Keynote Speakers

Anjan Chatterjee
(University of Pennsylvania)

Gerard Steen
(University of Amsterdam)


Roundtable Respondents

Alexander Bergs (University of Osnabrück), Lorella Bosco (University of Bari), Deborah Jenson (Duke University), Gaetano Lalomia (University of Catania), Pascal Nicklas (University of Mainz), Pierre-Louis Patoine (New Sorbonne University), Massimo Salgaro (University of Verona), Marco Venuti (University of Catania), Francesca Vigo (University of Catania)

Team

Renata Gambino, Grazia Pulvirenti, Simona Di Mari, Salvatore Arcidiacono, Federica Abramo, Natalia Scandurra, Sabrina Apa

Contacts

Renata Gambino (renatagambino@gmail.com)

Simona Di Mari (simo_d_86@hotmail.it)

CFP: Metaphors as source of creative thought

Neuro Humanities Research Group of the Department of Human Sciences University of Catania

Second NeuroHumanities Dialogue

Metaphors as source of creative thought

4 – 6 June 2015

CATANIA – Italy

Deadline: 15.04.2015

 

After an inspiring and groundbreaking First Neuro Humanities Dialogue about “Neuroaesthetics and Cognitive Poetics” at the University of Catania in 2014, the Neuro Humanities Research Group of the Department of Human Sciences in Catania will organize a second Dialogue between neuroscientists and humanists. It will take place from the 4th to the 6th June 2015 at the Benedictine Monastery in Catania.

The topic of the 2015-Dialogue is: Metaphors as source of creative thought.

Keynote speakers of the “Dialogue” 2015 are Neurologist Anjan Chatterjee from the University of Pennsylvania and Humanities Scholar Gerard Steen, Director of the Metaphor Lab and Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Amsterdam. The peculiarity of the meeting relies on its format: a real dialogue between two keynote speakers and ten discussants with plenty of time for discussion and a final roundtable.

 

Relevant questions of the recent discussion about metaphors will be at stake: from their cognitive value to the concomitant neural processes, from their embodied nature to the difference between those conventionalized in language and discourse and novel ones, between deliberate and non-deliberate metaphors. Metaphors are at the core of creative thought, daily communication and artful expression. After the “cognitive turn” determined by Lakoff and Johnson’s “Metaphors we live by” (1980) metaphors have been considered as the result of conceptual mappings across different conceptual domains.

 

We aim to collect new insights into the origin and function of metaphors as tools of creative thought comparing the following different disciplinary perspectives:

 

  • metaphors in cognitive approaches;
  • metaphors evaluation in empirical studies
  • neural correlates in conventionalized and novel metaphorical expression
  • metaphors as mental process
  • metaphors as artful tool
  • metaphors in language and literature.

 

We invite papers reflecting on problems of research and methodology as well as case studies, theoretical inquiries, comparative and interdisciplinary approaches.

Please send a 250-word abstract by the 15th of April to neuhums@gmail.com

Visit our homepages: www.neurohumanitiestudies.eu and www.neurohumanitiestudies.eu/NHS2015