This is just to notify / inform you that a group of scholars in our
Department have been succesful in obtaining a small - initiatory - grant
from the University Research Foundation and the Faculty for the first
probings of a programme where we wish to investigate the relations between
Religion, Cognition and Culture for the years 2003-2004. The group and
activity steering / grant-management is jointly undertaken by:

Prof. Armin Geertz &
Assoc. prof. Jeppe Sinding Jensen
at the Dept. for the Study of Religion, University of Aarhus, Denmark

On the theoretical agenda - which we shall present in a more comprehensive
form later - a few things may be stated so as to (perhaps?) catch your
interests in contacting us.

1. We already know that cognition (broadly speaking) sets the parameters for
socio-cultural forms (discourse, instutions etc.

2. The implications of cognitive studies for the study of how individuals
process the experience of the world is of course vital to the study of how
religion works (mentally) and to the solution of the question of wher it
comes from ('causes' of various kinds)

3. However, reserach based on the 'computerized' image of what is being
cognitively processed has not focused so much on the outcomes of these
processes.

4. The questions of how the products of the mind may feed-back and influence
the further workings on the cognitive mechanisms / contents of teh mind have
not yet been fully explored. Anyone who dares insist that 'culture' - and
thus religion - has an influence on how we think is likely to be 'accused'
of being an idealist, a 'culture and personality theory renegade' or some
other kind of derailed kind mind.

5. W e don't quite think so. More recent scientific advances in the
neorobiological fields indicate much more plasticity in the brain / mind
that 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.

Thus the cognitive study of religion (and other socio-cultural realms
should) should be concerned not only with 'intra-skull' phenomena but bring
cognition out into the intersubjective '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 analysis which have so far seemed incompatible with cognitive
science based research with its consistent emphasis on the purely cognitive
(non-emotional, non-'conative' etc) in an individualist methodology with a
view of cultural 'products' as primarily 'epiphenomenal' and thus
unimportant for the cognitivist's project.

6. In order to do so we have initially focussed on the character and impact
of religious narrative. Religious because as scholars of religion this is a
field of which we have some knowledge (more than most other scholars at
least..) and religion has been with humankind for quite a while and it has
been quite important socially, politically etc. So: it has some evolutionary
potential to study it. We also accept an idea - today in many circles
prohibited - of cultural evolution (the development of science - for one
thing - points to this). Therefore - our project may even be of interest to
moral philosophers! Narrative because this is (probably) the primary mode of
human communication. It is also interesting because it is uniquely human.
Recent cognitive semantics also emphasize that it is the mode in which which
much of our
relation to the world is organized - our modes of intentionality are highly
dependent upon there being narratives - not least in social settings. By
narrative we mean: the syntactic ordering of semantic materials so that they
may be spoken of - therefore the perspective also includes rituals or other
meaningful institutionalized behaviour.
One very important field of this is 'self-narrative' - auto-communication
whereby identities are formed and upheld via symbolic mediation. Therefore,
in terms of the empirical orientation we shall maintain a certain focus on
self-narratives - on 'who we are'. Therefore these perspective could also
potentially interest scholars who work on minority / cultural identities
etc.

7. We plan a number of activities: In-house seminars for the dozen (approx.)
regular participants in our meetings (formerly termed: 'The laboratory for
the theory of religion'.) We wish to invite speakers to come and take part
in these meetings - to offer us ideas as to what we may / ought to take on.
We also plan a larger, international conference on the perspectives just
mentioned in 2004 with a publication of teh procceding by a major publisher.

8. We shall not only invite / welcome scholars from the study of religion
and adjacent fields (anthropology, classics, philosophy etc)but also from
the physical & life sciences, psychiatry, psychology and - of course -
cognitive sciences.

If all goes well we plan to expand this programme beyond year 2005.

If you wish to hear from us - be on our mailing list and receive up-dates on
our activities plase let us know!

On behalf of the 'Religious narrative, cognition and culture' programme I
send you our best wishes!


Assoc. Prof. Jeppe Sinding Jensen
Dept. for the Study of Religion
University of Aarhus
Taasingegade 3
DK-8000 AARHUS C
DENMARK

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