COGNITION, MEMORY, PLACE, AND SPACE

Workshop: COGNITION, MEMORY, PLACE, AND SPACE

Keynote speaker: JOHN SUTTON (University of Stirling, Scotland) 

Date and place: 5 November - Centre of Philosophy (CFUL), Facultade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

Our cognition, including memory, does not function in a vacuum. It is shaped by the spaces we inhabit, navigate, and transform, and by the places we experience. Yet the relationships between cognition, memory, place, and space remain an emerging field of inquiry that raises fundamental questions across disciplines. How do places scaffold remembering, both of the personal past and of collective experiences? How do natural, urban, public, and private spaces influence affectivity, agency, and social interaction? In what ways do they contribute to inclusion, exclusion, and forms of epistemic and affective injustice? How can both bottom-up and top-down interventions on spaces influence cognition, memory, and agency, for the good and for the bad? What role does art play in shaping our experience of places? What is the potential of artistic interventions to open new possibilities for agency, memory, and affect related to places? How are non-human animals cognitively affected by human interventions in the spaces they inhabit? We welcome contributions from all disciplines and career stages that explore the intersections of cognition, memory, place, and space, including work that addresses related questions beyond those outlined above.

The language of the workshop is English and there are no fees. Note however that we are unable to provide financial support for accepted speakers and that the workshop will be held exclusively in person.

Submissions should be sent to [email protected], and should include two separate files:

- A short bio with identification and academic affiliation

- Title of the talk and anonymized abstract (max. 500 words)

Deadline for submissions:  20 August

This activity is funded by Portuguese national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the project UID/00310/2025, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa (https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/00310/2025)