Unconscious Memory

Three speakers examine Authenticity in the 8th Unconscious Memory seminar. ‘Trust in Experts’ Prof Andrew Parker, Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, Oxford, will discuss how brain activity is altered by trusting the advice of experts and will explore the extent to which we can trust the images of neural activity delivered to us by modern brain scanners. 'The Experience of Spontaneity' Dr Hannah Drayson, Digital Art and Technology, Plymouth University, will talk about Nail Biting Tigers: Hypnotic Metaphors, with special reference to psychotherapy and literature. ‘Realisations’ Prof Matthew Reynolds, English, Oxford, will explore ways in which accuracy, honesty or fidelity are asserted in translation, autobiography, and other modes of writing and re-writing

Annie Freud, the award-winning poet and artist, will talk about where her poems come from, her development as an artist and writer, and the relationship between her poems and paintings. Also Sowon S Park gives her talk, 'Memory and the New Unconscious' where she discusses the role of memory in the history of the idea of the unconscious and the impact of the neuroscience of memory on the earlier models of the unconscious.

Semir Zeki gives a presentation entitled; The Neurobiology of Beauty, and Gerhard Lauer gives a talk entitled, Is there an Aesthetic Experience in this Experiment? The Chair is Professor Andrew Parker.

Andrew Mayes, and Angus Nicholls, give a talk for the Unconscious Memory seminar series. THE NEURAL BASES OF THE UNCONSCIOUS Andrew Mayes, Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Manchester University, will discuss whether conscious and unconscious memory have radically different neural bases or whether they, in fact, share a system. IS THE UNCONSCIOUS A CONCEPT OR A METAPHOR? Angus Nicholls, Reader in German and Comparative Literature at Queen Mary University of London, will discuss why the unconscious cannot be rendered conceptually and requires a metaphorical approach.  

Professor Gordon Shepherd (Yale) ‘Reassessing Mechanisms of Autobiographical Memory’ and Dr Kirsten Shepherd-Barr (St Catherine’s, Oxford) ‘Madeleines and Neuromodernism’. Chaired by Dr Sowon Park (Corpus Christi, Oxford)