NeuroStories: Narratives of the Brain, Mind, and Heart

Catalog description

What if you lost the ability to read, but could still write? What if your family members suddenly seemed like sinister replicas of their real selves? What if you were fully conscious, but could move and communicate only by blinking one eye? Can a person who can’t experience empathy lead an honorable life? Our brains are infinitely complex, which means they can be infinitely altered or divergent from what we think of as “typical.” In this seminar, we examine neurological conditions and differences as they appear in stories, from case studies and popular nonfiction to theatre, film, and television. We ask what the existence of these conditions teaches us about the link between our neural architecture and what we might otherwise call spirit, essence, heart, mind, or soul, and what people with neurological differences might understand in a way neurotypical people can’t. We also examine how people with neurodivergent profiles are represented in popular media, in part through the lens of the rapidly growing neurodiversity movement. Throughout the semester, we will reflect on the incomprehensible power of this spongy tissue in our skulls, and how everything we learn about it opens up new mysteries.