How do societal rules about art, bodies, and identity shape the way we perceive ourselves and others? Can expanding our aesthetic awareness transform the way we move through the world?

Today’s guest is Dr. Sherri Irvin, Presidential Research Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Oklahoma. A leading scholar in aesthetics, Irvin’s work spans the philosophy of art, everyday aesthetics, embodiment, and the intersections of beauty with social justice. She is the author of Immaterial: Rules in Contemporary Art, and currently serves as Vice President of the American Society for Aesthetics.

In this deeply reflective episode, we explore how the rules that structure both artistic expression and social perception—of beauty, identity, and value—can be both restrictive and generative. Sherri shares how her journey through contemporary art led her to question the very definition of an artwork, and how artists use and break rules to challenge our expectations and invite new forms of understanding.

We then shift to discuss the aesthetics of the human body, questioning how ideas of beauty are shaped by culture, media, and historical hierarchies. Sherri unpacks how attractiveness is socially rewarded in ways that often exclude marginalized bodies, and she urges us to cultivate an aesthetic openness to difference. From disability representation in media to everyday encounters with embodiment, we talk about what it means to broaden our aesthetic sensitivity to notice more, to feel more, and to connect more deeply. This episode is an invitation to rethink the frameworks we use to define beauty, value, and humanity itself.