The CRC 1391 Different Aesthetics examines texts, images and objects from pre-modern Europe and focuses on the ways in which they determine their own aesthetic status. It seeks to explore the contribution of 2000 years of cultural history before the 18th century to our understanding of the aesthetic and to current debates on art and society. This end is served by the interdisciplinary collaboration of a broad field of sixteen academic subjects, ranging from archaeology, art history, musicology, classical and modern languages and literatures, to history, theology, and computational linguistics.