Professor John Sutton

I am John Sutton, a cognitive philosopher working on memory, skill, the cognitive humanities, place, and distributed cognition. I am Leverhulme International Professor at the University of Stirling, and Director of the Centre for the Sciences of Place and Memory. You can visit the Centre website to find out more about our work or sign up for updates on upcoming events and projects: https://placememory.net

You can find a full list of my publications at https://johnsutton.net/publications/ , where most are available open access. My academic CV (September 2024) is available at https://johnsutton.net/john-sutton-cv/ and includes further details of my research, teaching, and collaborations.

Before joining Stirling, I was Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Macquarie University in Sydney, where I worked for many years until 2021. In 2022-23, I was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Paris, working with the Brain, Culture, and Society programme on City Design and the Brain: a dialogue between architecture and neuroscience.

I am the author of Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to Connectionism (Cambridge University Press), and co-editor of four volumes, most recently Collaborative Embodied Performance: Ecologies of Skill (with Kath Bicknell, Bloomsbury), and of seven special journal issues. My long-term research has addressed collaborative recall, intelligent action, perspective in memory, and cognitive history. Recent work has focused on context in memory, film editing, place memory, joint expertise, and Maurice Halbwachs on dreams.

At the Centre for the Sciences of Place and Memory, I work with our Deputy Director, Professor Paula Reavey ( see https://placememory.net/people ), and an interdisciplinary team of postdoctoral fellows:

Dr Ruth Olden - memory, identity, and creative practice Dr Dale Leorke - urban heritage and digital culture Dr Safet HadziMuhamedovic - anthropology of memory and reconciliation Dr Tania Manuel Casimiro - archaeology and collective remembrance Dr Pablo Fernandez Velasco - philosophy of perception and cognition Dr Paul Max Morin - indigenous histories and cultural memory Dr Sofya Shahab - religion, displacement, and memory

We also have a cohort of eight PhD researchers, a strong international advisory board, and an expanding network of Associate Members working across philosophy, psychology, environment, heritage, and the arts. Together we are developing new ways of understanding memory and place, collaborating across multiple disciplines.

I am a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, past President of the Australasian Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and President of the Australasian Association of Philosophy for 2025-26.