Narrative Space and Possible Worlds Encountering Ancient Narratives from a Cognitive Science Perspective

This conference is the last event of an exciting collaborative research project on Narrative Space and Possible Worlds: Encountering Ancient Narratives from a Cognitive Science Perspective.

The project, funded by the St Andrews-Bonn Collaborative Research Grant Programme, brought together researchers based at the University of St Andrews and the University of Bonn from a variety of disciplines (Classics, Biblical Studies, Art History, Classical Archaeology) and various traditions (Christian, Islamic and Buddhist studies), enabling a cross-disciplinary and trans-cultural exchange of ideas and perspectives.

The project seeks to investigate how people understand and use the stories depicted in texts and art and what gives them a sense of ‘being there': how do stories encourage a way of seeing and taking our place in the world? The team hope to answer such questions by investigating the possibilities and limitations of using ocognitive (‘mind') science, which illuminates how people think, to advance the study of stories that appear in ancient texts and artefacts. To frame the project, the researchers decided to focus specifically on people's perceptions and responses to the depiction of narrative space (setting).

Thursday 25 April 2024

10am Arrival and Welcome

10.15am to 11.45am Session 1:

• Stefan Feuser, Understanding Religious Festivals in Athens (5th century BCE) as Urban Narratives
• Nicolas Wiater, Textual Landscapes and Possible Worlds in Polybius' Histories
• Michael Carroll, Starting and stopping in Aeschylus' Suppliants

11.45am to 12.15pm Q&A and discussion

12.15pm to 2pm Lunch break, School of Art History, 79 North Street

2pm to 3.30pm Session 2:

• Jonathan Hunter, Spatial Frames as a Textual Organiser in Mark's Gospel: Effects on the Reader
• Simeon Redinger & Jan Rüggemeier, Narrative Space in Luke Acts and Readers' Responses
• Eric Foster-whiddon, Boundary-crossing and Conceptual Blending in Philosophical Narratives: the Gospel of John and Apollonius of Tyana Compared

3.30pm to 4pm Response by Elizabeth Shively and Q&A

4pm to 4.30pm Coffee break

4.30pm to 5.30pm Keynote Lecture

• Katrin Dennerlein, Being There: Narrating and Illustrating Space in a Global Landscape

Friday 26 April 2024

9.30 to 10.30 Session 3:

• Austin Kopack, Navigation without Representation: A Capacity Approach to Cognition
• Lewis Doney, The Ambiguous Representation of Imperial Space in Early Tibetan Buddhist Historiography

10.30 to 11am Coffee break

11am to 12 noon Session 4:

• Stefanie Archut & Lara Mührenberg, Narrative spaces in Late Antique Art and Architecture  — from 4E to 5E Cognition?
• Lenia Kouneni, Sacred Space and Embodied Cognition in a Dugento tabernacle

12 noon to 12.30pm Response by Michael Lyons and Q&A 

12.30pm to 2pm Lunch, School of Art History, 79 North Street