Mental-Health Expert Kay Jamison to Present Morgan Lecture

Kay Jamison

Kay Jamison

New York Times bestselling author Kay Jamison, who is widely regarded as the leading expert on manic-depressive (bipolar) illness, will present Dickinson’s Morgan Lecture, “Mood Disorders and Creativity,” on Thursday, Feb. 27, at 7 p.m. in the Anita Tuvin Schlechter (ATS) Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Jamison will present evidence for significantly increased rates of depression and bipolar illness in writers and artists, discuss possible reasons for these elevated rates, and open up for discussion areas of clinical and ethical concern.

Jamison is the author of An Unquiet Mind, The New York Times bestselling memoir about her experiences with manic-depressive illness, and the national bestseller, Night Falls Fast, which was selected by The New York Times as a Notable Book of 1999 and translated into 20 languages. Exuberance: The Passion for Life was chosen by The Washington Post, among others, as one of the best books of 2004, and Nothing Was the Same, her 2009 follow-up to An Unquiet Mind, was selected as a best book of the year by The Washington Post.

Jamison has a distinct role as scholar, clinician and patient, and is credited for raising society’s consciousness of manic depression. She co-wrote the standard medical text on bipolar illness, which was chosen as the most outstanding book in biomedical sciences by the American Association of Publishers. Jamison serves as the Dalio Family Professor in Mood Disorders and professor of psychiatry at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center.

Her talk is part of The Morgan Lectureship series, which brings to campus a scholar-in-residence to meet informally with students and to lecture on topics in the social sciences and humanities. Recent Morgan Lecturers include Art Spiegelman, Jennifer Egan and Richard Wilkinson.

The program is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Student Senate public affairs committee, the Office of Student Development, the Wellness Center and the departments of American studies, psychology, art & art history and sociology and the health-studies program.

For more information, visit www.clarkeforum.org or call 717-245-1875.

Published February 26, 2014