Hosted by the Religion, Cognition and Culture (RCC) priority area, University of Aarhus, Denmark, Southern Denmark University Odense and the International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion (IACSR), with the generous support of Carlsberg Foundation, Aarhus University Research Foundation, European Science Foundation, and the Faculty of Theology, University of Aarhus.
This conference is immediately followed by a workshop on the following theme:
Hosted by the European Science Foundation, the Religion, Cognition and Culture (RCC) priority area, University of Aarhus and the Faculty of Theology, University of Aarhus.
The IACSR will also be conducting its General Assembly on May 30th, immediately followed by a Presidential Address by Prof. E. Thomas Lawson, Western Michigan University and Queen’s University Belfast.
A little over 40 years ago, the Royal Society of London hosted a conference on ritualization and behaviour in animals and man [Phil.Trans.Roy.Soc.Lon. 251 (772) 1966]. It was a signal event that influenced the following decades of ritual research. One of the strengths of the conference was the wide variety of disciplines represented by the participants. The meeting brought sociologists, anthropologists, ethnologist, biologists, ethologists, psychologists and art historians together in order to explore human ritual behavior in its biological, social and cultural contexts. Since then, the rise of the neural and cognitive sciences has moved the intricate dynamics between biology and culture center stage. And with it we witnessed the exciting rise of cooperative research clusters and teams which consist of scholars and scientists from a wide variety of natural, human and social sciences.
During the past two decades, the cultural sciences have drawn inspiration, theories and models from the cognitive and (during the past decade) neural sciences. An astounding variety of research results has given us insight into human abilities and domains such as consciousness, categorization, memory, perception, social cognition, morality, language, etc. which have significantly changed our understanding of human culture and cognition. With the pioneering work of Lawson, McCauley, Boyer and Whitehouse, we are now in the position to address fundamental issues which the cognitive study of rituals and ritualization raise for comparative religion, anthropology and psychology. The possibilities of fruitful interdisciplinary research have only just begun in the field of ritual studies. This conference hopes to provide a context for further intensive cooperation and discussion. Where the pioneers of the cognitive science of religion with good reason were inspired by cognitive linguistics, the current increase of knowledge in the experimental and neurological sciences encourages us to explore further new avenues.
The study of religious rituals and ritualization can gain from the insights, methodologies and theories of experimental and neurological sciences. But this ‘bottom-up’ approach is not the only path of inspiration. Just as important is research which focusses on the ‘top-down’ approach, i.e. from culture and social relations to cognition and neural patterns. Studies of ritualized behavior in different cultural, social and historical contexts clearly expand the database of behaviors that can be studied experimentally and neurologically. In order to understand further human action and cognitive representation, cultural and social scientists can contribute insights on how certain types of behavior latch on to various cultural patterns. An obvious example is why do we find a universal tendency in all human cultures to assume or explain ritual behavior religiously, i.e. with reference to gods, ancestors and spirits? It would seem that ritual behavior is universal among most animals. Why are certain types of rituals thought to be religious in the human species? Answers to this and similar questions can enrich historical, sociological and anthropological studies of religious behavior, but also cognitive and neurological scientists can gain subsequent insight into how cultural traditions influence universal mental dispositions.
The organizers encourage papers from all relevant disciplines that address the dynamics of religious ritual, cognition and culture. Both empirical and theoretical papers are welcome.
Papers consist of 30 minute presentations and 15 minutes for discussion. Brief papers consist of 20 minute presentations and 10 minutes for discussion.
Please send your proposals no later than April 1, 2008 to Secretary Marlene Jessen ( maj@teo.au.dk ). Further registration information and a registration sheet will be made available at our website in January 2008.
Venue : Faculty of Theology, University of Aarhus
Dates : May 28 – June 1, 2008 (international participants, please plan on arriving on the 27th and departing on the 2nd)
Registration and Conference fee
Participants can register for both events.
The “Religious Ritual, Cognition and Culture” registration fee is DKK 500, for students DKK 300.
Registration for the “Religion and Cognition in Context” is free of charge.
All inquiries should be sent to: Marlene Jessen, conference secretary at maj@teo.au.dk.
Accommodation : Please arrange your own accommodations. A complete list of hotels can be found at this address. For budget hotels, we recommend the CAB INN Aarhus. For other budget hotels see www. budget-hotels.nl/ENG/Denmark/Aarhus-hotels.html. For 5-star accommodation, we recommend the Radisson SAS in Aarhus.
Armin W. Geertz
Jeppe Sinding Jensen
Jesper Sørensen
http://www.teo.au.dk/en/research/current/cognition
