Cindy Weinstein credit Caltech
Professor Cindy Weinstein, the Eli and Edythe Broad Professor of American Literature at Caltech in Pasadena, will discuss her book, “Finding the Right Words: A Story of Literature, Grief, and the Brain,” during an online conversation with neurologist Dr. Bruce Miller on Thursday, September 9, starting at 5 p.m.
The discussion will be in Caltech’s new “Behind the Book” series sponsored by Caltech’s Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, in cooperation with CaltechY.
Weinstein was studying to become a professor of literature when her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at 58 years old. Twelve years later, at age 70, he died having lost all of his memories, along with his ability to read, write, and speak.
“Finding the Right Words” follows her decades-long journey to come to terms with her father’s dementia as both a daughter and an English professor. Although her lifelong love of language and literature gave her a way to talk about her grief, she realized that she also needed to learn more about the science of dementia to make sense of her father’s death. To write her story, she collaborated with Dr. Miller, director of the Memory and Aging Center at the University of California, San Francisco, combining personal memoir, literature, and the science and history of brain health into a unique, educational, and meditative work.
The book is an invaluable guide for families dealing with a life-changing diagnosis. It combines personal memoir, literature, and the science of brain health. In chapters of profound and sometimes humorous remembrance, Weinstein relies on literature to describe the shock of her father’s diagnosis and his loss of language and identity.
Writing in response to Weinstein’s deeply personal narrative, Dr. Miller describes the neurological processes responsible for the symptoms displayed by her father. He also reflects upon his own personal and professional experiences. In a final chapter about memory, Weinstein is able to remember her father before the diagnosis, and Miller explains how the brain creates memories while sharing some of his own.
In addition to writing “Finding the Right Words: A Story of Literature, Grief, and the Brain” with Dr. Miller, Weinstein has written three monographs and edited four volumes on American literature. She teaches courses in women’s fiction, Black literature, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allan Poe. She is currently Vice Provost and Chief Diversity Officer at Caltech.
Dr. Miller holds the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professorship in Neurology at UC San Francisco. As a behavioral neurologist whose work emphasizes brain-behavior relationships, he has reported on the emergence of artistic ability, personality, cognition, and emotion with the onset of neurodegenerative disease. He is the principal investigator of the NIH-sponsored Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and program project on frontotemporal dementia. He also helps lead the Tau Consortium, the Bluefield Project to Cure Frontotemporal Dementia, and the Global Brain Health Institute.
“Finding the Right Words: A Story of Literature, Grief, and the Brain” is published by Johns Hopkins University Press and is being released this month.
The online discussion on Thursday will be a live event, where the audience can ask questions later in the program.
To RSVP for the free event, visit www.events.caltech.edu/series/behind_the_book/cindy-weinstein.
For more information, call (626) 395-6163.
