Conference Program

23rd – 26th September 2021, 3-7pm (GMT)

Cognitive Futures in the Arts and Humanities Conference 2021 Convergence 23rd – 26th September 2021, 3-7pm (GMT)

The Conference programme is scheduled to allow participants from all over the world to join in. For some it will be an early morning event, for others it will be a late night event, but for most it will be fairly convenient. Sorry for any inconvenience due to the global nature of our enterprise! The conference will take place on MS Teams.

Registration is closed now for technical reasons. If you wish to join very last minute, please, write to Pascal Nicklas (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). If possible, you will be put on the guest list. Then you will be able to enter the conference safe space of JGU Mainz with the email-address you have written your email from to Pascal Nicklas: you also need to have a microsoft account attached to your email-address. There is no conference fee, but you will only be able to enter if you are on the guest list. If you have any technical queries concerning this, please, write to Pascal Nicklas (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Program 23rd September 2021
Program 24th September 2021
Program 25th September 2021
Program 26th September 2021

Thursday, 23 September 2021

Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz

  • 03:00
    Conference Opening
    Welcome and opening with all organizers
  • 03:30
    “Convergence in Cognitive Humanities”
    Pascal Nicklas (University of Mainz):
  • 04:00
    Keynote
    “The Cognitive and the Digital in the Humanities”
    Gerd Lauer (University of Basel/University of Mainz)
  • 05:00
    Round Table
    “Convergence and Social Reading”
    Raymond Mar (York University, Toronto)
    Josie Billington (University of Liverpool)
    Philip Davis (University of Liverpool)
    Carsten Sommerfeldt (Literarische Unternehmungen, Berlin)
    Lisa Zunshine (University of Kentucky)
    Pascal Nicklas (University of Mainz)
  • 06:00
    Quick talks
    "An active inference model of readers' cognition and affect".
    Federico Pianzola (Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca)
  • 06:30
    “Aiming for convergence. From measuring physical reactions to reconstructing aesthetic reader response.”
    Christine Knoop (MPI EAe Frankfurt)
  • 07:00
    Close of the first GMT-afternoon

Friday, 24 September 2021

University of Stony Brook

Convergent Conversations: 4 discussions about 4E Cognition.

Each conversation will include two leaders in the field and one or two graduate students or early-career scholars. They will focus their discussion on an agreed upon reading and object or example. The examples given below may change.

  • 03:00

    Introduction

    by John Lutterbie and Amy Cook.
  • 03:10

    History 

    Michael Wheeler and Miranda Anderson and Ben Morgan and Jun Feng. (Text: Wheeler and Anderson’s recent book, Distributed Cognition in Medieval and Renaissance Culture).
  • 04:00

    Skill

    John Sutton and Evelyn Tribble and Greg Downey Text to be discussed: “Not breathing together: the collaborative development of expert apnea” in Kath Bicknell & John Sutton (eds), Collaborative Embodied Performance: Ecologies of Skill (Bloomsbury, January 2022).
  • 04:50

    Break

  • 05:00

    Interactions

    Shaun Gallagher and Matt Hayler and Jessica Hautsch. Text to be discussed: Shaun Gallagher's Action and Interaction (Oxford, 2020)
  • 5:50

    Emotions

    Naomi Rokotnitz and Rhonda Blair and Sabina Omerhodzic. Text to be discussed: Lisa Feldman Barrett's How Emotions are Made and “‘Colluding in the conspiracy of their fiction’: Role-Play, the Construction Theory of Emotions and Relational Authenticity” by Naomi Rokotnitz.
  • 06:40

    General Discussion Time

  • 07:00

    Close of the second GMT-afternoon

Saturday, 25 September 2021

University of Kent

  • 03:00

    Introduction

    Jeremy Scott
  • 03:15

    "Cognitive Poetics Moment by Moment?"

    Peter Stockwell in conversation with TBC
  • 04:15

    Break

  • 04:30

    Postdoctoral showcase

    Carmel Sammut and Jonathan Fitchett
  • 05:30

    Autistic labyrinths and 4E cognition

    Nicola Shaughnessy
  • 06:00

    General discussion and business meeting of the Network (everybody welcome!): The Future of Cognitive Futures.

    Denis Akhapkin introducing St. Petersburg as the next conference place in 2022.
  • 07:00

    Close of the third GMT-afternoon

Sunday, 26 September 2021

University of Osnabrück

  • 03:00
    Introduction
    Alexander Bergs
  • 03:15
    Keynote
    Turner „Imagining our futures“
    Mark Turner
  • 04:00

    Break

  • 04:15
    Panel
    Changing Minds
    Introduction: Lisa Zunshine
  • 04:30
    “Reading changes the mind and the brain.”
    Pascal Nicklas (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität)
  • 05:00
    "Artificial Intelligence and Social Minds in Fiction."
    Lisa Zunshine (University of Kentucky)
  • 05:30
    Trust the Museum and Don't Bring a Friend.“
    Ellen Spolsky (Bar-Ilan University)
  • 06:00
    Break
  • 06:15
    Workshop
    Medieval Cognitive Engineering
    Introduction: Mark Turner
  • 06:30
    “Imagining Future Selves in the Middle Ages.”
    Mark Turner (Case Western Reserve University)
  • 07:00
    "Imaginative immersion into potential selves.”
    Line C. Engh (University of Oslo)
  • 07:30
    “Constructing Identity through Mentalizing in Old Norse Literature and Culture.”
    Stefka G. Eriksen (Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research)
  • 08:00
    “Navigating the Improbable: How Sverrir Became King”
    Francis F. Steen (University of California, Los Angeles)
  • 09:00
    Close of the conference