its subject as a history of images rather than art works.

It thus is a rupture from traditional aesthetics in the sense of the philosophical reflection on art that is mainly a legitimization of art's distinctive status in terms of universal and intrinsic qualities such as beauty and the spectator immerse herself comfortably in the images and deriving a narcissistic satisfaction from the experience