” Conversations with…” Andrew Solomon @ NYPSI
When: Friday, December 6, 2013, 7:30 pm
What: New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute continues its popular “Conversations with….” series and is pleased to present award-winning author Andrew Solomon who will reflect on his research, creative process, and career.
Andrew Solomon is most recently widely recognized for Far From the Tree, a critically acclaimed work of nonfiction in which the author explores the relationship between illness and identity and renews and deepens our gratitude for the herculean reach of parental love.
Culled from 10 years of research, and 40,000 pages of interview transcripts from conversations with more than 300 families across America, Far From the Tree has won the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York City’s 2013 “Seeds of Hope” award, the Books for a Better Life award in the psychology category, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize and the 2013 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Nonfiction.
In addition, Far From the Tree appears on the “Best Nonfiction” lists of The New York Times Book Review, The Boston Globe, The Economist, BuzzFeed.com, Cleveland Plain-Dealer, The Advocate, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Salon.com, and Time Magazine.
Solomon’s most recent work is also a Lambda Literary Award nominee for LGBT Nonfiction and a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Solomon begins Far From the Tree with an autobiographical chapter detailing his experience as the gay son of heterosexual parents. At the time of his youth, homosexuality was considered an illness—and a crime. It nevertheless became a cornerstone of his identity. As he tells us, illness describes something biological; identity is a word for something social. We use the word illness when we wish to disparage a way of being, and identity when we wish to celebrate the same way of being. This consideration of the tenuous balance between illness, identity, and the parent-child dynamic led to his research on ten different kinds of exceptional children: deaf children; children with dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, multiple severe disabilities, or prodigious genius; schizophrenic children; children conceived in rape; children who commit serious crimes; and children who are transgender.
In the twelve astonishingly acute and compassionate chapters of Far From the Tree, Solomon tells stories of children who have been heartbreakingly tragic victims of intense prejudices—but also stories of parents who have embraced their children’s differences and tried to alter the world’s understanding of their conditions.
Dr. Lois Oppenheim hosts NYPSI’s “Conversations with…” series which has welcomed celebrated performing, visual and literary artists since its inception in 2010 including Edward Albee, Jacques d’Amboise, Adam Gopnik, Mark Morris, Joyce Carol Oates, Gary Shteyngart, Kiki Smith, Edmund White and others.
How:
$ 25 for General Admission
$ 15 for NYPSI Members
$ 10 for Students with valid ID and NYPSI Trainees
Purchase tickets at www.nypsi.org
Who:
Andrew Solomon is the author of the novel A Stone Boat and The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, winner of fourteen national awards, including the 2001 National Book Award. A Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestseller, The Noonday Demon has been published in twenty-two languages. Solomon’s most recent work is Far From the Tree, winner of numerous awards, including the 2012 National Book Award. He lives in New York and London with his husband and children.
Dr. Lois Oppenheim is Distinguished Scholar, Professor of French, and Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Montclair State University where she teaches courses in both literature and applied psychoanalysis. She is also Scholar Associate Member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and Honorary Member of the William Alanson White Society. Dr. Oppenheim has authored or edited eleven books, the most recent being Imagination from Fantasy to Delusion (Routledge, 2013), which was awarded the 2013 Courage to Dream Prize by the American Psychoanalytic Association. Other books include A Curious Intimacy: Art and Neuro-Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2005), and The Painted Word: Samuel Beckett’s Dialogue With Art (Univ. of Michigan Press, 2000). She has been a Visiting Scholar at the Psychiatric Institute of the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, on the Boards of The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of Imagination and the UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies, and a past president of the international Samuel Beckett Society. Dr. Oppenheim continues as host of NYPSI’s popular “Conversations with…” series of discussions on creativity. She is co-creator of two documentary films — How to Touch a Hot Stove and Crazy? — both on mental health stigma.
New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute (NYPSI) is recognized by Time Out New York as offering one of the twenty best lecture series in the city. NYPSI’s mission is to provide the highest level of psychoanalytic training to mental health professionals, promote excellence in psychoanalytic research and offer a range of educational, advisory and affordable therapeutic service programs to the New York City community. NYPSI’s position as the oldest psychoanalytic organization in the Americas parallels its global leadership role in the history of psychoanalysis and its influence on the cultural and intellectual life of New York City. The Society was founded in 1911 by A.A. Brill, one of the first practicing psychoanalysts in the United States and the first translator of Freud into English. NYPSI is a registered 501(c)(3) organization.
Where:
New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute
247 East 82nd Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues)
Marianne & Nicholas Young Auditorium
New York
www.nypsi.org
@theNYPSI
6 Train to 77th Street
4-5-6 Train to 86th Street
Media Contact:
Saverio Mancina
+1.646.684.3955 office
+1.202.468.7644 mobile
mancina1966@yahoo.com