Foreword

This issue of Aisthesis explores the actual and vital intersection between representation and care, between image and health, through a set of contributions which aims to renew and remobilise a red line stretching from ancient poetics to contemporary digital therapeutics. The issue includes papers developed from the seminar organised by Daniele Guastini (PI of the eponymous PRIN PNRR 2022 project “Aesthetics and Therapeia”) at the Sapienza University of Rome, held from 12 March to 9 May 2025, as well as additional contributions selected from proposals submitted to the editorial board, all evaluated through double-blind peer review. Read together, in chronological and thematical order, these essays outline a genealogy both hermeneutical and critical of aesthetic therapy that moves across classical philology, anthropology, philosophy, media theory, film studies, psychiatry, and political thought.