Religious Narrativity, Cognition and Culture
Introduction to the research project: Religious Narrativity, Cognition and Culture
A group of scholars associated with the Theory of Religion Laboratory at the Department of the Study of Religion, University of Aarhus, was successful in obtaining a small, initiatory grant from the University of Aarhus Research Foundation and the Faculty of Theology for a programme designed to investigate the relations between religious narrative, cognition and culture. Read more.
The Project
Programmes
Scholars/staff
Practical Information
Further information about the project
There is no doubt that the parameters for religious thought as cultural formation are set by the human cognitive mechanisms. But questions on how the products of the mind may feed back and influence further cognitive processes have not yet been fully explored. Insisting that 'culture' - and thus religion - has an influence on how we think is likely to lead to accusations of idealism, 'culture-and-personality’ revivalism or other kinds of dubious theorizing.
Recent advances in the neurosciences indicate much more plasticity in the brain/mind than hitherto assumed. The mind is a machine that to some extent 'builds itself', and we wish to investigate the role of religion (in the broadest possible sense: classification systems, socialization, ritual programmes, institutional mind-sets, interaction-frames, etc.) in the building of the mind, and thus in the formation of humankind.
Thus the cognitive study of religion (and other socio-cultural realms) should be concerned not only with 'intra-skull' phenomena but bring cognition out into the inter-subjective 'arena' and focus on what goes on between individual minds. Our aim is ultimately to combine some form of cognitive study with social constructionism and other levels of socio-cultural theory and analysis.
The grant covers activities for the years 2003-2004. The activities of the research project are jointly coordinated by:
Prof. Armin W. Geertz
Assoc. Prof. JeppeSinding Jensen
Research Fellow David A. Warburton
See new project 2005-2008: Religion, Cognition and Culture.