Author Talks: Michael Pollan

Join Pioneer Works and Greenlight Bookstore for the official launch of Michael Pollan’s A World Appears—a panoptic exploration of consciousness from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind.

What is consciousness, who has it, and why? The fact that we have subjective experience of the world remains one of nature’s greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts, and a sense of self? What would a scientific investigation of our inner life look like, when we have as little distance and perspective on it as fish do of the sea? In A World Appears, Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives—scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic—to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life.

When neuroscientists began studying consciousness in the early 1990s, they sought to explain how and why three pounds of spongy gray matter could generate a subjective point of view—assuming that the brain is the source of our perceived reality. Pollan takes us to the cutting edge of the field, where scientists are entertaining more radical (and less materialist) theories of consciousness, and discovers a world far deeper and stranger than our everyday reality. Eye-opening and mind-expanding, A World Appears takes us into the laboratories of our own minds. 

This special launch event, co-presented by Pioneer Works and Greenlight Bookstore, will feature a conversation between Michael Pollan and Janna Levin. All tickets include a signed copy of A World Appears. 

Before and after the conversation, join us for stargazing in the garden with the Amateur Astronomers’ Association, weather-permitting. 

Michael Pollan is the author of ten books, including This Is Your Mind on Plants, How to Change Your Mind, Cooked, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire, all of which were New York Times bestsellers. He is also the author of the audiobook Caffeine. A Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellow, Pollan has taught writing at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Harvard University. In 2010, Time named him one of the one hundred most influential people in the world.   

Janna Levin is the founding director of sciences at Pioneer Works and the co-editor-in-chief of . She is a professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University. A Guggenheim Fellow, she has contributed to our understanding of black holes and cosmology and was the presenter of the NOVA feature Black Hole Apocalypse on PBS. She has authored books on black holes and the universe as well as a PEN award-winning novel. Her most recent book is Black Hole Survival Guide. Her most recent writings can be found on Substack publication, Extra Dimensions.

This program is part of PW Broadcast's Author Talks, a series highlighting authors and thinkers across disciplines.

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