Exploring awe and wonder

Sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation's
Research Grant: Space, Science and Spirituality
http://www.chdr.cah.ucf.edu/spaceandspirituality/

The concepts of awe and wonder occupy an important place in the history of ideas, often associated with the beginnings of philosophy and with religious experience.  In contemporary times, however, they are under-studied and rarely discussed.  It is not clear that such experiences are more rare in our time.  One might argue that given our ability to explore more and more corners of the physical and intellectual universe using technology and advanced science, and our capacity for representing the results of such explorations in art, film and various mass media, we should expect that experiences of awe and wonder are more common.  

The interdisciplinary conference, Exploring Awe and Wonder, will bring together researchers in psychology, emotion theory, neuroscience, philosophy, art history, religious studies, and other relevant fields to explore the science and phenomenology of awe and wonder. 

Program

Friday, September 6

9:30 Registration

9:45-10am Welcome: Shaun Gallagher

10-11:30 Wonder: From the child to the philosopher (Moderator: Mason Cash)
Scott Howard, Simulated innocence: The perspective of childhood and the fragility of wonder
Brian Onishi, Wonder as repetition: The perpetual beginning of philosophy
Joshua Blanchard, Abraham Heschel on wonder, awe and radical amazement

11:45-12:45 Valence and ineffability (Moderator: M. Strawser)
Antoine Dussault, The Complex Valence of Awe and its Role as a Moral Emotion
Nikolas Montgomery, When words fail us: Wonder, awe and philosophical approaches to ineffability

12:45-2pm Lunch

2-3:30 Intellectual possibilities (Moderator: Steve Fiore)
Natalia Pietrulewicz, Awe, wonder and alief
Steven Pittz, Wonder, aesthetics and skepticism
Teri Merrick, Can a mathematically elegant cosmos evoke wonder?

3:30 Coffee

4-4:45pm Awe and aesthetic experience (Moderator: Lauren Reinerman)
Jörg Fingerhut, When Does Art Elicit Awe? The ‘Natural’ and the ‘Artificial’ in
Aesthetic Experience

5-6pm Keynote Lecture (Moderator: Bruce Janz)
Michelle Shiota, The “most beautiful emotion”: Subjective, expressive,
physiological, and cognitive features of awe

7pm Conference Dinner

Saturday, June 7

9:30-11:30 Space, Science and Spirituality (Moderator: Jeffrey Williams)
Patsy Morrow, Two neurophenomenological experiments
Shaun Gallagher, Hermeneutical explorations: From outer to inner space
Lauren Reinerman, The neuroscience of awe and wonder
Bruce Janz, Wondering about wonder: The phenomenology of unprecedented experience

11:30-noon Panel Discussion with Jeffrey Williams

Noon-12:45. Cultural effects on awe (Moderator: Benjamin Aguda)
Jörg Trempler, How popular culture shapes our expectations about space

12:45-2pm Lunch

2-3pm Space, literature, and history (Moderator: Patsy Morrow)
Holly Henry, Dreams of other worlds
Tilmann Siebeneichner, Rocket science and spirituality in a belligerent world: The Nazi-Wunderwaffen, 1940-1945

3-5pm Awe and wonder in Media (Moderator: Eileen Smith)
Catherine Newell, From conquest to curiosity
Allison Whitney, The awe of the astronaut: IMAX space films and discourses of wonder and the sublime
Eric Boynton, Evoking wonder: Terrence Malick’s films and Martin Heidegger’s philosophy

5-6pm Keynote Lecture (Moderator: Shaun Gallagher)
Jesse Prinz The wonder of art

For more information see: