Series features lecturers, across disciplines, on memory and creativity

By Paul Cody

An award-winning playwright, a psychologist interested in memory who helped found the discipline of cognitive psychology and an authority on elephant and whale communication are among the guest speakers in a Monday afternoon lecture series on memory and creativity to be offered this spring on campus.

The lectures, which are free and open to the public, are part of an English department undergraduate course, "Mind and Memory: Explorations of Creativity in the Arts and Sciences," co-directed by Diane Ackerman and James McConkey. Ackerman is a well-known poet and naturalist and the author of A Natural History of the Senses. McConkey is a novelist and essayist, author of Court of Memory and the Goldwin Smith Professor of English Emeritus at Cornell.

"Mind and Memory" explores the nature of creativity in a variety of fields. The lecturers, who are mostly Cornell faculty members, will comment on the process underlying their scientific research or their work as creative or performing artists. According to McConkey, who inaugurated the course in 1996, the initial series of lectures aroused such interest that members of the audience not only requested that the series be continued with new lecturers, but suggested the names of speakers they wished to hear.

Except for the week of spring recess, the lectures will be offered on consecutive Mondays beginning Jan. 26 and will be held from 2:55 to 4:10 p.m. in Hollis Cornell Auditorium in Goldwin Smith Hall.

The speakers (from Cornell unless otherwise noted), their professional disciplines and the titles of their talks follow:

• Jan. 26: David Feldshuh, professor and artistic director of the Center for Theatre Arts, playwright and director, "Creativity and the Actor";

• Feb. 2: John Hubbard, professor of mathematics, "Chaos and Control for the Fourth Pendulum";

• Feb. 9: Stephen Emlen, the J.G. Schurman Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior, "The Darwinian Mind: Explorations on the Evolution of Human Behavior";

• Feb. 16: Harry Segal, assistant professor of psychology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, psychotherapist, "An Ode to Psyche: Listening for the Unconscious in Literature, Narrative and Psychotherapy";

• Feb. 23: Kay WalkingStick, associate professor of art, "Exploration and Transformation";

• March 2: Joseph Burns, the I.P. Church Professor of Engineering, "Creative Observations";

• March 9: Ulric Neisser, professor of psychology, cognitive psychologist, "Memories True and False";

• March 23: Roberto Sierra, associate professor of music, composer, "Putting Sounds Together";

• March 30: Joyce Morgenroth, associate professor of theatre arts, dancer, choreographer, "Developing Intuition";

• April 6: Bryan Isacks, the W.&K. Snee Professor of Geological Sciences, "A Personal Perspective on Discovery in Earth Sciences, with Examples from the Plate Tectonics Revolution";

• April 13: Paula Horrigan, assistant professor of landscape architecture, "Creating Landscape Narratives"; and

• April 20: Katharine Payne, visiting fellow in ornithology, "Evidence of Mind and Memory in Whales and Elephants."