[Salon] Dean Burnett: Emotional Ignorance

EMOTIONAL IGNORANCE 

with Dean Burnett

 Ideas  / Tues 16th Apr / 6.30 - 8:30pm

Doors open 6.30pm. Speaker starts at 7pm.

Emotions can be a pain. According to common view, they are an impediment to rational cognition - or enlightenment, if you are Buddhist. Good that neuroscientist Dean Burnett has put his feelings under the microscope - for science! – digging deep into emotional ignorance and showing just how essential emotions are to our whole well-being.

He takes us on a journey of discovery on the basics of emotions and their role in numerous facets of life, from fundamental biological processes to cutting-edge technology. Along the way he reveals why we would ever follow our gut, whether things really were better in the old days, why doomscrolling is so addictive or why it is so impossible to forget embarrassing memories…

Combining expert analysis, sharp humour and powerful insights, Dean uncovers how, far from holding us back, our emotions make us who we are. 

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ABOUT

Dean Burnett is a neuroscientist and Psychiatry Lecturer at the Centre for Medical Education at Cardiff University. As all-round science communicator, he is the author of popular science books and for several years he has been the writer of the Guardian’s most-read science blog Brain Flapping, combining his interest in comedy and science to write humorous takes on topical science stories.

 

GOOD READS

Emotional Ignorance: Lost and Found in the Science of Emotion (2023); Psycho-Logical: Why Mental Health Goes Wrong and How to Make Sense of It (2021); Parents: A User's Guide: Why Mum and Dad are driving you up the wall and what to do about it (2019); Happy Brain, Where Happiness Comes From, and Why (2018); Idiot Brain, What Your Head Is Really Up To (2016).


KEY LINKS
Dean Burnett's personal website
Brain Flapping, The Guardian's column