"Autistic Fictions" by Ian Hacking; Monday, Feb. 23, 4:00pm, HUM 587

The Philosophy Department welcomes English faculty and students to a literary-philosophical talk by distinguished philosopher Ian Hacking. "Autistic Fictions" will be held on Monday, February 23, 4 p.m. in HUM 587, with a reception to follow.

Hacking is University Professor Emeritus (University of Toronto), a member of the British Academy, the American Society of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada, and winner of the Arts Molsen Prize in Humanities and Social Sciences and the Killam Prize for the Humanities. He is the author of (among other books) The Taming of Chance, Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory, Mad Travellers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illness, The Social Construction of What?, and Historical Ontology. His talk concerns accounts of autism in works of fiction, part of a larger research project on the development of the concept of autism, neuro-bio-genetic space, and theory of mind.