IX Lisbon Summer School: CFP deadline extension

IX Lisbon Summer School for the Study of Culture

Neurohumanities

Promises & Threats

Lisbon, July 1-6, 2019

 

CALL FOR PAPERS

Deadline extension: March 15, 2019

When the US government declared the 1990s “The decade of the brain”, it aimed at raising public awareness toward the use of neuroscience for the enhancement of life quality and as a way to better address the challenges of growing life expectancy. The initiative was further supported by substantial research funding, which not only impressed public opinion but appealed to many research fields. Finding a link to brain research and the processes of the human mind, many disciplines were repositioned and adopted the “neuro” prefix, promising new insights into age-old problems by reframing them from the angle of the brain-mind continuum.

Neuroscience seeks to explain how the brain works and which neurophysiological processes are involved in complex cognitive abilities like sensation and perception attention and reasoning, memory and thought.

One of the most striking and unique features of the human mind is its capacity to represent realities that transcend its immediate time and space, by engaging complex symbolic systems, most notably language, music, arts and mathematics. Such sophisticated means for representation are arguably the result of an environmental pressure and must be accounted for in a complex network of shared behaviors, mimetic actions and collaborative practices: in other words, through human culture. The cultural products that are enabled by these systems are also stored by means of representation in ever-new technological devices, which allow for the accumulation and sharing of knowledge beyond space and across time.

The artifacts and practices that arise from the symbolic use, exchange and accumulation are the core of the research and academic field known as the Humanities. The field has been increasingly interested in the latest developments deriving from neuroscience and the affordances they allow about the conditions and processes of the single brain, embedded in an environment, in permanent exchange with other brains in an ecology that is culturally coded.

This turn of the humanities to neuroscience is embraced by many and fiercely criticized by others. The promise of the Neurohumanities, the neuroscientifically informed study of cultural artifacts, discourses and practices, lies in unveiling the link between embodied processes and the sophistication of culture. And it has the somewhat hidden agenda of legitimizing the field, by giving it a science-close status of relevance and social acknowledgement it has long lacked. Here, though, lies also its weakness: should the Humanities become scientific? Can they afford to do so? Should they be reduced to experimental methodologies, collaborative research practices, sloppy concept travelling, transvestite interdisciplinarity? Is the promise of the Neurohumanities, seen by some as the ultimate overcoming of the science-humanities or the two cultures divide, in fact not only ontologically and methodologically impossible and more than that undesirable? And how will fields like Neuroaesthetics, Cognitive Literary Theory, Cognitive Linguistics, Affect Theory, Second-person Neuroscience, Cognitive Culture Studies or Critical Neuroscience relate to the emerging omnipresence and challenges of Artificial Intelligence?

The IX Summer School for the Study of Culture invites participants to submit paper and poster proposals that critically consider the developments of the Neurohumanities in the past decades and question its immediate and future challenges and opportunities. Paper proposals are encouraged in but not limited to the following topics:

  • 4E Cognition: embodied, embedded, enacted and extended
  • performance and the embodied mind
  • spectatorship and simulation
  • from individual to social cognition
  • mental imagery
  • empathy
  • memory, culture and cultural memory
  • cognition and translatability
  • mind-body problem
  • life enhancement
  • neuro-power
  • (neuro)humanities and social change
  • AI, cognition and culture

The Summer School will take place at several cultural institutions in Lisbon and will gather outstanding doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers from around the world. In the morning there will be lectures and master classes by invited keynote speakers. In the afternoon there will be paper presentations by doctoral students.

 

Paper proposals

Proposals should be sent to lxsummerschool@gmail.com no later than February 28, 2019 (new deadline: March 15, 2019) and include paper title, abstract in English (max. 200 words), name, e-mail address, institutional affiliation and a brief bio (max. 100 words) mentioning ongoing research.

Applicants will be informed of the result of their submissions by March 15, 2019 (new date: April 1, 2019) .

Rules for presentation

The organizing committee shall place presenters in small groups according to the research focus of their papers. They are advised to stay in these groups for the duration of the Summer School, so a structured exchange of ideas may be developed to its full potential.

Full papers submission

Presenters are required to send in full papers by May 30, 2019.

The papers will then be circulated amongst the members of each research group and in the slot allotted to each participant (30’), only 10’ may be used for a brief summary of the research piece. The Summer School is a place of networked exchange of ideas and organizers wish to have as much time as possible for a structured discussion between participants. Ideally, in each slot, 10’ will be used for presentation, and 20’ for discussion.

Registration fees

Participants with paper – 290€ for the entire week (includes lectures, master classes, doctoral sessions, lunches and closing dinner)

Participants without paper – 60€ per session/day | 190€ for the entire week

Fee waivers

For The Lisbon Consortium students, there is no registration fee.

For students from Universities affiliated with the European Summer School in Cultural Studies and members of the Excellence Network in Cultural Studies the registration fee is 60€.

 

Confirmed Speakers:

– Semir Zeki (University College London)

– Fritz Breithaupt (Indiana University)

– Alexandre Castro Caldas (Universidade Católica Portuguesa)

– Gonzalo Polavieja (Champalimaud Foundation)

– Per Aage Brandt (Case Western Reserve University)

– Peter Hanenberg (Universidade Católica Portuguesa) 

– Vera Nünning (Heidelberg University)

– Ana Margarida Abrantes (Universidade Católica Portuguesa)

 

Organizing Committee

  • Isabel Capeloa Gil
  • Peter Hanenberg
  • Alexandra Lopes
  • Paulo de Campos Pinto
  • Diana Gonçalves
  • Clara Caldeira
  • Rita Bacelar

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS FCT Scholarships

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS FCT SCHOLARSHIPS

(2019-2020)

 

The International Doctoral Program in Culture Studies at the Lisbon Consortium (INTDCS), funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), hereby announces the opening of a call for applications for 6 full scholarships (3 national grants and 3 mixed grants) in the academic year 2019-2020, in accordance with FCT’s Research Fellowship Holder Statute

(https://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/docs/FellowshipHolderStatute2013.pdf) and FCT’s Regulation for Research Studentships and Fellowships

(https://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/regulamento.phtml.en).

The Steering Committee of the Program will be responsible for selecting the candidates who will be awarded the grants. Grant Agreements will be signed directly between the selected candidates and FCT.

The international PhD program in Culture Studies offers a joint doctoral degree by three top tiered European universities, in Portugal (School of Human Sciences, Catholic University of Portugal), Germany (International Graduate Center for the Study of Culture, Justus-Liebig University Giessen) and Denmark (Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen).

The program speaks to an innovative approach to the study of culture that works across disciplines in the social sciences and humanities and aims at fostering a collaborative research-intensive environment. As part of a tri-national network, students can benefit from up to two semesters at one of the partner institutions.

 

SCIENTIFIC FIELD

Culture Studies

 

APPLICATIONS PERIOD

The period of applications will open on March 1 and run through June 14.

 

ELIGIBILITY

Applicants are eligible provided they have been accepted into the Doctoral Program in Culture Studies of the Lisbon Consortium and comply with the following:

– National grants: Portuguese citizens or foreign citizens;

– Mixed grants: Portuguese and EU citizens or foreign citizens who are able to prove habitual or permanent residence in Portugal upon application;

– Holders of Master’s degree upon application. Foreign Master’s degrees must be recognized/registered.

For more information, please consult:

https://www.dges.gov.pt/en/pagina/degree-and-diploma-recognition?plid=1536

– Very good academic performance;

– Excellent CV;

– Sufficient undergraduate training to do graduate work in the chosen field or relevant professional experience;

– Have not previously received an identical type of FCT-funded fellowship for the same purpose;

– Competence in English (IELTS 7.0 minimum; TOEFL 100 + minimum 24 in all skills; Cambridge Advanced Certificate B; CEFR C1). Certificate attained in the last 2 years.

 

GRANT

The grant is awarded for a 12-month period, renewable up to a maximum of 4 years, and includes a monthly maintenance stipend and a tuition fee stipend, in accordance with the current FCT stipend scheme (http://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/valores.phtml.en). It does not include application costs or any other expenses. It cannot be awarded for less than 3 consecutive months.

The performance of duties as a fellowship holder is carried out on an exclusive dedication basis.

Grants awarded within this call cannot start before September 2019.

 

APPLICATIONS

Applications should be sent by e-mail to lxconsortium@gmail.com or by registered mail to:

International Doctoral Program in Culture Studies
The Lisbon Consortium
Faculdade de Ciências Humanas
Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Palma de Cima
1649-023 Lisboa
Portugal

Applications must include the following documents:

– Application Form;

– Transcript of records;

– Master’s degree certified by the awarding institution (foreign Master’s degrees must be recognized/registered);

– Copy of identification document (Passport or ID card);

– Detailed CV;

– A personal statement indicating the student’s motivation and interest in the program (max. 3.000 characters);

– Preliminary research project (max. 15.000 characters);

– Certificate of English proficiency (except for native speakers).

 

[Please consult the Lisbon Consortium PhD Application Guidelines herefor further information]

 

EVALUATION

Proceedings for the awarding of scholarships will be based on the following selection criteria:

– Stage 1: Analysis of academic and scientific curriculum;

– Stage 2: Interview (in person or by videoconference) with the international Steering Committee.

 

The ranking of admissions will be established on a 0-100 points scale, according to the following percentage breakdown:

  • Academic excellence (track record) – 40%
  • Academic potential (interview) – 20%
  • Motivation, innovation and professional skills (research statement) – 25%
  • English language skills – 15%

 

INTERNATIONAL STEERING COMMITTEE

– Professor Dr. Isabel Capeloa Gil

– Professor Dr. Frederik Tygstrup

– Professor Dr. Ansgar Nünning

– Professor Dr. Alexandra Lopes

– Professor Dr. Peter Hanenberg

 

PUBLICATION OF RESULTS

Results will be sent to all candidates by e-mail and will also be available on the Program’s website at https://lisbonconsortium.com/. If the decision is unfavorable, applicants have a period of 10 working days to submit their comments, under the terms established in the Administrative Procedure Code. The final decision can be appealed to the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, within 15 working days of its notification.

 

FUNDING

The scholarships awarded under this contract will be financed by funds from the State Budget of the MCTES (Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior)/FCT and, when eligible, by funds from the European Social Fund through the Programas Operacionais during the period 2014-2020, from Portugal 2020, namely, the Programa Operacional Temático do Capital Humano, the Programa Operacional Regional do Norte, do Centro e do Alentejo, in accordance with the provisions of their specific regulations.

The awarding of the scholarships depends on the reception of all the required documentation and on FCT’s budgetary availability.

 

 

For more information, please contact us at:

International Doctoral Program in Culture Studies
The Lisbon Consortium
Faculdade de Ciências Humanas
Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Palma de Cima
1649-023 Lisboa
Portugal
lxconsortium@fch.lisboa.ucp.pt

Seminário: A Viena de Wittgenstein

image001 (2).jpg

Programa

15h00 – 15h30

Abertura + A exposição Haus Wittgenstein com Nuno Crespo

15h30 – 17h00

A Viena de Wittgenstein: a Viena do “L’ Apocalypse joyeuse”)

Isabel Capeloa Gil

António Guerreiro

Debate moderado por José Manuel dos Santos.

(Coffee break)

17h30 – 19h00

Wittgenstein e a Arquitetura: o debate arquitetónico encabeçado pelo arquiteto Adolf Loos

Ana Tostões

João Luís Carrilho da Graça

Nuno Venturinha

Debate moderado por Ricardo Carvalho

Call for Articles: Diffractions Graduate Journal for the Study of Culture

Call for Articles

(Dis-)covering ciphers: objects, voices, bodies.

Deadline for submissions: October 31, 2018

To analyze the ways in which cultural objects acquire meaning can also be understood as looking at the technologies by which those objects have become enciphered. In this issue of Diffractions we aim to look at the concept of the cipher in its myriad ways of appearing, be they cultural, social, political, technological, linguistic or economic in nature.

To give an example of that last category, one merely needs to point towards Marx’s theory on the fetishization of commodities. There, the process through which the material existence of products of labor can become invisible behind their exchange value, is formulated as a process of hiding what is central to the object; its material existence and its use value. In other words, the Marxist theory of fetishization can be understood as the discovery of a cipher, the cipher of exchange value.

But the concept of the cipher travels easily, and can be situated in many locations. In Adriana Cavarero’s work on the voice, she considers the ways in which the bodily aspects that are associated with the vocal are often hidden behind its semiotic, linguistic, and signifying capacities. That is to say, speech functions as a cipher for the materiality of the vocal. The vocal needs to be deciphered.

But what is a cipher? And how to know if we are dealing with a cipher to begin with? The cipher raises questions. In technologico-linguistic terms, a cipher calls for a key. A password. A way to de-cipher what was first en-ciphered. Perhaps a text that appears as a cipher is a plain text after all. The cipher’s call is not always obvious. Ciphers can conceal their act of concealing; hide not only what they are hiding, but that they are hiding as well; steganography.

Ciphers cut. And, as Jacques Derrida writes, they produce an inside and an outside, insides and outsides.  In order to protect what is behind the cipher, the cipher has to function as a passageway, letting some through while excluding others. In order to be allowed to enter, something must already be known. The cipher marks the limits of something hidden. But some measure of knowledge is nevertheless presupposed. It marks the boundaries of a relationship. It conceals and shows at the same time. It covers and uncovers.

If, for someone like Marx, the material manifestation of any object precedes its encipherment, others might submit, instead, that the cipher operates as the occasion for materialization to first take place. Mediation comes first, and materializes the body, someone like Judith Butler would argue. Following such accounts of the performative nature of subjection, one may suggest that the very materiality of the body is a product of a process that relies on cultural, linguistic, affective, and discursive, ciphers. And if the cipher conditions processes of materialization and subjectivation, one can ask if there is anything that escapes its logic. Is there an excess of meaning that remains neither enciphered, nor decipherable? To trace that excess would be to situate the cipher more precisely. It would be an attempt to recognize ciphers where they are, and to isolate those places where they remain absent.

 

For the upcoming issue of Diffractions we would like to make the cipher speak. To allow it to be heard, perhaps against its will. To ask where the cipher begins, and what exceeds its limits. In doing so, we aim to connect the cipher to objects, to values, to voices, and to the body. Our goal is to investigate the ways in which these concepts can be made useful for the study of cultural objects. How objects of study might help us to make the cipher speak, and how the cipher might engage these objects in return.

We look forward to receiving proposals of 5.000 to 9.000 words (excluding bibliography) and a short bio of about 150 words by October 31st, 2018 to be submitted at our website: https://diffractions.fch.lisboa.ucp.pt/Series2.

Diffractions also accepts book reviews related to the issue’s topic. If you wish to write a book review, please contact us through the e-mail address below.

We aim to be as accessible as possible in our communication. Should you have any questions, remarks, or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us through the following address: info.diffractions@gmail.com.

Call for Papers: IX Lisbon Summer School for the Study of Culture

IX Lisbon Summer School for the Study of Culture

Neurohumanities

Promises & Threats

Lisbon, July 1-6, 2019

 

CALL FOR PAPERS

Deadline for submissions: February 28, 2019

When the US government declared the 1990s “The decade of the brain”, it aimed at raising public awareness toward the use of neuroscience for the enhancement of life quality and as a way to better address the challenges of growing life expectancy. The initiative was further supported by substantial research funding, which not only impressed public opinion but appealed to many research fields. Finding a link to brain research and the processes of the human mind, many disciplines were repositioned and adopted the “neuro” prefix, promising new insights into age-old problems by reframing them from the angle of the brain-mind continuum.

Neuroscience seeks to explain how the brain works and which neurophysiological processes are involved in complex cognitive abilities like sensation and perception attention and reasoning, memory and thought.

One of the most striking and unique features of the human mind is its capacity to represent realities that transcend its immediate time and space, by engaging complex symbolic systems, most notably language, music, arts and mathematics. Such sophisticated means for representation are arguably the result of an environmental pressure and must be accounted for in a complex network of shared behaviors, mimetic actions and collaborative practices: in other words, through human culture. The cultural products that are enabled by these systems are also stored by means of representation in ever-new technological devices, which allow for the accumulation and sharing of knowledge beyond space and across time.

The artifacts and practices that arise from the symbolic use, exchange and accumulation are the core of the research and academic field known as the Humanities. The field has been increasingly interested in the latest developments deriving from neuroscience and the affordances they allow about the conditions and processes of the single brain, embedded in an environment, in permanent exchange with other brains in an ecology that is culturally coded.

This turn of the humanities to neuroscience is embraced by many and fiercely criticized by others. The promise of the Neurohumanities, the neuroscientifically informed study of cultural artifacts, discourses and practices, lies in unveiling the link between embodied processes and the sophistication of culture. And it has the somewhat hidden agenda of legitimizing the field, by giving it a science-close status of relevance and social acknowledgement it has long lacked. Here, though, lies also its weakness: should the Humanities become scientific? Can they afford to do so? Should they be reduced to experimental methodologies, collaborative research practices, sloppy concept travelling, transvestite interdisciplinarity? Is the promise of the Neurohumanities, seen by some as the ultimate overcoming of the science-humanities or the two cultures divide, in fact not only ontologically and methodologically impossible and more than that undesirable? And how will fields like Neuroaesthetics, Cognitive Literary Theory, Cognitive Linguistics, Affect Theory, Second-person Neuroscience, Cognitive Culture Studies or Critical Neuroscience relate to the emerging omnipresence and challenges of Artificial Intelligence?

The IX Summer School for the Study of Culture invites participants to submit paper and poster proposals that critically consider the developments of the Neurohumanities in the past decades and question its immediate and future challenges and opportunities. Paper proposals are encouraged in but not limited to the following topics:

  • 4E Cognition: embodied, embedded, enacted and extended
  • performance and the embodied mind
  • spectatorship and simulation
  • from individual to social cognition
  • mental imagery
  • empathy
  • memory, culture and cultural memory
  • cognition and translatability
  • mind-body problem
  • life enhancement
  • neuro-power
  • (neuro)humanities and social change
  • AI, cognition and culture

The Summer School will take place at several cultural institutions in Lisbon and will gather outstanding doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers from around the world. In the morning there will be lectures and master classes by invited keynote speakers. In the afternoon there will be paper presentations by doctoral students.

 

Paper proposals

Proposals should be sent to lxsummerschool@gmail.com no later than February 28, 2019 and include paper title, abstract in English (max. 200 words), name, e-mail address, institutional affiliation and a brief bio (max. 100 words) mentioning ongoing research.

Applicants will be informed of the result of their submissions by March 15, 2019.

Rules for presentation

The organizing committee shall place presenters in small groups according to the research focus of their papers. They are advised to stay in these groups for the duration of the Summer School, so a structured exchange of ideas may be developed to its full potential.

Full papers submission

Presenters are required to send in full papers by May 30, 2019.

The papers will then be circulated amongst the members of each research group and in the slot allotted to each participant (30’), only 10’ may be used for a brief summary of the research piece. The Summer School is a place of networked exchange of ideas and organizers wish to have as much time as possible for a structured discussion between participants. Ideally, in each slot, 10’ will be used for presentation, and 20’ for discussion.

Registration fees

Participants with paper – 290€ for the entire week (includes lectures, master classes, doctoral sessions, lunches and closing dinner)

Participants without paper – 60€ per session/day | 190€ for the entire week

Fee waivers

For The Lisbon Consortium students, there is no registration fee.

For students from Universities affiliated with the European Summer School in Cultural Studies and members of the Excellence Network in Cultural Studies the registration fee is 60€.

Organizing Committee

  • Isabel Capeloa Gil
  • Peter Hanenberg
  • Alexandra Lopes
  • Paulo de Campos Pinto
  • Diana Gonçalves
  • Clara Caldeira
  • Rita Bacelar

For further information, please contact us through lxconsortium@gmail.com

Ballets Russes: exhibition with participation of LxC students

AF_e-convite_150_ballet-russes

Celebrating the centenary of the Ballets Russes season in Lisbon, the exhibition  reflects on the artistic modernity of Serguei Diaghilev’s project and has the participation of contemporary artists.

“The Ballets Russes: Modernity after Diaghilev” is a Lisbon Consortium project, with the support of Fundação Millennium BCP and other partners, coordinated by Professor Isabel Capeloa Gil, rector of Universidade Católica Portuguesa and director of the LxC, with the assistence of students of the MA and PhD programs in Culture Studies.

The exhibition, that opens this friday and can be seen until the end of September, comprises three clusters, displayed in different cultural venues in Lisbon and includes a performance by Teatro Praga and a work by Vasco Araújo.

4Cs Project inaugurates exhibition at Gulbenkian

13 Shots is the title of the exhibition project by artist Aimée Zito Lema (b. 1982, NL) which opens on Thursday 28 June at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (Modern Collection Project Space). Curated by researchers Luísa Santos, Ana Cachola and Daniela Agostinho, this is one of the eight chapters of the exhibition created as part of the 4Cs: from Conflict to Conviviality through Creativity and Culture, a collaborative project coordinated by FCH-UCP and co-funded by the European Union’s “Creative Europe” programme. The project presented here is the result of a period of research residency completed by the artist at Rua das Gaivotas 6. 13 Shots brings together works that explore various aspects of individual, social and political memory – the result of the artist’s collaboration with the Lisbon Theatre of the Oppressed Group at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum’s Multipurpose Room. Through performative exercises co-created by the artist and the group, the intergenerational transmission of the 25 April revolution and the photographic archive of the ACARTE service become material for investigating the way in which memory is passed on through stories, images, gaps and silences that are reproduced, filled, and reimagined collectively.

More information: