The Project

Thanks to the confluence of recent researches into the fields of Neurosciences, Phisiology, Biology, Physics, Cognitive Studies, radical changes have occurred in the traditional  processes of western culture inherent in the acquisition and understanding of knowledge.

Humanities have taken part to the current transformation of epistemological paradigms as well. This is proved by the recent contributions of Neuroaesthetics, Cognitive Cultural Studies, Philosophy of Mind, Neurophenomenology, etc.

The NeuroHumanistic Studies Network aims at creating a multidisciplinary research community in order to develop and structure a linking platform for neuro-scientific, cognitive topics and humanities.

This trans-disciplinary research field focuses on the idea of the human being as enactive unit, made of brain and body. Enactive knowledge and embodied cognition will be the common starting points of our research. It implies that cognitive activity takes place in the context of a real-world environment, which inherently involves perception and action.

Therefore culture is interpreted as a “whole way of life” and art as a concrete cognitive tool particularly suited to represent and communicate unique ways of perceiving and understanding reality.

The branch of studies, concerning those cultural phenomena, starts by interpreting them as an expression of our way of “being alive”, both as epistemological and ontological expression.

Hence art is considered as a creative human process of experiencing and understanding reality and communicating it through symbols and metaphors. It is no more possible to analyse any artistic work regardless of the complex dynamics of the human cognitive system.

The NeuroHumanistic Studies Network is made up of project partners, which are involved in collaborations such as book projects, co-organized workshops and conferences, and interdisciplinary studies about neuroscience, art and humanities. This movement of scholars enables cross-national comparative work and genuinely interdisciplinary development of working projects.

The first target is to give birth to a broad exchange about projects, information and materials in order to give strength to those studies and projects, which try to develop scientific research based on new cognitive paradigms.

We offer the opportunity of exchanging information and knowledge among scholars and researchers of both scientific and humanistic fields who are interested in researches concerning border fields like empathy, synergy, attention, memory, creativity, reading, motion, consciousness, decision-making, criticism, etc.

Our research group made up of scholars, researchers and Phd coming from the University Catania invites all interested research centres, scholars and independent groups or researchers to take part to the project by publishing papers, advertising their projects, sharing information, or simply writing some brief comments in order to give birth and strength to a real trans-disciplinary international exchange in the fields of study above mentioned.

If you are interested in the project, or would like to join the network, please contact the lead researcher, Dr. Renata Gambino (UNICT)