NewHums Research Center UniCT

Interdepartmental Center of Neurocognitive and Humanities Studies 

President from 2022
Renata Gambino (Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche)

Members

Eugenio Aguglia (Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e Sperimentale)
Salvatore Arcidiacono (Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche)
Renato Bernardini (Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche e Biotecnologiche)
Daniela Conti (Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche)
Agata Copani (Dipartimento di Scienze del Farmaco)
Deborah De Felice (Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali)
Santo Di Nuovo (Dipartimenti di Scienze della Formazione)
Sabina Fontana (Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche)
Giovanni Gallo (Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica)
Daniela Giordano (Dipartimento di Ingegneria Informatica e delle Telecomunicazioni)
Gaetano Lalomia (Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche)
Nicola Laneri (Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche)
Giancarlo Magnano San Lio (Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche)
Marco Mazzone (Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche)
Maria Caterina Paino (Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche)
Grazia Pulvirenti (Dipartimento di Schienze Umanistiche) past President
Antonio Sichera (Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche)
Giuseppe Spoto (Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche)
Marco Venuti (Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche)
Roberto Vignera (Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali)
Francesca Vigo (Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche)
Mario Zappia (Dipartimento di Scienze Mediche, Chirurgiche e Tecnologie Avanzate)

The International Platform NeuroHumanitiesStudies was created in 2011 and proposed by the Department of Humanities of the University of Catania. In the following years the research group developed collaborations with the Departments of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Drug Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Sciences and Biological Sciences of the University of Catania, and founded the Interdeparmental Research Centre NewHums
The NewHums Research Centre has created a digital multidisciplinary research community (www.neurohumanitiestudies.eu) with an international Board of Directors in order to develop and structure a linking platform for neuro-scientific, cognitive topics and humanities.
The research Group aims at promotig collaboration between researchers and disciplines studying the “Humans and Humanities” form different perspectives.
This is why we seeked collaboration with the C.N.R. of Catania, Messina and Pisa and other national and international scientific institutions like VISLAB Laboratory of Neurobiology at University College London, UOS Research Cluster on Cognition and Poetics University Osnabrück, The Embodiment Lab of Bernard College della Columbia University New York, Center for Literary and Cultural Research Berlin, Myrifield Institute for Cognition and the Arts, Heath, MA, The Neurohumanities Research Group (NRG) of the Duke University, Cognitive Futures in the Arts and Humanities, etc.
The research group promotes and coordinates studies and researches crossing knowledge of cognitive sciences, biology, and informatics in order to understand complex phenomena of human mind like memory, consciousness, imagination, cognition, learning and creativity.
In 2015 the research group founded the Interdepartmental Research Centre NEWHUMS – Neurocognitive and Humanities Studies, in order to develop and promote transdisciplinary researches among scholars from different disciplines. The Centre aims at fostering communication and scientific collaborations among scholars at local, national and international levels. In 2022 the NewHums Group grew up to 23 memebers.

Main activities organized by the research group:

1. The creation of a digital platform to share information about studies and researches conducted in the fields of cognitive neuroscience, humanities and fine arts.
2. A database based on the original project NINIVE, in order to make available full text papers. The database also allows to comment every activity and paper in order to encourage a discussion on studies and researches
3. Organization of international and interdisciplinary conferences, NHS Dialogues, every year. These meetings have a peculiar format: a real dialogue between keynote speakers from the field of neurosciences and humanities, and ten discussants with plenty of time for discussion and a final roundtable. (see Activities – NHS Dialogues).
4. The group promotes the publication of papers in the Journal of Multimodal Communication Studies (http://jmcs.home.amu.edu.pl/?page_id=11). In 2022 the group will start YouRS, Young Researchers Studies in Neuro Humanities, a book series dedicated to neurocognitive and humanities studies in English, published by the editor Mimesis.
5. We welcome visiting researchers from all over the world offering a place where to work within the Benedectine Monastery, our Lybrary, and the possibility to meet the members of the research centre and develop ideas and projects together. It is not so much but we already had three visiting researchers that highly contributed to enrich the group with new ideas.