[Xmca-l] Oliver Sacks

[David Preiss]

Dear colleagues,

I am deeply saddened by the death of Oliver Sacks. I never had the
opportunity to interact with him but by his books and texts and even learnt
of his portrait by R. Williams in Awakenings before even knowing it was
about him. I have used that movie in my teaching many times to inspire my
students not only about creativity in science but also to have them
thinking about the relationship between brain and experience. When I taught
Intro Psych I used his books as a complement to the boring but unavoidable
handbook and catalogue of facts.  It was thanks to Mike that I learnt of
the Luria-Sacks connection. He was for me, as his humble reader, an
expression of an unlike marriage, that of the literary and the scientific
thanks to the template of narrative. He made me see the world in a way I
would have been uncapable to grasp without the help of his ethical and
beautiful prose.
I will miss him in the same way I miss a poet whose writing marked me not
only cognitively but also emotionally. Thanks, Mr. Sacks, for your legacy
to us, your readers. David