Ruby Prinsen

In November I had the opportunity to attend the International Embodied Cognitive Science conference (eCogs 2025) hosted by the Embodied Cognitive Science Unit. This workshop has been on my radar since I started my PhD, but only this year was I in the position to attend.

I had forgotten just how nice it is to talk with like-minded people about embodiment – including debates about mental representations, conversations about Merleau-Ponty and Husserl, and jokes about collective action and embodiment. I forgot just how niche the area is until I’m in a room of people all making similar arguments in a lot of different subjects.

This year’s theme was Agency Across Scales: From Cells to Societies, which lends to autopoietic enactivism, so the Embodied Mind and Maturana came up quite a bit. Many of the talks were about the interaction of agency/free will, embodiment, and mechanisms within the body and between people.

I presented a poster that discussed the research study I am currently conducting, as well as the interaction model I propose. The conversations I had at the conference, and questions that arose from some of the talks, really spurned me on to solidify some of my own thoughts in the area, and push to publish. It’s one thing to see a gap in the research. It’s another to know how to address it but not have it fully articulated (or give a copy to anyone yet!).

I didn’t get much of a chance to see Japan, but it was really great to attend something that was so well-curated, and gave me a general taste of Okinawa. As a student, I was able to stay in the grad student accommodations (Seaside House) as part of my registration which was (as you might predict) right next to the water.

Many of the days were filled with something – an excursion, banquet, or performance. I also visited Naha quite briefly, but it was largely to find souvenirs and fabric!

I’m sad that I didn’t get a chance to see more of Japan, but now I know for sure that I need to go back.