Sponsored by The Western Foundation, this Distinguished Lecture Series event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required.
Sacks is a master at creating compassionate drama from the uncanny dysfunctions of the brain.
In his fascination with the link between body and mind, Sacks weaves his patients astonishing case histories into riveting medical mysteries. In 1966, while working as a consulting neurologist for New York s Beth Abraham Hospital, Dr. Sacks encountered an extraordinary group of patients, many of whom had spent decades in strange, frozen states like human statues, unable to initiate movement. They became the subjects of his book, Awakenings , which inspired Harold Pinter s A Kind of Alaska play and the Oscar-nominated movie Awakenings , starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams. Dr. Sacks is perhaps best known for his collection of case histories, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat . He received a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on Tourette s syndrome, a condition marked by involuntary tics and utterances.