You Are What You Read

The seminar will draw from resources in linguistics, neuroscience, sociology, and literature to consider future trends in human communication. Written language and reading over 4,000 years have helped form the human mind. Recent changes in information technology may have a profound effect on this acquired state, for better or for worse. In Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, child development expert Maryanne Wolf describes the global influence of reading on human cultural development. From the origins of written language in Sumeria to the universality of the written word in modern culture, she shows how not only reading itself, but what people read, becomes a neurological determinant of brain structure and function. The ramifications of this phenomenon will inspire the seminar: the effects of poverty and ideology on how children learn to read and subsequently view their world; the devastating effects of dyslexia on inculturation, and the potential for modern information technology to erode peoples’ ability to comprehend and appreciate nuances in the written word.