'Awakenings' at 50: A Clinical and Cultural Retrospective (Symposium)

26-27 June 2024

Royal Society of Antiquaries, Merrion Square, Dublin

June 2023 marked the 50^th publication anniversary of Dr Oliver Sacks’s Awakenings (1973), the medical bestseller that documented the predicaments of forgotten survivors of the encephalitis lethargica epidemic after they emerged from decades of sleep through L-Dopa's chemical assistance. It is also through Awakenings that Sacks re-discovered himself as a "Romantic" scientist and found the writerly voice that has since earned him the title of the “Poet Laureate of Medicine”.

One of the first academic conferences devoted Oliver Sacks's clinical and authorial practice, Awakenings at 50 charts the debts and legacies -- both clinical and cultural -- of this epoch-making book. This two-day symposium will interest clinicians; persons with lived experience of Parkinson’s and other neurological conditions; researchers in medical humanities; new and longstanding readers of Oliver Sacks's work; and anyone fascinated by the entanglements of medicine literature, and science and art.

Registration is free.

You can register through the Eventbrite link here: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/awakenings-at-50-a-clinical-and-cultural-retrospective-tickets-888296668247?aff=oddtdtcreator