Cognitive Futures in the Humanities

Project Team:

Principal Investigator:

Dr Peter Garratt, Durham University

Co-Investigators:

Professor Vyv Evans, Bangor University

Dr Matt Hayler, University of Exeter

Award Information:

How is the ‘cognitive turn’ influencing the humanities? How can expertise from the humanities help shape scientific models of the mind and brain? Cognitive Futures in the Humanities is an international, interdisciplinary research network supported by the AHRC (2012-14) bringing together scholars from fields such as literature, linguistics, philosophy, and beyond, whose work relates to, informs, or is informed by aspects of the cognitive, brain and behavioural sciences.

Aims of the network include: (1) to evolve new knowledge and practices for the analysis of culture and cultural objects, through engagement with the cognitive sciences; (2) to assess how concepts from the cognitive sciences can in turn be approached using the analytical tools of humanities enquiry (historical, theoretical, contextual); (3) to contest the nature/culture opposition whose legacy can be identified with the traditional and ongoing segregation of scientific and aesthetic knowledge.

Events include two major international conferences in Bangor and Durham, supported by a steering group of 15 leading scholars from the UK, Europe and North America.