The Monkey Dance

• 28 | Whose fault is it?

  How do we decide whether someone should be held responsible for something?   We sit down with cognitive scientist Katarina Kovačević to talk about ascribing responsibility, and how our intuitions about responsibility shape behavior. We chat about the differences between knowing and not knowing what we're doing is wrong, versus the grey area of having had access to the knowledge but avoiding it.   We also cover Katarina's work on victim blaming, what all of this means about our relationship with the legal systems we live under, and how to account for situations where a machine (like AI) is involved.   Joining us as a co-host is philosopher Pelin Kasar (our guest from Episode 6).   Guest: Katarina Kovačević Co-host: Pelin Kasar

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• 27 | Student protests in Serbia

  This episode was recorded at 11:30 on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.   Yesterday (March 10), students blocked access to the state-run Serbian public television headquarters, accusing it of biased coverage. As of this recording, hundreds of students continue to block access to the building.   There is a major protest scheduled for Saturday, March 15.   Since November of 2024, students in universities across Serbia have been organizing mass protests across the country against the corrupt, autocratic government of Aleksandar Vučić. While the media coverage has focused on the protests themselves, the engine of the student-led movement is a unified, multilateral experiment in absolute democracy that has managed to maintain a flat hierarchy and a single set of demands.   Serbian philosopher and anthropologist Aleksandra Knežević joins us to talk about her ongoing work with the movement as both a participant and a researcher. She has been allowed by the students to research the movement, and has been conducting interviews and joining the student meetings as an observer.   Guest: Aleksandra Knežević Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade   Check out Aleksandra's autoethnography of her experience with the movement: An Autoethnographic Account of the Anti-Corruption Student Protests in Serbia 2024/25   Aleksandra also recommends:   1. An academic article by Katarina Beširević on the protests: “Nisi nadležan”: How a Student Movement Dictates Political Change in Serbia (2024/2025)   2. From The Guardian by Adriana Zaharijević: Serbia’s students are showing the world how to restore democratic hope   If the links don't work in your podcast player, you can find links to Aleksandra's paper and the other articles in the show notes:  https://www.monkeydancepod.com/episodes/episode-27  

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• 26 | How does the brain understand comic books?

  Making sense of a series of graphic representations is not simple, but our brains manage to do it with little effort. Our conversation with Neil Cohn starts out with a rethinking of language, moving from an understanding built solely on spoken language to the ability to express meaning across a range of modalities. This moves us into Neil's work on how we develop the ability to understand visual narratives and what this means for our understanding of language as a whole. We chat about emojis, comics, children's books, and a bunch of other fun stuff.   Guest: Neil Cohn (personal website) Co-Host: Xueyi Yao   Links to everything on the Monkey Dance website: https://www.monkeydancepod.com/episodes/episode-26

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• 25 | How does toxicity shape conversations?

  And how can complexity science help us understand them? We sit down with network scientist Gabriela Juncosa to discuss how political discourse unfolds in online spaces and whether toxic interactions shut conversations down or keep them going. We chat about the structure of online discussions, how social media algorithms influence engagement, and whether the way we talk online differs from in-person interactions. This takes us to the role of network structures in polarization, the ways AI might intervene in online discourse, and whether we can design digital spaces that foster both engagement and constructive dialogue. Joining us as a cohost is philosopher Phyllis Pearson (our guest from Episode 24).   Guest: Gabriela Juncosa Co-host: Phyllis Pearson   Show notes on the Monkey Dance website

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• 24 | What does it mean to be open minded?

  We use the terms open mindedness and gaslighting a lot, but do we really understand what they mean? We sit down with Phyllis Pearson to discuss what it means to engage honestly with information and with others. We chat about curiosity and agency, empathy and perspective taking, and the blurry line between being open to the beliefs of others versus maintaining skepticism and asking for justification. This takes us to what honest dialogue looks like, whether gaslighting is always malicious, and what it means to have epistemic agency and to ascribe that agency to others.   Guest: Phyllis Pearson Co-host: Juliette Vazard (our guest on Episode 20)   As always, show notes on the Monkey Dance website.

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