Humanities in Practice, a Franklin College of Arts and Sciences series exploring the value of the humanities in work and everyday life, recently featured a story on Professor Meskin's work on middlebrow aesthetics and the philosophical work that people do whenever they defend their aesthetic preferences.

From the piece:

Philosophy can illuminate experiences that are easy to dismiss as merely subjective or ordinary. It gives students ways to examine inherited categories and articulate their own judgments. It can also help them understand why someone else sees things differently.

“Taking our aesthetic interests in rock and roll, tattoos, and dive bars seriously,” Meskin said, “means we take ourselves seriously.”