Research interests and collaboration goals

Currently, I am doing research on cultural variance in folk psychology and theories about its cognitive underpinnings. I am interested in the influence of culture on the mind and plan to focus my academic work on that area of study. This includes further research on conceptual development across cultures, cognitive literary studies, semiotics and cognitive linguistics. I am open to collaboration within these fields.

Education

• 2015 – present The John Paul II Catholic University Of Lublin
  PhD Philosophy of Mind (cognitive science)
  • My research focuses on cross-cultural variance in mindreading and the influence of linguistic and socio-cultural context on conceptual development. I focus on the search for a theoretical framework capable of accounting for current cross-cultural empirical data on the subject.
• 2009 – 2014 The John Paul II Catholic University Of Lublin
  MA English Studies (literary theory)
  • I specialized in contemporary British literature. My research included semiotics and cognitive literary theory. I was interested in how minds are represented in narratives.  Dissertation on Will Self’s The Book of Dave.
• Other
  • Apart from academic work, I am also an active teacher of English as a foreign language, as well as an English-Polish translator.
• Languages
  • Polish (native); English (fluent)

Publications

1. Mirski, Robert (2016): Web of Madness: Conceptual Network and Consciousness in Will Self’s “The Book of Dave”. In Grzegorz Maziarczyk, Joanna Klara Teske (Eds.): Novelistic inquiries into the mind. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 95–111.
2. “In Search of a Theory: The Interpretative Challenge of Empirical Findings on Cultural Variance in Mindreading” together with Arkadiusz Gut (in print)

Conferences

1. Participation in a debate; “Critical problems of neuroscience: the mirror neuron system and intersubjectivity” on 9/3/2016 at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
2. Linguistic and Cultural Contexts in the Functioning and Development of the Mindreading System (poster prepared together with: Arkadiusz Gut, Robert Mirski, Zhenxu Fan); 1^st Context, Cognition and Communication Participation conference, University of Warsaw, 15.06.2016;
3. Presentation of a paper; “Culture, language, and theory of mind in the developmental systems paradigm” at 11^th Conference of the Polish Cognitive Science Association on 22-24/9/2016 in Białystok.
4. Presentation of a paper; “Current theoretical challenges of research on mindreading – cross-cultural perspective” at “Experimental Philosophy: the Mind in Culture” conference, 22/11/2016 at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin.

Teaching

1. Taught a course of Logic to undergraduate students in Winter Semester 2015/2016 at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin.
2. Taught a course entitled “Architecture of the Mind” to undergraduate students of Cognitive Science in Spring Semester 2015/2016 at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin.
3. Teaching English at a language school.

Other

1. Translation of a book of poems Arranging stones so that they sit straight: How I put stones in a straight line by Wojciech Dunin-Kozicki from Polish (in print)