In recent years, disciplines across the social sciences and humanities have gone through an “aesthetic turn.” A quick glance would suggest that the idea of aesthetics has returned after the announcement of its death in the 1980s and early 1990s. In this entry, I map out the figure of the aesthetic since the 1990s, a period that has seen a veritable explosion of research and writing about the aesthetic as a concept for thinking about a range of issues, from art and media to popular culture and politics. As we find ourselves presently within this “aesthetic turn,” what does it ask of us?