Guest post on the Replicated Typo by Peeter Tinits and Oleg Sobchuk. Originally posted here.
As mentioned in this blog before, evolutionary thinking can help the study of various cultural practices, not just language. The perspective of cultural evolution is currently seeing an interesting case of global growth and coordination – the widely featured founding of the Cultural Evolution Society (also on replicatedtypo), the recent inaugural conference and follow-ups are bringing a diverse set of researchers around the same table. If this has gone past you unnoticed – there’s nice resourcesgathered on the society website.
Evolutionary thinking seems useful for various purposes. However does it work the same everywhere, and can research progress in one domain be easily carried over to another?
To make better sense of it, we’re organizing a small conference to discuss the ways that evolutionary thinking can be best applied in different domains. The event “Applications in Cultural Evolution: Arts, Languages, Technologies” is to take place in June 6-8 in Tartu, Estonia. Pleanary speakers include:
We invite contributions from cultural evolution researchers of various persuasions and interests to talk about their work and how the evolutionary models help with that. Deadline for abstracts on Feb 14.
Discussion of individual contributions will hopefully lead to a better understanding of commonalities and differences in how cultural evolution is applied in different areas, and help build an understanding of how to most productively use evolutionary thinking – what are the prospects and limitations. We aim to allow for building a common ground through plenty of space and opportunities for formal and informal discussion on site.
Both case studies and general perspectives welcome. In addition to original research we encourage participants to think of the following questions:
– What do you get out of cultural evolution research?
– How should we best apply evolutionary thinking to culture?
– What matters when we apply this to different domains or timescales?
Deadline for abstracts: February 14, 2018
Event dates: June 6-8
Location: Tartu University, Estonia
Full call for papers and information on the website. Also available as PDF.