Andrea Baldini, PhD (Temple, 2014)

I am Associate Professor of Aesthetics and Art Theory at the School of Arts of Nanjing University, Director of the NJU Center for Sino-Italian Cultural Studies, and Young Ambassador of the Jiangsu Province. I am also Board Member of the Association of Italian Scholars in China (AAIIC), and Board and Founding Member of the Association of Tuscans in China. I have also been recently elected Delegate-at-Large of the International Association of Aesthetics (IAA). 

I hold two doctoral degrees, a PhD in Philosophy (Temple University, 2014) and a PhD in Text Sciences (University of Siena, 2011), as well as a BA in Philosophy (University of Siena, 2006). My mixed academic background naturally led me to develop interdisciplinary research interests, which lie at the intersection of aesthetics, cultural studies, urban communication, and visual culture. I am generally interested in how creativity can influence our everyday lives and practices, and in particular the nature, uses, and functions of public spaces.

My recent publications deal with questions of urban creativity. I have written extensively on street art and graffiti. Brill has recently published my latest monograph entitled A Philosophy Guide to Street Art and the Law, which you can find discussed here. Before that, I wrote another monograph with one of the most interesting curators of urban art, Pietro Rivasi. The book, entitled Un(Authorized)//Commissioned (WholeTrain Press, 2017)has also been discussed here and here.

I have a new book project, which deals with questions of elegance as a form of aesthetics of the self. 

My teaching interests are wide-ranging. I have taught aesthetics, applied ethics, both introductory and advanced, logic, and critical thinking. At Nanjing University, I teach both undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of art, art appreciation, and art history.

The nature of my research naturally brought me to collaborate with governmental institutions and nonprofit associations, and to attain significant impact outside academia. In particular, I have collaborated to projects of urban regeneration that use art-based strategies.