Possible Discussion questions

Methods and objects of study:

Have the prospects for empirical study of the arts been significantly changed by advances in cognitive neuroscience such as neuroimaging?
What case can be made for the continuing importance of non-empirical research--even by those most hospitable to integrating work in the cognitive sciences and the arts--in studies of the forms, functions and effects of artworks?
Is there a special role for literary/artistic evidence in the cognitive neurosciences, and how could it best be described?
What of objections that literary and other artistic artifacts present too much complexity for a scientific endeavor that is still in its early stages and has yet to resolve basic theoretical issues?

Collaboration

Collaborations among cognitive researchers and their colleagues in humanities departments are at present quite rare. What practical steps might be taken to remedy this?
If you have been involved in a collaborative research project with an investigator from the humanities if you are a scientific researcher (or vice versa), and it produced results, what was most valuable about the collaboration?
If the collaboration did not lead to results, what went wrong?
What would you most want to gain, as a scientific researcher, from collaboration with a scholar of the arts (or vice versa)?

Training

Are new sorts of training programs, beginning as early as the undergraduate years, now called for in preparing a new generation of cognitively-oriented humanities scholars?
Are cross-disciplinary post-doctorate fellowships a better option? What would these look like?
Within the current configuration of your institution, could undergraduates be trained in cross-disciplinary work in cognitive neuroscience and the arts?
What about graduate students with undergraduate degrees in cognitive science/neuroscience? with undergraduate degrees in the humanities?

Institutions

In your institution as currently configured, what would a strong interdisciplinary program in cognitive science/neuroscience and the arts look like?
What would it look like in your ideal university?
What are the main institutional obstacles to interdisciplinary work in the arts and cognitive sciences/neuroscience, and how could they best be addressed?

Conferences and publication venues

Have you participated in a major interdisciplinary conference integrating work in cognitive science/neuroscience and the arts, and if so, what were its successes and failures?
Is the time ripe for such conferences, and how might they best be organized, on either a "one-off" or regular basis?
Are there journals in your field hospitable to interdisciplinary work in cognitive science/neuroscience and the arts? Is the time ripe for a journal devoted to such interdisciplinary work? for more specialized interdisciplinary journals?

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