Authors Series
• Registration

Thursday, March 24, 2005
7 p.m.

Brian Burrell
Discusses His New Book

Postcards from the Brain Museum: The Improbable Search for Meaning in the Matter of Famous Minds

• Free and open to the public — Registration required

• Call Marion Wyce at 215-898-3943, or email wyce@wistar.org

• Book signing to follow

What makes one man a genius and another a criminal? Is there a physical explanation for these differences? The obsession with these questions led some scientists on a quixotic quest to find the sources of both greatness and depravity in the matter of the human brain itself. In the 19th century, a peculiar mania for the dissection and study of so-called “elite” or exceptional brains swept the scientific communities of Europe and America.

In POSTCARDS FROM THE BRAIN MUSEUM: The Improbable Search for Meaning in the Matter of Famous Minds (Broadway Books; January 2005), Brian Burrell tells the story of these first scientific attempts to locate the sources of both genius and depravity in the physical anatomy of the human brain itself. He describes the men who studied and collected special brains, the men who gave them up, and the sometimes unanticipated fates of the brains.

About the Author:
Brian Burrell teaches mathematics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The author of The Words We Live By and Damn the Torpedoes: Fighting Words, Rallying Cries, and the Hidden History of Warfare, he has appeared on C-SPAN’s “Booknotes with Brian Lamb” and the “Today” show. He makes his home in Northampton, Massachusetts.

The Joseph Fox Bookshop will provide books for sale at the event.