"Flow" (Optimal Experience) researcher Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (February 9) is among the renowned speakers featured in the Exploratorium's continuing Mind Lecture Series in February 2008. The series is presented in conjunction with the opening of Mind, a major new Exploratorium collection, four years in the making, made possible by the National Science Foundation. At the exhibition, visitors experience their own thoughts, feelings and actions in provocative and unexpected ways. Lectures (and the exhibition) are included in the price of admission. Advance lecture reservations are required. To reserve tickets, go to www.ticketweb.com. The Mind Lecture Series schedule for February is as follows:

Saturday, February 2, 2008
Art, Emotion and the Brain
Prize-Winning Documentary War Photographer Smith Patrick and
Royal Shakespeare Company Verse Specialist and Acting Coach Rob Clare
Featured in Panel Discussion Hosted by Pireeni Sundaralingam
McBean Theater, 2pm
How do artists affect our emotions? How do our emotional reactions inform art? Join prize-winning war photographer Smith Patrick, Royal Shakespeare Company verse specialist and acting coach Rob Clare, film composer William Susman, and cognitive scientist Pireeni Sundaralingam in a symposium on the mood-altering powers of music, drama, and visual art.

Host Pireeni Sundaralingam likes hiking around on the Nabokovian ridge where "scientific knowledge meets artistic imagination." Educated at Oxford, she has held national fellowships in both cognitive science and poetry, and was the founding director of the Number Perception Laboratory at California State University, Los Angeles.

Saturday, February 9, 2008
The Creative Person and The Creative Context
A Talk with Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
McBean Theater, 2pm
When do you feel creative? Where does creativity come from? From inkling to invention, follow the course of imagination with the foremost authority on positive psychology and flow, Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He’ll review the common traits of creative people and introduce the “Systems Model” of creativity, which describes the types of environments that foster innovation.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is C.S. and D.J. Davidson Professor of Psychology and Management and Director of The Quality of Life Research Center at Claremont Graduate University. He has written several books, including the best-selling Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience and Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. He is a member of the American Academy of Education, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Leisure Sciences.

Saturday, February 23, 2008
21st Century Brain: How Neuroscience is Changing the Way We Shop, Vote, and Pay Taxes With Joshua Freedman -- UCLA Psychiatry Professor
Panel Discussion Hosted by Pireeni Sundaralingam
McBean Theater, 2pm
What makes us choose one beauty product over another, or one presidential candidate over another? How free is our free will in the 21st century? Dr. Joshua Freedman of FKF Applied Research and Hans Lee of EmSense join cognitive scientist Pireeni Sundaralingam to examine how retail companies, economic think tanks, and political campaign organizers use neuroscience to change the ways we think and feel.

Host Pireeni Sundaralingam likes hiking around on the Nabokovian ridge where "scientific knowledge meets artistic imagination." Educated at Oxford, she has held national fellowships in both cognitive science and poetry, and was the founding director of the Number Perception Laboratory at California State University, Los Angeles

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