Here is this week's blog entry on the show:
And now on with this week's show.A.S Byatt, her passion for brains, & bridging the Two Cultures
She's obsessed with the Fibonacci Spiral, snail neurons, and ants....and loves to talk shop with neuroscientists.
Ah, that's my sort of novelist.
The acclaimed writer, A.S Byatt, is my guest on All in the Mind this week.
Dame Antonia Susan Byatt. Have you read her Man Booker Prize winning novel, Possession: A Romance?
Antonia started her studies at Cambridge when the English physicist and novelist, C.P Snow, launched The Two Cultures debate with his now notorious Rede Lecture in 1959.
The Two Cultures. Science. The Humanities.
Never the twain shall meet?
Codswallop. I certainly like to think they do each week on All in the Mind! My great passion, as is Antonio's you'll discover, is to explore how the two are necessarily intertwined in our effort to understand the world. Shakespeare and synesthesia, brain scans and Balzac - we need them all - and both can inform each other in surprising and important ways.
Perhaps we both form part of the 'Third Culture' that Charles Percy Snow heralded the need for in his original lecture. A community of communicators...bridge builders between the disciplines.
A.S Byatt digs deeply into science as part of the research process for her novels, and I must admit, hearing how she goes about that made me want to go and try my hand at writing fiction one day. In my dreams? Perhaps!
Here's some extra audio of a meeting between a great novelist and the great neuroscientist. Have a listen after you've caught the show this week.
A.S Byatt and Giacomo Rizzolatti met on the stage at the EuroScience Open Forum in Italy. Thanks to the ESOF crew for sharing this recording with me.
Novelist A.S Byatt (11:33)
AS_Byatt_Giacomo_Rizzolatti_Part_1
Neuroscientist Giacomo Rizzolatti (13:24)
AS_Byatt_Giacomo_Rizzolatti_Part_2
A.S Byatt and Giacomo Rizzolatti (10:40)AS_Byatt_Giacomo_Rizzolatti_Part_3
And, here are some further titbits from my interview with A.S Byatt:
Byatt contemplates why she's a little bored with novels focused on feelings.
More on why the discovery of mirror neurons by Giacomo and colleagues hit her where it matters - in the gut!
Feel free to share your reflections here on the blog, or over on the All in the Mind website, where I've also included links and references that relate to my conversation with A.S Byatt.For even more science writing fair, ABC Radio National's The Book Show featured former West Australian premier and psychologist, Carmen Lawrence, with her strong critique of science writing in Australia this week. She described it as "professional and workman like"...and suggests that "scientific writing is not subject to the same scrutiny as even other forms of non-fiction might be".
What do you think?
Any reviews of favourite science writers you'd like to share?
Listen to Carmen's thoughts here. The same edition features Australian science writer, Elizabeth Finkel, discussing her approach to non-fiction science narrative. Elizabeth mainly writes for Cosmos Magazine.
If you're in the mood for more, catch the recent Reith Lectures by Lord Martin Rees exploring "Scientific Horizons" - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.
There's SO much on for you to tap into throughout Australia. We're in the thick of National Science Week (until 22 August), the Ultimo Science Festival (until 29 August), and the ABC's Big Sleep Survey (until 7 September).
I'll be also at the Melbourne Writer's Festival in the coming week, chairing sessions on brains (Drs Norman Doidge and Perminder Sachdev) and a grand story of a vast ocean (Simon Winchester with his new book, The Atlantic).
Gotta get reading.
Enjoy.
A.S Byatt: Woman of letters and ...science!
Listen Now - 2010-08-21 |Download Audio - 21082010
Booker prize winning novelist A.S Byatt
Booker Prize winning novelist A.S Byatt has a thing for words. But do you know about her passion for science? In neuroscience she's discovered what she's always sensed about the workings of her own head as a writer - and you must hear what's going on in her unique mind! She joins Natasha to discuss snail brains, mirror neurons and more for National Science Week.
Transcripts are published on Wednesdays. Audio on Saturdays after broadcast
Guests
A.S Byatt
Professor Giacomo Rizzolatti
Director of the Department of Neurosciences
Università degli Studi di Parma
Italy
http://www.unipr.it/arpa/mirror/english/staff/rizzolat.htmFurther Information
All in the Mind blog with Natasha Mitchell
A place to engage, or you can add your comments directly above too (look for Add Your Comment). Features extra audio this week too.Presenter Natasha Mitchell on Twitter
The novelist and the neuroscientist: Video of dialogue between Dame A.S Byatt and Professor Giacomo Rizzolatti
Recorded by ESOF2010, Torino, Italy. July 2010.Novel thoughts
Essay by A.S Byatt in the Times Literary Supplement, 2007
"Neuroscience is helping us to understand how art works - and it may offer us a way out of narcissism".Writing the Brain: Neuroscience and creativity with novelist Sue Woolfe
Broadcast on All in the Mind, 2007The Marco Polo of Neuroscience: V.S. Ramachandran
Broadcast on All in the Mind in 2007A.S. Byatt on 'her writing room' - The Guardian newspaper
Art on the Mind: Neuroesthetics, and the artist as brain scientist!
Broadcast on All in the Mind in 2009Interview with A.S. Byatt about her 2009 novel, The Children's Book
David Eagleman discusses synesthesia on All in the Mind (2009)
Publications
Title: The Mechanization of the Mind: On the Origins of Cognitive Science
Author: Jean-Pierre Dupuy and M. B. DeBevoise (Translator)
Publisher: Princeton University Press (December 15, 2000)Title: Cognitive psychology
Author: Ulric Neisser
Publisher: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1996Title: Mirrors in the Brain: How Our Minds Share Actions, Emotions, and Experience
Author: Giacomo Rizzolatti and Corrado Sinigaglia. Frances Anderson(Translator)
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2008Title: Origins of the Human Brain
Author: Edited by Jean-Pierre Changeux and Jean Chavaillon
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1996
ISBN13: 978-0-19-852390-1 ISBN10: 0-19-852390-4Presenter
Natasha Mitchell
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