Beyond Diversity: Shadows Upon the Light of the Mind with Andrew Solomon
An exceptional episode that explores the imperfections and shadows of the human mind, its decay, suffering and redemption, featuring none other than National Book Critics Circle and National Book Award winner, and Pulitzer finalist, Andrew Solomon.
This episode takes us on a three-hour journey carried by the hand of Solomon’s captivating, direct and powerful voice, one that leads the mind down its more concealed pathways with empathy and compassion on topics such as violence, identity, depression, suicide, and the discovery of how the stories of others reveal both our own, and the fragility of the narratives we tell ourselves about otherness.
A man whose literacy and cultivated background converge with his sensitivity and humane sense of life, in this conversation Solomon generously draws on his own life experiences and on the rich and meticulous research that, more than a study, portrays a courageous and humane immersion into the worlds of others.
From Far and Away: How Travel Can Change the World through Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, and The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, to his upcoming and keenly awaited book Gone Tomorrow on youth suicide, based on his celebrated New Yorker essays, his work permeates the exchanges, elegantly interwoven with selected passages from Kundera, Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, Victoria Woolf and other titans of the world of letters in an episode designed to be savored and experienced to the full.
An interview turned into an inward dialogue that poses unwelcome, yet deep and thoughtful, questions about the human experience and the quest for significance in an age of disbelief, with the genuine conviction that there is still hope awaiting in the unchanging antidotes we hold in common: love, and the surrendering to our shared dependence.
*Andrew Solomon is a Professor of Clinical Medical Psychology in Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center, an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Psychology at Weill Cornell Medical College, a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Yale Medical School, a Distinguished Associate of the Centre for Family Research at Cambridge University, and the former President of PEN America.
LINKS AND INFORMATION:
Social Media
Facebook: Andrew Solomon
YouTube: @andrewsolomonauthor
Books by Andrew Solomon mentioned in this episode:
- Gone Tomorrow (coming soon) US edition: New York: Scribner; UK edition: London: Jonathan Cape.
- Far and Away: How Travel Can Change the World. Scribner, 2016.
- Far From the Tree: Parents, Children’s and the Search for Identity. Scribner, 2012.
- The Noon Day Demon: An Atlas of Depression. Scribner, 2001.
https://andrewsolomon.com/books
ARTICLES:
https://andrewsolomon.com/articles
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