Workshop 19th March 12:00 to 20th March 2015, 17:00, Holgate Conference Centre, Grey College, Durham, DH1 3LG

Organisers: Dr Felicity Callard, Dr Angela Woods (Centre for Medical Humanities, Durham University; Hubbub at Wellcome Collection; Hearing the Voice) and Dr Peter Garratt (Department of English Studies; Cognitive Futures in the Humanities)

30 places available to applicants – Register your interest here. Places for the workshop are limited and will be allocated to ensure the inclusion of a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Please note that Brains in the Making is a free workshop, but participants are expected to make their own arrangements for travel andaccommodation. The deadline for registration is 20 February and successful applicants will be notified by 25 February at the latest. Priority will be given to individuals able to attend the full programme. All delegates will be invited to join the speakers of Brains in the Making at a complimentary dinner on 19th March. Lunch will be provided on both days of the workshop.

Brains in the Making emerges from existing synergies between three, large interdisciplinary projects led by Durham University: Hearing the Voice (HtV), the inaugural residencyHubbub at Wellcome Collection, both funded by the Wellcome Trust, and Cognitive Futures in the Humanities (CFiH) funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The workshop is supported by Durham University’s Institute of Advanced Study, and seeks to advance conceptual and methodological debates surrounding the ways in which other disciplines might and should work with the neurosciences.

What happens to methods of enquiry and to the objects of intellectual concern when researchers are entangled with one another in intense interdisciplinary exchange regarding the brain? And can such “entanglements” allow new modes of thinking and working to emerge – such that disciplinary expertise might be diffracted through researchers’ encounters with unfamiliar methods, modes of experimentation, and ways of conceptualizing key constructs?

Brains in the Making brings together researchers working at the critical cutting edge of the neurosciences with the goal of reflecting on and interrogating emergent models and methods, examining how they variously transform, disavow, encourage and/or close down existing “disciplinary” modes of thought and practice. Additionally, the workshop exemplifies the shared conviction that new areas of inquiry and ways of working do not emerge “out of nowhere”: they can arise through purposeful endeavour and creative, experimental practices that enable the collision of ideas that are not usually brought together.

Confirmed speakers: