Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture

Seminar Series - Keio+Emory | "Performing for Failure: Embodying Grief on Stage Through Ethnodrama"

"Performing for Failure: Embodying Grief on Stage Through Ethnodrama"  Yoon Won Chang [https://anthropology.emory.edu/people/grad_bios/chang-yoon-won.html] | PhD Candidate Department of Anthropology, Emory University  This talk is an excerpt from an ethnography that documents the making of a theater performance about grief after suicide in contemporary South Korea. I analyze how the actors and the director interpret and embody the real-life stories collected through interviews with suicide loss survivors. The creative team experiences the inevitable failures in interpreting the grief, yet attempts to embody the already fractured self-narratives of pain and healing provided by the survivors. I ask how grief becomes a collective experience and how the language and the body are negotiated in this process.  "I am a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Emory University. For the past seven years, I have closely accompanied suicide loss survivors in Korea by organizing grief groups and other cultural events. In my Doctoral dissertation, I explore how suicide loss survivors' experience of grief is sculpted, negotiated, and refracted within the stat suicide prevention policies, the psychiatric intervention, self-narratives, and collective practices of healing."   *CMBC_Ecas_Century [https://www.trumba.com/i/DgCvsZz4QgomUeWTJ3dBTMBZ.jpg]     Screenshot 2026-03-04 at 2.56.28 PM [https://www.trumba.com/i/DgDhB96-sD6UXbU6dSWgyjEF.png]    CCSCBE Logo [https://www.trumba.com/i/DgAQy5xw31-PgnKUkdQFff%2Au.jpg] Intro music: Scream Villian - The Fable - Bensound If you would like to become an AFFILIATE [https://cmbc.emory.edu/about/join.html] of the Center, please let us know. Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/@emorycmbc1507] to get updates on our latest videos. Follow along with us on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/emorycmbc/] |  Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/EmoryCenterForMindBrainAndCulture/]   NOTE:  The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those held by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture or Emory University.

Lecture | Raphaël Julliard "The Creative Engine and the Sense of Rightness"

Raphaël Julliard | Anthropology of the Creative Process | Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale, Ehess, Paris, France  "The Creative Engine and the Sense of Rightness"  My research operates at the intersection of anthropology, the psychology of creativity, and micro-phenomenology. It is driven by a central question: in the uncertainty of the creative act, how do creators know when it works? While traditional approaches often rely on retrospective reconstruction, my work focuses on the "creative engine": the real-time feedback loop between Action (what the maker does) and Affect (how the emerging form acts back upon the maker). I posit that creativity is not a cognitive planning process, but a navigational skill steered by a pre-reflective affective criterion—a felt sense of fitness we conceptualize as "Rightness"—guiding the artist between the risks. To study this, I have moved from historical analysis to experimental ethnography, developing a novel methodology—The Researcher-As-Obstacle (RAO)—designed to investigate the creative mind in action. My goal is to establish a rigorous anthropology of this navigational competence, specifically addressing how subjects maintain agency and a path toward Rightness within the flow of creation.  Links to referenced texts: Julliard, R. (2025). Action and affect: Ritual dynamics in Jackson Pollock’s creative process. Journal of Material Culture, 30(2), 171-190. → https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/xpbcw_v1 Julliard, R., Roy, D., & Botella, M. (2026).  The Researcher-As-Obstacle: A methodology for the study of creativity while it happens. Qualitative Research, 26(1), 3-22. → https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/shnax_v3  “The Feeling of Life”: Creative Dynamics Captured in Real Time → https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/92fxy_v1 If you would like to become an AFFILIATE [https://cmbc.emory.edu/about/join.html] of the Center, please let us know. Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/@emorycmbc1507] to get updates on our latest videos. Follow along with us on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/emorycmbc/] |  Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/EmoryCenterForMindBrainAndCulture/]   NOTE:  The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those held by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture or Emory University.

Lecture | Chris Krupenye "The Social Minds of Humans and Other Apes"

Chris Krupenye | Psychological & Brain Sciences | Johns Hopkins University  "The Social Minds of Humans and Other Apes"  Humans are defined in no small part by the complexity of our social lives, and the cognitive mechanisms we possess for making sense of our social worlds. These capacities support unique forms of communication, cooperation, and culture. But how did they evolve, and to what extent do they rely on language or other uniquely human representational machinery? To address these questions, I will explore the social lives of our closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, and present a number of controlled experiments probing their cognition. These studies reveal that other apes gather a diversity of knowledge about their social worlds, and share with humans numerous capacities for tracking and predicting the behavior of their groupmates. These rich foundations of human social intelligence therefore can operate in the absence of language, and very likely evolved at least 6-9 million years ago in the ancestors we share with other apes. 00:00 CMBC Introduction by Dietrich Stout  04:11 Speaker Introduction by Dietrich Stout  05:44 Lecture by Chris Krupenye  01:00:11 Q&A session If you would like to become an AFFILIATE [https://cmbc.emory.edu/about/join.html] of the Center, please let us know. Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/@emorycmbc1507] to get updates on our latest videos. Follow along with us on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/emorycmbc/] |  Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/EmoryCenterForMindBrainAndCulture/]   NOTE:  The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those held by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture or Emory University.

Lecture | Ken Paller "Sleep-based Memory Reactivation and Opportunities for Better Benefits from Sleep"

Ken Paller [https://psychology.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/core/profiles/ken-paller.html] | Neuroscience | Northwestern University  "Sleep-based Memory Reactivation and Opportunities for Better Benefits from Sleep"  "Sleep is critical not only for its restorative benefits but also for its contributions to memory function. Memory reactivation occurs covertly during sleep. Corresponding changes in the brain move memory consolidation forward, enhancing the likelihood of later remembering and stoking creativity. Our habits of overnight memory reactivation—and the specific memories we reactivate each night—influence our daytime psychological well-being. What transpires in our brains after we fall asleep may seem beyond volitional control. To the contrary, it can be strategically modified to seek various benefits. We have developed methods to modify sleep-based memory reactivation using sensory stimulation, and studies with these methods have uncovered various facets of this covert processing, including dreaming. We’ve also sought insights through studies of the well-documented methods of contemplative sleep practices from Tibetan-Buddhist traditions going back many hundreds of years. We are now seeking to apply this knowledge through new health-related applications to make sleep better and help people with sleep disorders such as insomnia, sleep apnea, and nightmares."   00:00 CMBC Introduction by Dietrich Stout  04:20 Speaker Introduction by Stephan Hamann  06:35 Lecture by Ken Paller  54:58 Q&A session If you would like to become an AFFILIATE [https://cmbc.emory.edu/about/join.html] of the Center, please let us know. Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/@emorycmbc1507] to get updates on our latest videos. Follow along with us on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/emorycmbc/] |  Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/EmoryCenterForMindBrainAndCulture/]   NOTE:  The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those held by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture or Emory University.

Seminar Series - Keio+Emory | Jared Medina + Masaki Matsubara "The Embodied Mind and Empathetic AI: A Dialogue in the Keio-Emory Seminar Series"

Jared Medina [https://www.jaredmedina.com/] | Department of Psychology, Emory University My presentation will explore the cognitive mechanisms behind how the mind actively does embodiment. Using evidence from perceptual illusions (such as the mirror box and rubber hand illusion) and individuals with brain damage, I will discuss foundational processes that shape our bodily awareness. This overview is designed to provoke a broader dialogue on how theories and methods related to embodiment can conceptually inform the development of social AI. Dr. Medina is an Associate in the Department of Psychology at Emory University, having earned his Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from Johns Hopkins University. His research explores the cognitive and neural mechanisms of embodiment and sensorimotor plasticity, using evidence from perceptual illusions, brain damaged individuals, and neuroimaging to investigate how the brain represents the body.   Masaki Matsubara [https://ccs.keio.ac.jp/Member/en] | Center for Contemplative Sciences, Keio University + University of Tsukuba, Japan "Exploring the transition from the cognitive “Mind” to the phenomenological “Soma,” I will examine whether humans and AI can truly “dance” together through empathy as embodied joint action. I raise the fundamental question of whether a resonant “Field” (Ba) can emerge without the shared vulnerability inherent to biological life. Using the framework of Ki, Do, and Ma (Timing, Intensity, and Space), will discuss how these principles can inform experimental designs for social robots to foster our shared humanity." Dr. Matsubara is an Associate Professor at the University of Tsukuba and leads the Laboratory for Somatic Intelligence and Artistic Expression. His research integrates contemplative education, embodied cognition, and human-AI collaboration. He utilizes first-person approach and arts-based research to explore the emergence of awareness and compassion.  *CMBC_Ecas_Century [https://www.trumba.com/i/DgCvsZz4QgomUeWTJ3dBTMBZ.jpg]     Screenshot 2026-03-04 at 2.56.28 PM [https://www.trumba.com/i/DgDhB96-sD6UXbU6dSWgyjEF.png]    CCSCBE Logo [https://www.trumba.com/i/DgAQy5xw31-PgnKUkdQFff%2Au.jpg] If you would like to become an AFFILIATE [https://cmbc.emory.edu/about/join.html] of the Center, please let us know. Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/@emorycmbc1507] to get updates on our latest videos. Follow along with us on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/emorycmbc/] |  Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/EmoryCenterForMindBrainAndCulture/]   NOTE:  The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those held by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture or Emory University.