Eric Kandel, Oliver Sacks and Petra Seeger: In Search of Memory
Film Screening and Discussion
Thursday, January 29, 2009 | 7:00 PM
Kaufmann Concert Hall, 92Y, New York
Following a screening of Petra Seeger's film In Search of Memory: The Neuroscientist Eric Kandel, Oliver Sacks interviews Kandel about his role in the discovery of how memory works.
Kandel, along with his colleagues, received the Nobel Prize for Physiology in 2000 for discovering the central role synapses play in memory and learning. He is the author of In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind.
Oliver Sacks is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and the author of many books, including Awakenings and Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain.
Filmmaker Petra Seeger introduces the film.
In Search of Memory
Documentary
Directed by Petra Seeger
In Search of Memory was released in Vienna in May 2008. Director and producer Petra Seeger presents a portrait of Kandel's life from his childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna, which he was forced to leave in April 1939, to the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm and his personal rediscovery of Vienna.
For more than six decades, Kandel consistently pursued his interest in the nature of memory, which was, as he says, rooted in his experiences in Vienna. The persistence of these memories led him through his journey from studies in contemporary Austrian and German history to psychoanalysis and medicine to biology, where a genetic and molecular revolution was unfolding in the second half of the 20th century, not least due to his contributions.
In addition to the uncontested scientific excellence of the protagonist, In Search of Memory weaves together Kandel's research career with his personal biography. He has the striking ability to explain in a clear and understandable style what his research is about; how the memory of events that happened in the 1930s have influenced and guided him throughout his academic career; why the biology of mind is of great importance to the life of millions of people; and how his family, especially his wife Denise, always encouraged him to explore his original idea of examining the biological basis of mental function.
Presented by the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, The Embassy of Austria, Office of Science and Technology, and the 92nd Street Y
92Y, Kaufmann Concert Hall
Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street,
www.92y.org
Tickets: $27.00 (available at 92Y only)
