[Xmca-l] Re: Also NY Review of Books

[greg.a.thompson@gmail.com]

Yes, thank you Jessica, that was really lovely.

I'd add two more reasons not to get too down on his focus on individuality:
1. My comments were based on a review of the book and not the book itself. So this may have been cherry picked by the reviewer. Who knows what else might be in the book (but seriously, does anyone else know what is in the book?).
2. The genre of Autobiographical writing lends itself to a focus on the individual. Hard not to.

-Greg 

Sent from my iPhone

> On May 12, 2015, at 1:47 PM, Kindred, Jessica Dr. <jkindred@cnr.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hmm. I think Oliver Sacks has been very much about the individual AND the social, and that the gift of seeing the individual instead of the disease and despite the disease and within the disease and shaped by the disease has been his hallmark. I also think he is grappling with his own individuality, and we would be helped to see him as a developmental being grappling with developmentally appropriate issues as he does two things he really has not done before: to come out as gay and to come out as having a fatal diagnosis. 
> And yes, Leif! Seeing Voices is the best Oliver Sacks with such great appreciations of Vygotsky and Luria-- very much an appreciation of the social and cultural dimensions of development. 
> When I met Dr. Sacks at a Narcolepsy Network benefit a few years ago, I introduced myself as a great fan and reader of his books, and as one sharing in his love for Vygotsky and really appreciating the way that he incorporated Vygotsky. That was just before his Hallucinations book, which includes a chapter on Narcolepsy, an interest launched by his engagement with the topic through interviews with my twin sister who has narcolepsy and many others... acknowledged on p. 293. So when I met him, I also introduced myself by saying that he probably recognizes me, since I look just like my twin sister... and the blank look on his face was explained to me only months later when I heard an interview of him talking about his proposagnosia, an aspect of his neuronal individuality that makes him unable to recognize faces. 
> 
> 
> Jessica Kindred, Ph.D.
> Instructional Staff, Psychology
> The College of New Rochelle
> School of New Resources, Brooklyn campus
> 1368 Fulton Street
> Brooklyn, NY 11216
> 718 638 2500
> jkindred@cnr.edu
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces+jkindred=cnr.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+jkindred=cnr.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Leif Strandberg
> Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2015 2:50 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Also NY Review of Books
> 
> That does not sound like Oliver Sacks at all :-(  I prefer to read his Seeing voices (1989) again. Where we meet both Vygotsky and Luria and the whole perspective in which human sociality and culture come to the fore.
> Leif
> Sweden
>> 12 maj 2015 kl. 17:12 skrev Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu>:
>> 
>> Yes Greg I was bothered by that statement too. Especially when he 
>> acknowledges Luria's work earlier in his career.
>> Robert
> 
> 
>