Summer School
Neuroarthistory
Saturday 27 and Sunday 28, July 2013

Director: Prof John Onians; Consultant for Neuroscience:
Prof Adam Zeman with Dr Helen Anderson and Dr Kajsa Berg

Sainsbury Institute for Art
University of East Anglia, Norwich UK

From the Zeitgeist to Mentalités, from Psychoanalysis to Discourse
Theory, from Phenomenology to Embodiment, from Post-Structuralism to
Agency and the Distributed Mind, the last hundred years have seen the
emergence of many new frameworks for understanding the mental and
physical activities of artists, patrons and viewers. All of these
approaches make assumptions about the brain. Now those assumptions can
be tested and refined using the latest neuroscience.

The project is not new. Scholars interested in the history of art, from
Winckelmann and Warburg to Gombrich and Baxandall, have long used a
knowledge of the brain to enhance their enquiries. The only difference
today is that new technologies enable this generation to take those
enquiries much further.

This two-day Summer School builds on the Director's experience as
co-organiser of the two-week Summer Institute in Neuroscience and the
Humanities held in 2011 at the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the
Behavioral Sciences and funded by the Mellon Foundation. It will engage
twenty MA, Doctoral and Post-Doctoral students and Junior Faculty in the
evaluation and advancement of this challenging new enterprise.

The event, to be held in the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, will
review the latest knowledge of the brain and will survey the ways in
which this knowledge has been, is and might be used to help in the
understanding of art and visual culture. Participants will be encouraged
to present their own views on the possibilities for the future within
their own areas of interest.

Envisaged as the precursor of a longer Summer School in 2014, this event
is an element in a developing project, promising to give researchers in
art/visual culture a role of leadership within the humanities.

Summer School Fees (including refreshments, lunches and accommodation):
Single £60; Twin £40 (Saturday night).
Members of the Association of Art Historians: Single £50; Twin £30.

Applications, including CV and short statement of interest, are invited
from MA, Doctoral and Post-Doctoral students and Junior Faculty working
on the art/visual culture of any place or period within the context of
any discipline. They, as well as requests for information, should be
addressed to John Onians: j.oniansuea.ac.uk<mailto:j.oniansuea.ac.uk>
before April 30.