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Dr Iain McGilchrist began his academic career as a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, teaching and writing about English literature. In Against Criticism, he expressed his misgivings about the academic study of literature, especially its neglect of how individual, embodied beings encounter the unique, incarnate work of art. He studied philosophy, trained in medicine, and became a psychiatrist. He has since twice been re-elected to Fellowships at All Souls, has been a Research Fellow in Neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins, and a Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem & Maudsley Hospital. He works privately as a psychiatrist in London.
His latest book, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, explores the different versions of the world which are made available to us by the cerebral hemispheres, and their influence on the history of ideas and of philosophy in the West.
Published: January 2014. See Printable PDF transcript.