[Xmca-l] Re: Oliver Sacks

[Peter Smagorinsky]

The Atlanta paper filed an obit today at Neurologist Oliver Sacks dies 'a sentient being'<http://www.ajc.com/news/news/national/neurologist-oliver-sacks-dies-sentient-being/nnTZt/> . What’s interesting is the closing line: He is survived by his partner, Bill Hayes.

It’s good to see same-sex partners identified with no fanfare, in a matter of fact way, in a Southern daily newspaper. Speaks volumes of how far society has come in the last decade on respecting relationships (if not in political discourse designed to enlist “the base” of conservative ideology).



-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces+smago=uga.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+smago=uga.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Preiss
Sent: Sunday, August 30, 2015 7:33 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Oliver Sacks



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