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Could the secrets to personal health lie within our brains? Pulitzer Center-supported journalist Erik Vance, an award-winning science writer, explores this idea at Bookshop Santa Cruz in California on Monday, January 9, 2017 when he discusses his new book, Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain's Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal.
Vance's narrative explores the world of placebos, hypnosis, false memories, and neurology to reveal the groundbreaking science of our suggestible minds. His firsthand dispatches will change the way you think—and feel. He discusses the surprising ways our expectations and beliefs influence our bodily responses to pain, disease, and everyday events. Drawing on centuries of research and interviews with leading experts in the field, Vance takes us on a fascinating adventure from Harvard’s research labs to a witch doctor’s office in Catemaco, Mexico, to an alternative medicine school near Beijing (often called “China’s Hogwarts”).
Vance is a science writer based in California and Mexico City. He graduated with honors from Principia College in Illinois in 1999 with a degree in biology. After working on a number of research projects dealing with dolphin intelligence and coastal ecology, he became – in turn – an environmental educator and then an environmental consultant. After enrolling in UC Santa Cruz’s science communication program he discovered his true passion for journalism, learning how the stories of compelling characters can touch and inspire us.
His work has appeared in a range of outlets including The Chronicle of Higher Education, Nature, The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor. He is currently under contract with Harper's and National Geographic.
Erik Vance and "Suggestible You"
Monday, January 9, 2017
7:00PM
Bookshop Santa Cruz
1520 Pacific Avenue
Santa Cruz, CA 95060