BRAINLAND

For the first episode of season 3 your host travelled to North London to record a conversation with Dame Uta Frith whose translation of Hans Asperger’s now famous paper was published 35 years ago. After discussing her reasons for moving to the UK, Uta talks about Lorna Wing’s work and influence before discussing the innovative and multidisciplinary clinic in which Asperger worked in the 1930 and 40s and the structure of his paper - four detailed case descriptions of children with what best translates as ‘autistic psychopathology’. We discuss origin of the term ‘autistic’ and how the concept has evolved since the 1960s, from a narrow and severely disabling non-verbal condition to a spectrum and the difficulties inherent in a condition of varying severity. The episode concludes with three short extracts from Dame Uta’s translation. In the next episode, with novelist Alice Jolly, we will discuss Asperger’s world in more detail, including recent evidence of complicity with Nazi eugenic practices. Check out Alice’s novel ‘The Matchbox Girl’.
Participants:
Dame Uta Frith FRS is Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College, London.
Ken Barrett is an artist, writer and retired neuropsychiatrist http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk/ http://cornwallcomposers.com/stephen.htm
More on Dame Uta and her research : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uta_Frith
And on the BBC's "Life Scientific: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017w65r
A review of Two Heads is here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/mar/29/two-heads-by-uta-frith-chris-frith-alex-frith-and-daniel-locke-review
Alice Jolly's novel ‘The Matchbox Girl’: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/matchbox-girl-9781526681034
More on Hans Asperger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger
Read extract from Uta's translation of Asperger's paper (with the permission of the translator) from: Chapter 2, 'Autism and Asperger Syndrome, Edied by Uta Frith, Cambridge, 1991.
Alice Jolly's novel 'The Matchbox Girl': https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/matchbox-girl-9781526681034/

Music: Prelude to Act 1 of the opera Brainland composed by Stephen Brown www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk
Sketch by KB.

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The final episode of season 2 is a compilation of 10 male and 10 female voices from season two, chosen more or less at random, about 90 seconds from each episode sampled at or around 20 minutes in. Thanks to all guests for a fascinating season and see you in season 3.
The key to the episodes and timings is below:

1.10. Kimberly Campanello.(26) DANTE, DOPAMINE AND ME: Neuro-poetic and other explorations into language.
2.36. Mark Solms. (29) '...PERCHANCE TO DREAM: On the neuroscience of sleep and dreaming...
4.12. Raquel Medina. (2) I FEEL I AM NOT IN MY PERFECT MIND: Alzheimer's and cognitive decline in movies.
5.45. Antony Penrose. (31) DREAM WARRIORS: Exploring the world of the surrealists...
7.40. Eileen Joyce and Sheldon Benjamin (10) NEUROPSYCHIATRY: Second Coming or Unholy Alliance?
9.15. Erika Dyck (13) EXPANDING MINDSCAPES: A psychedelic world tour.
10.40. Owen Flanagan (8) WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE AN ADDICT? A philosopher tells it like it is.
12.33. Fiona Sampson. (39) FRANKENSTEIN DISASSEMBLED: The remarkable life of Mary Shelley.
13.43. Nick Lane. (3) EVOLUTIONARY BIOCHEMISTRY: New perspectives on the chemistry of you.
15.20. Joanna Kempner (11) PSYCHEDELIC OUTLAWS
16.16. Jon Stock (35) WILLIAM SARGANT AND HIS 'SLEEP ROOM': Shrinks, spooks and medical hubris.
17.56 Julia Vassilieva (38) DISCOVERING EISENSTEIN: Part 2 - Neuroscientific collaborations.
19.24. Jonathan Dove (21) OH FOR THE WINGS OF A DOVE: From choirboy to Operatic Maestro.
20.57. Tricia Durdey. (7) UPSIDE DOWN IN A HOOP: Processing change through writing, dance and circus skills
22.25. Eugen Wassiliwitzky (9) POETRY AND THE NEUROAESTHETICS OF SURVIVAL.
23.33. Pia Tikka. (19) NEUROCINEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Cinema creators in the act of creation.
25.20 Frank Burke (30) DREAMWORKS: Fellini's dream obsession, from graphic diaries to movies.
26.26. Emily MacGregor (18) WHILE THE MUSIC LASTS: Life, loss and musicology.
28.28. Austin Lim (32) HORROR ON THE BRAIN: The neuroscience behind sci fi and horror.

Host: Ken Barrett, visual artist, writer and retired neuropsychiatrist: http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk

Opening music: Prelude to the opera Brainland, composed by Stephen Brown.
Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk
Portrait sketches by KB
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fiona Sampson's probing biography of Mary Shelley is the first of a trilogy of biographies of 19th century writers of the romantic period. After sharing her approach to biography, Fiona talks about Mary's famous parents: Mary Wollstonecraft, influential philosopher and educator, who died of puerpural fever shortly after Mary's birth, and William Godwin and radical philosopher. We discuss the intellectual household in which she became a precociously intelligent child, her reading that included key 'natural philosophers, of the day, two long childhood trips that found their way into 'Frankenstein', her elopement at 16 with philandering poet Shelley, the ever-present step-sister, and their subsequent travels. These included the fateful stay in Geneva where Byron had taken a villa and the idea of writing horror stories arose. The book was completed when she was only 18 and we explore the various themes and interpretations of the novel, an immediate best-seller with several early stage versions. We talk about her bereavments (3 of 4 children and Shelley, in 1822), her challenging life post-Shelley, and her other novels, including the less known but equally genre-creating 'The Last Man'. To conclude, Fiona reads a summing up section from the end of her book. A terrific in depth conversation about an extraordinary woman.

Participants:
Fiona Sampson, poet, biographer, Professor Emerita, University of Roehampton; Senior Research Fellow, Harris Manchester College University of Oxford. https://www.fionasampson.co.uk/
Ken Barrett, visual artist, writer and retired neuropsychiatrist: http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk

Fiona's biography 'In search of Mary Shelley': https://www.fionasampson.co.uk/book/in-search-of-mary-shelley-the-girl-who-wrote-frankenstein/
Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus' (1818): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein
Mary Shelley's 'The Last Man' (1826): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Man

Opening and closing music: Prelude to the opera Brainland, composed by Stephen Brown.
Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk
Portrait sketch by KB
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Soviet era film director and theorist Sergei Eisenstein began collaborating with Alexander Luria and Lev Vigotsky, key figures in neuropsychology and developmental psychology, in 1925, the year he released his most famous film, Battleship Potemkin. Julia Vassilieva, after studying psychology in Moscow, got the opportunity to study the papers of Luria and Vigotsky, both of whom had a long term collaboration with Eisenstein. We talk about them, their work, Eisenstein's involvement in their research and what he took from them. Julia outlines the perilous times they lived in, Luria means of surviving the various purges and how out of favour Vigotsky was perhaps spared execution by dying of TB in 1934. We talk about what Eisenstein regarded as his life's work, the still largely untranslated 'Method' uncompleted when he died in 1948 and future directions for Eisenstein research. Another great transdisciplinary Brainland conversation.

Participants:
Julia Vassileva, Senior Lecturer in Film and Screen Studies at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/julia-vassilieva/
Ian Christie, Professor of Film and Media History, Birkbeck, University of London. www.ianchristie.org
Ken Barrett, visual artist, writer and retired neuropsychiatrist: http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk
Papers by Julia: EISENSTEIN AND CULTURAL-HISTORICAL THEORY, 2017,
The Flying Carpet. Studies on Eisenstein and Russian Cinema in Honor of Naum Kleiman
https://www.academia.edu/40926187/
"The Eisenstein-Vygotsky-Luria Collaboration", 2019, Projections
https://www.academia.edu/100293838/The_Eisenstein_Vygotsky_Luria_Collaboration
"Psychological Humanities, Sciences, and the Arts in Russia"
in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology,2020
https://www.academia.edu/100293865/Psychological_Humanities_Sciences_and_the_Arts_in_Russia
"Sergei Eisenstein", in Screening the Past, December 2017 Great DirectorsIssue 85
https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2017/great-directors/sergei-eisenstein/
Oksana Bulgakowa’s biography of Eisenstein: https://europe.potemkinpress.com/products/oksana-bulgakowa-sergei-eisenstein-a-biography-1
More on Eisenstein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Eisenstein
Julia and Ian's recent book 'Eisenstein Universe'. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/eisenstein-universe-9781350142091/
More on A.R.Luria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Luria
A. R. Luria's 'The man with the shattered world': https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674546257
Lev Vigotsky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Vygotsky
Vigotsky's 'Psychology of Art': https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262720052/the-psychology-of-art/

Opening music: Prelude to the opera Brainland, composed by Stephen Brown.
Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk
Portrait sketch by KB
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first of two episodes on the life, work and collaborations of Soviet film director and theorist Sergei Eisenstein. Ian Christie has researched and written about Eisenstein for more than 40 years. In this wide ranging conversation, we talk about the influence of his troubled childhood, the importance of drawing throughout his life, the international fame that resulted from his second film 'Battleship Potemkin' (made a century ago) and his early theoretical writing on montage. We discuss his 3 year trip abroad, including Hollywood where he became a friend of Chaplin, the profound effect on his thinking and work of an extended trip to Mexico and the criticism he received on his return. His ill-fated and banned sound film 'Behzin Meadow', made at the height of Stalin's Purges, gets an airing before we move on to his last two films based on the life of Ivan the Terrible, the first part of which led to later criticism of him as a Stalin apologist, whilst the second part was banned by Stalin. Another great conversation. Part 2 coming soon...

Participants:
Ian Christie, Professor of Film and Media History, Birckbeck, University of London. www.ianchristie.org
Ken Barrett, visual artist, writer and retired neuropsychiatrist: http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk
Oksana Bulgakowa’s biography of Eisenstein: https://europe.potemkinpress.com/products/oksana-bulgakowa-sergei-eisenstein-a-biography-1
Ian's recent book 'Eisenstein Universe' edited with Julia Vassilieva. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/eisenstein-universe-9781350142091/
Opening music: Prelude to the opera Brainland, composed by Stephen Brown.
Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk
Portrait sketch by KB
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.