April 2, 2007

Contact:
Felecia Henderson
(954) 262-5315 Office
(954) 383-4695 Cell
fhenders@nsu.nova.edu

Nova Southeastern University - Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences
Welcomes
Oliver Sacks, MD

Davie, FL – As part of the Distinguished Speaker Series, NSU and the Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences’ Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences will host Oliver Sacks, M.D., on April 19, 2007 at 7:00PM in the Alfred and Rose Miniaci Performing Arts Center.

In 1966, Sacks encountered a group of survivors of the “sleeping sickness” epidemic that killed millions in the 1920s. Frozen like human statues for decades, these men and women were the victims of a forgotten disease that had long since been considered untreatable. After administering the experimental drug L-dopa, Sacks saw them awaken with “an explosive quality, as of corks released from a great depth.” They became the subjects of his second book, Awakenings (1973), which later inspired a play by Harold Pinter ("A Kind of Alaska ") and the Oscar-nominated Hollywood movie, Awakenings with Robert De Niro and Robin Williams.

An accomplished writer, Sacks is also a practicing physician and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books.

The topic of Sack’s presentation “Mind, Brain and Identity”, relates to the Farquhar College of Arts and Science’s 2006–2007 academic theme of “Identity.”

Throughout the year, the college has explored the various meanings and implications of “Identity” through a range of interdisciplinary programs and activities that focus on insight from the humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences.

Other panel discussions centered around the Oliver Sacks lecture include:

Virtual Identity and Bioethics – Monday, April 16, 6:00PM in Room 4009 of the Alvin Sherman Library

Embodied Identity In Literature – Wednesday, April 18, 4:00PM in Room 2053 of the Alvin Sherman Library.

Each lecture/discussion is free and open to the public. For more information contact the Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences at (954) 262-8236.