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Lecture

Whitehead lectures: Iain McGilchrist on the asymmetry of the brain and human meaning


2 Dec 2015, 4:00pm - 5:00pm

Lecture theatre, Ben Pimlott Building

Event overview

Department Psychology , Computing
Contact mas01pf(@gold.ac.uk)

Dr Iain McGilchrist (Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and Consultant Psychiatrist Emeritus of the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London) explains why everything you think you know about differences between the brain hemispheres is wrong.

ABSTRACT:
Almost everything you think you know about differences between the brain hemispheres is wrong. The topic was taken over and distorted by pop psychology, and hence understandably, but nonetheless irrationally, neglected by the mainstream. That changed with the publication of Iain McGilchrist's 'The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World' by Yale in 2009.

So why is the brain, an organ that exists only to make connections, divided and asymmetrical? Why is it that, as every physician knows, the side, not just the site, of a brain lesion can make a huge difference to what happens? What does it tell us about the structure of the world we inhabit? Iain McGIlchrist will argue that lateralisation is now the topic in neuroscience of greatest significance for understanding the human condition.

BIOGRAPHY:
Iain McGilchrist is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. He was a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He delivered the Samuel Gee lecture at the Royal College of Physicians in 2014.

He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, medicine and psychiatry. He is the author of 'Against Criticism' (Faber 1982), 'The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World' (Yale 2009), The Divided Brain and 'The Search for Meaning; Why Are We So Unhappy?' (e-book short) and is currently working on a book entitled 'The Porcupine is a Monkey, or, Things Are Not What They Seem' to be published by Penguin Press.

Dates & times

Date Time Add to calendar
2 Dec 2015 4:00pm - 5:00pm
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