https://markovicjelena.com Jelena Markovic Sun, 17 Nov 2024 12:24:47 +0000 https://markovicjelena.com en https://markovicjelena.com/Home Sat, 25 Jul 2020 06:28:35 +0000 Jelena Markovic https://markovicjelena.com/Home <img width="7952" height="5304" width_o="7952" height_o="5304" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/30364ff9a15d47a366559102af01f1e0aa40ac5292fbea4a262e4c976f81cffc/Tomato-Gossip-16.jpg" data-mid="221905571" border="0" data-scale="98" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/30364ff9a15d47a366559102af01f1e0aa40ac5292fbea4a262e4c976f81cffc/Tomato-Gossip-16.jpg" />Photo by Kimberly Ho I am a philosopher, working in empirically-informed philosophy of mind and moral psychology. My research focuses on unchosen transformative experiences, especially grief, and on the philosophical psychology of attention. In my work on grief, I have argued that grief is an unchosen transformative experience involving a disruption to and reorganization of organized systems of practical meaning. In addition to articles on transformative experience, I have published on the cognitive science and philosophy of attention, including on affect-biased attention, hypnosis, and meditative states. I am currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Contemplative Sciences Centre at the University of Virginia, affiliated with the Corcoran Department of Philosophy.&nbsp;I completed my PhD in philosophy from the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Prof. Evan Thompson. Prior to my current position, I was postdoctoral fellow with the GATES project at the&nbsp;Maison de la Création et de l’Innovation&nbsp;at the Université Grenoble Alpes, affiliated with the Centre for Philosophy of Memory and the Performance Lab.&nbsp; I am also an artist. My practice takes the forms of writing, collaborative research, and performance art. I was a founding member of the performance collective CUERPO, led by Guadalupe Martinez. https://markovicjelena.com/Research Wed, 18 Sep 2019 06:39:34 +0000 Jelena Markovic https://markovicjelena.com/Research Research My doctoral work is on transformative experience, specifically transformative experiences that we do not choose to undergo, such as grief and illness. Unchosen transformative experiences highlight a distinct problem for agency not addressed by the extant literature on transformative experience: they alter your agency and sense of self by disrupting the projects and activities that are significant to you and through which you experience your surroundings as meaningful. I give a descriptive phenomenological account of grief and other unchosen transformative experiences as involving a disruption to and reorganization of organized systems of practical meaning. I also work on the philosophy and psychology of attention, specifically, affect-biased attention. I have published work on the neural bases of affect-biased attention, the role of affect-biased attention in spontaneous thought, and the significance of affect-biased attention for predictive coding theories of the mind. Essay A grief with no name (2024) Aeon Cultural bereavement—grief at being culturally uprooted and losing one’s home country—has been neglected in theoretical work on grief. It presents a unique problem to the griever: how to get the object of grief into clear view. Unlike the experience of losing a loved one, in which secondary losses (like material goods or social roles) cluster around a central primary loss (that of the death), cultural loss is diffuse, having to do with how multiple events occurring across a long timescale shape the life of the people in a culture. The griever’s direct experience cannot touch the whole loss, making it difficult for the griever to find ways to direct their emotional response to what they have lost.&nbsp; I suggest that grief comes into view through a transformation in the ethical perspective of the griever. The notion of ethical perspective is meant to capture the ways in which our values and commitments shape how we find events to be significant.&nbsp; Papers Transformative grief (2023) Markovic, J. European Journal of Philosophy Abstract: This paper argues that grieving a profound loss is a transformative experience, specifically an unchosen transformative experience, understood as an event-based transformation not chosen by the agent. Grief transforms the self (i) cognitively, by forcing the agent to alter a large set of beliefs and desires, (ii) phenomenologically, by altering their experience in a diffuse or global manner, (iii) normatively, by requiring the agent to revise their practical identity, and (iv) existentially, by confronting the agent with a structuring condition of their life. Grief is a disruption to one's identity that an agent addresses by making sense of the world after the loss, remaking the practical significance of various situations in their lives through their activity. Transformative grief is both an “activity” and a “revelation” (Callard, 2020): Some parts of the grieving process are active (the agent must actively work to become a new kind of person), while others are irreducibly passive (the agent passively undergoes them). Unchosen transformative experiences and the experience of agency (2021) Markovic, J. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences&nbsp; Abstract: Unchosen transformative experiences—transformative experiences that are imposed upon an agent by external circumstances—present a fundamental problem for agency: how does one act intentionally in circumstances that transform oneself as an agent, and that disrupt one’s core projects, cares, or goals? Drawing from William James’s analysis of conversion (1917) and Matthew Ratcliffe’s account of grief (2018), I give a phenomenological analysis of transformative experiences as involving the restructuring of systems of practical meaning. On this analysis, an agent’s experience of the world is structured by practically significant possibilities that form organized systems on the basis of the agent’s projects and relationships. Transformative experiences involve shifts to systems of possibility, that is, changes to habitual meanings and to how an agent’s projects are situated in relation to one another. I employ the enactivist notion of sense-making to analyze how an agent rebuilds the meaning structures disrupted by a transformative experience. In an unchosen transformative experience, an agent adjusts to a significant disruption through a process of sense-making in precarious conditions. By establishing new patterns of bodily and social interaction with the world, one alters the practical meanings of one’s surroundings, and thereby reconstitutes oneself as an intentional agent. Affect-Biased Attention and Predictive Processing (2020)Ransom, M., Fazelpour, S., Markovic, J., Kryklywy, J. H., Thompson, E., &amp; Todd, R.&nbsp; Cognition&nbsp; Abstract: In this paper we argue that predictive processing (PP) theory cannot account for the phenomenon of affect-biased attention – prioritized attention to stimuli that are affectively salient because of their associations with reward or punishment. Specifically, the PP hypothesis that selective attention can be analyzed in terms of the optimization of precision expectations cannot accommodate affect-biased attention; affectively salient stimuli can capture our attention even when precision expectations are low. We review the prospects of three recent attempts to accommodate affect with tools internal to PP theory: Miller and Clark's (2018) embodied inference; Seth's (2013) interoceptive inference; and Joffily and Coricelli's (2013) rate of change of free energy. In each case we argue that the account does not resolve the challenge from affect-biased attention. For this reason, we conclude that prediction error minimization is not sufficient to explain all mental phenomena, contrary to the claim that the PP framework provides a unified theory of all mental phenomena or the brain's cognitive functioning. Nevertheless, we suggest that empirical investigation of the interaction between affective salience and precision expectations should prove helpful in understanding the limits of PP theory, and may provide new directions for the application of a Bayesian perspective to perception. Affective neuroscience of self-generated thought (2018) Fox, K.C.R., Andrews-Hanna, J.R., Mills, C., Dixon, M.L., Markovic, J., Thompson, E., Christoff, K. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Abstract: Despite increasing scientific interest in self-generated thought—mental content largely independent of the immediate environment—there has yet to be any comprehensive synthesis of the subjective experience and neural correlates of affect in these forms of thinking. Here, we aim to develop an integrated affective neuroscience encompassing many forms of self-generated thought—normal and pathological, moderate and excessive, in waking and in sleep. In synthesizing existing literature on this topic, we reveal consistent findings pertaining to the prevalence, valence, and variability of emotion in self-generated thought, and highlight how these factors might interact with self-generated thought to influence general well-being. We integrate these psychological findings with recent neuroimaging research, bringing attention to the neural correlates of affect in self-generated thought. We show that affect in self-generated thought is prevalent, positively biased, highly variable (both within and across individuals), and consistently recruits many brain areas implicated in emotional processing, including the orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, insula, and medial prefrontal cortex. Many factors modulate these typical psychological and neural patterns, however; emerging affective neuroscience of self-generated thought must endeavor to link brain function and subjective experience in both everyday self-generated thought as well as its dysfunctions in mental illness. Hypnosis and Meditation: a neurophenomenological comparison (2017) Markovic, J., Thompson, E.&nbsp; Hypnosis and Meditation: Towards an Integrative Science of Conscious Planes, A. Raz and M. Lifshitz (Eds.) Abstract: A necessary first step in collaboration between hypnosis research and meditation research is clarification of key concepts. The authors propose that such clarification is best advanced by neurophenomenological investigations that integrate neuroscience methods with phenomenological models based
on first-person reports of hypnotic versus meditative experiences. Focusing
on absorption, the authors argue that previous treatments of hypnosis
and meditation as equivalent are incorrect, but that they can be fruitfully compared when characteristic features of the states described by these concepts are examined. To this end, the authors use the “phenomenological and neurocognitive matrix of mindfulness” (PNM), a multidimensional model recently proposed by Lutz and colleagues. The authors compare focused attention meditation and open monitoring meditation with hypnosis across the dimensions of the PNM, using it to interpret empirical research on hypnosis, and to shed light on debates about the role of meta-awareness in hypnosis and the role of suggestion in meditation. Tuning to the significant: neural and genetic processes underlying affective enhancement of visual perception and memory (2014) Markovic, J., Anderson, A. K., &amp; Todd, R. M. Behavioural brain research Abstract: Emotionally arousing events reach awareness more easily and evoke greater visual cortex activation than more mundane events. Recent studies have shown that they are also perceived more vividly and that emotionally enhanced perceptual vividness predicts memory vividness. We propose that affect-biased attention (ABA) – selective attention to emotionally salient events – is an endogenous attentional system tuned by an individual’s history of reward and punishment. We present the Biased Attention via Norepinephrine (BANE) model, which unifies genetic, neuromodulatory, neural and behavioural evidence to account for ABA. We review evidence supporting BANE’s proposal that a key mechanism of ABA is locus coeruleus–norepinephrine (LC–NE) activity, which interacts with activity in hubs of affective salience net- works to modulate visual cortex activation and heighten the subjective vividness of emotionally salient stimuli. We further review literature on biased competition and look at initial evidence for its potential as a neural mechanism behind ABA. We also review evidence supporting the role of the LC–NE system as a driving force of ABA. Finally, we review individual differences in ABA and memory including differ- ences in sensitivity to stimulus category and valence. We focus on differences arising from a variant of the ADRA2b gene, which codes for the alpha2b adrenoreceptor as a way of investigating influences of NE availability on ABA in humans. https://markovicjelena.com/Teaching Wed, 18 Sep 2019 06:43:09 +0000 Jelena Markovic https://markovicjelena.com/Teaching Teaching Instructor (University of British Columbia) Minds and Machines (PHIL250), Summer 2019 This course addresses topics in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, including functionalism, physicalism, the extended mind, and algorithmic bias. Teaching assistant (University of British Columbia) Bio-Medical Ethics (PHIL331), Fall 2019 Comparative Conceptions of Self (PHIL470), Spring 2019 Social and Political Philosophy (PHIL330), Fall 2018, Spring 2020 Buddhist, Brahmanical and Jain Philosophers in Interaction (PHIL 388), Fall 2017 Philosophy of Mind (PHIL 451), Spring 2016 &amp; Fall 2017 Environmental Ethics (PHIL 322), Fall 2016 Philosophy of Religion (PHIL 349), Spring 2015 Philosophy of Literature (PHIL 375), Fall 2014 Introduction to Philosophy (PHIL101), Fall 2011 Introduction to Philosophy II (PHIL102), Spring 2011 Teaching assistant (University of Toronto) Introduction to Philosophy (PHL100), Fall 2009 – Spring 2010 https://markovicjelena.com/Performance-2 Wed, 20 Sep 2023 21:39:45 +0000 Jelena Markovic https://markovicjelena.com/Performance-2 Film heart rate August 2024&nbsp; C.L.A.M., Bestway Studio September 2024&nbsp; Fluxus Experimental Film Festival, Factory Media Centre October 2024 Small File Film Festival, The Cinematheque, Vancouver BC Group Exhibitions Hierophant March 2022 After Progress, Goldsmiths, University of London Performances Chapter 2: SKIN March 2021 Reflections on a Window Glass,&nbsp;Empty Space Studio attachment&nbsp; March 2019 OnSite performance art festival, University of British Columbia care for me August 2018 Unit 17 Gallery, Vancouver BC As part of CUERPO con mi abuela/ kod dede&nbsp; October 2019 Spill: Response at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery from tree to fountain&nbsp; June 2019 Cathedral Square, Vancouver for Or Gallery Workshops Transformations of Self August 2023 SFU Gallery, Burnaby BC Embodied Writing Workshop March 2021 Empty Space Studio IG Part of&nbsp; reflections on a window glass by Guadalupe Martinez https://markovicjelena.com/Hierophant-1 Fri, 15 Apr 2022 22:04:43 +0000 Jelena Markovic https://markovicjelena.com/Hierophant-1 <img width="4592" height="3064" width_o="4592" height_o="3064" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/85e56cbc3c1282d4c346b811a0378f8c33ecb1628fe7c6e998e2f97a40b48ed0/20210514_P2060024.jpg" data-mid="191422970" border="0" data-scale="80" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/85e56cbc3c1282d4c346b811a0378f8c33ecb1628fe7c6e998e2f97a40b48ed0/20210514_P2060024.jpg" /> hierophantVideo work with Fiona Oliver-Larkin and Lucas Chih-Peng Kao After Progress, Goldsmiths, University of London Curated by Dr. Martin Savransky and Dr. Craig LundyFeaturing physical theatre and spoken text, this short film poem asks: How do we act and make decisions in the context of interdependence and contingency? How does a person carve out a meaningful life beyond the hero’s journey? After progress, is anything sacred? Made as an international collaboration across Vancouver and Edinburgh, "Hierophant" features three characters and their quests for meaning. Through fragments of poetic dialogue, “case studies”, diary entries, and inner monologues spoken aloud, the characters reveal themselves and their life philosophies. One character, “Y”, is an action-oriented individualist, who embodies the classical rational agent progressing linearly towards a goal. The second character, “Miloš”, is aware of his interdependence with others but stuck in despair, swallowed up by his grief for ecological and human suffering. The narrator is at turns both individuals, as she alternates between the dichotomous poles of having a certain kind of purpose and despair at her failure to achieve it. See the video&nbsp;here. https://markovicjelena.com/heart-rate Sun, 17 Nov 2024 12:24:47 +0000 Jelena Markovic https://markovicjelena.com/heart-rate <img width="6976" height="4688" width_o="6976" height_o="4688" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7ddf59bc22dafc9b558ed2dcce08bdfecc43d5d1d0dcbf226a60e58aa879760c/title-image.jpg" data-mid="221904065" border="0" data-scale="85" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7ddf59bc22dafc9b558ed2dcce08bdfecc43d5d1d0dcbf226a60e58aa879760c/title-image.jpg" /> heart rateShort film, 3:13 min A narrator recounts a brief but meaningful connection.&nbsp;A single-take audio over a slideshow of 35mm photos. Screened at: August 2024: C.L.A.M. — Bestway Studio.&nbsp;Vancouver, BC. September 2024:&nbsp;Fluxus Experimental Film Festival — Factory Media Centre. Hamilton, ON. October 2024: Small File Film Festival&nbsp;— The Cinematheque. Vancouver, BC. &nbsp; Heart Rate was created for the Small File Film Festival, a festival for low-resolution films that aims to bring awareness to the ecological footprint of streaming media.&nbsp; https://markovicjelena.com/Chapter-2-SKIN Sat, 29 May 2021 00:04:28 +0000 Jelena Markovic https://markovicjelena.com/Chapter-2-SKIN Chapter 2: SKIN for Reflections on a Window Glass by Guadalupe Martinez Presented at Empty Space Studio, Tehran and Vancouver, March 2021 A reflection on bodily experience and enactivist theory in a surrealist and lyrical style. Part of Reflections on a Window Glass, a&nbsp; video project bringing together women artists to share their experiences and tools for healing during the time of the pandemic. See the video here.Filmed and edited by Luciana Freire D'Anunciaçao <img width="1440" height="811" width_o="1440" height_o="811" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/029538f0998443485274fd805f5445654a6f88acc0a7f90ccae5d4af74867db5/Screen-Shot-2021-05-28-at-5.22.44-PM.png" data-mid="109827124" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/029538f0998443485274fd805f5445654a6f88acc0a7f90ccae5d4af74867db5/Screen-Shot-2021-05-28-at-5.22.44-PM.png" /><img width="1439" height="808" width_o="1439" height_o="808" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7b74eea239669747abbdf835b40640e1e74b7a2e17ce49d5c965de6c1d7a8a20/Screen-Shot-2021-05-28-at-5.21.34-PM.png" data-mid="109827229" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7b74eea239669747abbdf835b40640e1e74b7a2e17ce49d5c965de6c1d7a8a20/Screen-Shot-2021-05-28-at-5.21.34-PM.png" /> https://markovicjelena.com/philosophy-s-crazy-ex-girlfriend Wed, 22 Jul 2020 07:25:36 +0000 Jelena Markovic https://markovicjelena.com/philosophy-s-crazy-ex-girlfriend philosophy’s crazy ex-girlfriend Titled after Carrie Jenkins. 20th Annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference on Colonialism in the Academy, February 29, 2020. Hosted by the Department of Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies at the University of British Columbia.Classical accounts of the role of philosophy in mental life (e.g. Plato’s Republic) point to philosophy’s role in promoting the proper function of reason. On the classical picture, reason has the role of a monarch that controls the other passions and energies in a body. In this piece, I illustrate that the classical picture persists in philosophy’s methodology. Philosophy can be seen to employ an imperialist methodology whereby it alone possesses the definitive set of standards for understanding and evaluating other disciplines and practices. The singular focus on reason to assess and control results in a lack of understanding of what some activities, practices, and disciplines are about. For example, the evaluative approach sidelines body-based knowledges and practices, which may employ standards such as conscious presence or ritual, that are at best uninformatively characterized as arational or instrumental by a ratiocentric approach.The impact of this approach extends to the manner of engagement between philosophers themselves. The lack of porousness of philosophical methodology, and philosophy’s lack of curiosity about what certain disciplines and practices are doing on their own terms, extends to an academic culture in which philosophical inquiry has a dearth of genuine collaboration and interpersonal engagement. Further, because of philosophy’s failure to interrogate the oppressive undertones of its conception of reason, marginalized individuals can feel like test cases or testimonies not granted true subjecthood and agency by the discipline. I illustrate the latter point by playing the role of a hurt lover who has been expected to be vulnerable without genuine reciprocity from her beloved.Photos by Angela Fama <img width="3024" height="3024" width_o="3024" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/820689f29bccad62ae241d5fe1f60a19615df64ad0d9e30deea8b885b11e9a37/IMG_1978-2.jpg" data-mid="78299945" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/820689f29bccad62ae241d5fe1f60a19615df64ad0d9e30deea8b885b11e9a37/IMG_1978-2.jpg" /> <img width="3024" height="3024" width_o="3024" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/87d36e189dec46f1304a58d9515b787f5cfdc56c4e525005e68d627f5f750ed8/IMG_1982-2.JPG" data-mid="78299946" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/87d36e189dec46f1304a58d9515b787f5cfdc56c4e525005e68d627f5f750ed8/IMG_1982-2.JPG" /> <img width="3024" height="3024" width_o="3024" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f749f099cf4f873f2723e1a6d19d99cbcd2c6084669647440c5acf5b5d8f1810/IMG_1984-2.JPG" data-mid="78299947" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f749f099cf4f873f2723e1a6d19d99cbcd2c6084669647440c5acf5b5d8f1810/IMG_1984-2.JPG" /> https://markovicjelena.com/con-mi-abuela-kod-dede Sat, 25 Jul 2020 06:14:49 +0000 Jelena Markovic https://markovicjelena.com/con-mi-abuela-kod-dede con mi abuela / kod dede&nbsp;with Stephanie BuenoPart of Spill: Response at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Oct 22, 2019. Stephanie and I trace the countours of our family homes against the backdrop of Genevieve Robertson’s Still Running Water. About Spill: Response: Curated by Guadalupe Martinez and part of the Spill exhibition at the Belkin (September 3–December 1, 2019), this live research and performance component brings together activists, performance artists and educators whose practices consider relationships between the body, the land and forms of pedagogy that engage with healing, love and sustainability as core to their methodologies. Spill: Response performs an extension of artists Maria Thereza Alves, Nelly César, Anne Riley, Cease Wyss and Guadalupe Martinez’s artistic practices where histories of protection of the land across the Americas may intertwine and be animated in the present. Working with a group of selected students, the artists will present their research and share their knowledge at the Belkin and surrounding locations on the unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories.For more details see:Guadalupe MartinezSpill: Response at the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery Photos by Rachel Topham Photography <img width="768" height="576" width_o="768" height_o="576" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/18dd68ddc84ddb48165491fb6f69e3f73a2f4b92208d9f3ac03a297d40837a48/Belkin_spill_final_performance_23-768x576.jpg" data-mid="78300036" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/768/i/18dd68ddc84ddb48165491fb6f69e3f73a2f4b92208d9f3ac03a297d40837a48/Belkin_spill_final_performance_23-768x576.jpg" /> <img width="1920" height="1440" width_o="1920" height_o="1440" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bfb6837e604baa547dabb51d952fb2d67e9bb393241e5b76f2590ba9a728cbc1/IMG_2911.JPG" data-mid="78940511" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/bfb6837e604baa547dabb51d952fb2d67e9bb393241e5b76f2590ba9a728cbc1/IMG_2911.JPG" /> <img width="1920" height="1440" width_o="1920" height_o="1440" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ad6f9e9db67378729b691dae719aabecf2e44d0a87df29c11c7ffb1013fdc7ba/IMG_2913-2.JPG" data-mid="78940513" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ad6f9e9db67378729b691dae719aabecf2e44d0a87df29c11c7ffb1013fdc7ba/IMG_2913-2.JPG" /> https://markovicjelena.com/CUERPO-from-tree-to-fountain Sat, 25 Jul 2020 06:17:48 +0000 Jelena Markovic https://markovicjelena.com/CUERPO-from-tree-to-fountain <img width="1000" height="666" width_o="1000" height_o="666" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/da7912925eb798056f35cf2536189f3dd903746e19f101b76215f666e62bbc28/img_1886.jpg" data-mid="78300070" border="0" data-scale="85" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/da7912925eb798056f35cf2536189f3dd903746e19f101b76215f666e62bbc28/img_1886.jpg" /> CUERPO: from tree to fountainPerformance as part of CUERPO at Cathedral Square, Vancouver for Or Gallery June 12, 2019.Conceived by Guadalupe Martinez, CUERPO is an ongoing research process that places the body at the centre of knowing and enquires how it may exist within the very function of art production and art education. CUERPO's work presented for the public performance in Cathedral Square is the result of a series of collaborative workshops exploring embodiment and intimacy as ways to activate internal processes of healing, poetics, and activism. More information on Guadalupe Martinez's website: from tree to fountain.Photos by Luciana Freire D'Anunciação