Is Culture Just A Drug? History, Neuroscience, and the "Great Transformation"
Channel: Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: 21/01/2014

Daniel Lord Smail

Professor of History, Harvard University

In recent years, neuroscience has made startling inroads into fields like economics, law, and political science, not to mention psychology and the natural sciences. The past, by contrast, seems resistant to the possibility of a neuroscientific approach, since no one is there to provide brain images or saliva samples. Using the insights of neuroscience, however, it is possible to rethink our basic understanding about what human cultures do and how they change. Certain cultural traits mimic psychoactive drugs in the effects they have on the brain. Using this as a starting point, this talk will suggest new ways of thinking about the so-called "great transformation" from traditional to modern societies.

Hosted by: Department of History

In conjunction with: Beckman Institute, Department of Anthropology, Department of Evolutionary Biology, Department of Philosophy, Department of Psychology, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Program in Neuroscience, Program in Neuroscience, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, Spurlock Museum

Tuesday, April 14, 2009
4:00 pm
Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum