Bookmarks Festival 2014

So, this past weekend (9/6) Noell and I went to Winston-Salem to check out the 2014 Bookmarks Festival. This is our second visit (I posted on last year's event here), and this year's events were housed in some shiny new buildings and very nice auditoriums. What drew us this time around was the presentation by Sam Kean, who talked about his newest book, The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, which presents stories of individuals suffering brain damage and what they can tell science about how the brain works. Kean is an insightful and witty writer, the perfect sort to present science to a popular audience. I was about 3/4 of the way through the book when we saw him speak (I've since finished it, and it was great). Some interesting points:

• Kean said that what originally interested him in the topic was skepticism: he simply didn't believe some of the stories he had heard about. For example, neurologists reported that some people simply could not recognize plants, while others had no idea how to deal with animals. It turns out, however, that there are in fact particular areas of the brain that deal with different types of things, and damage to these areas can compromise our ability to recognize those objects, and only those objects. 
• The main irony is that, in order to study how the brain actually works, neurologists, because it is in many cases unethical to operate on healthy brains (although this was not always the case), often had to wait for an accident or disease to knock out particular areas to determine their function. One example from the book is the case of S.M. (initials are used in the medical literature to protect patients' identities), who suffers (she is alive and well and living in Iowa) from a rare condition that leaves her with a non-functioning amygdala. This part of the brain, among other things, helps to process our fear response. Neurologists have been studying S.M. for many years now (with her informed consent), and she is not afraid of snakes, death threats, assaults, or robberies. (Actually, a recent paper suggests that she did experience the fear of suffocation, which suggests that while the amygdala controls our response to external fears, other pathways must process fear associated with internal threats like suffocation or heart attacks.)
• Noell asked a question about amnesia and whether or not Kean ran across any examples of people who completely lost track of their own identity. He responded, in an echo of one of the book's major points, that it seems as if someone's identity or sense of self is an extremely difficult, if not impossible, aspect of the mind to wipe out completely. 
• Kean also talked about his writing style, which is story-focused. He said that people seem to learn best when issues are presented as stories: a beginning, a middle, and an end, all populated with characters. Perhaps this can be a lesson for those of us trying to teach science.   

After lunch at one of the many food trucks, we went to see Karen Abbott talk about her new book Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War. Abbott is a former journalist who contributes to the Smithsonian Magazine's history blog. The book is the story of four women, two from the North and two from the South, who lied, slept, seduced, and killed their way into spy networks. One of the most interesting points that Abbott made was that these (and other) women were able to exploit 19th century notions of femininity to conceal messages and contraband. Hoop skirts, for example, which most males would never search, were regularly used to smuggle items like guns. I have not yet read the book, but after her presentation I will definitely add it to my "to-read" list on Goodreads.

References:

Kean, S (2014). The tale of the dueling neurosurgeons: the history of the human brain as revealed by true stories of trauma, madness, and recovery. Little, Brown and Company, New York.

Abbott, K (2014). Liar, temptress, soldier, spy: four women undercover in the Civil War. Harper, New York.

Bookmarks Festival

Last Saturday (11/7) my wife, Noell, our son Simon, and I went to this year's Bookmarks Festival in Winston-Salem. It's really a wonderful event that brings authors from around the country together to interact with readers. Simon is at the age (just over 3 months) were he is unfortunately too young to enjoy the made-for-kids events like story time but, fortunately, also too young (and immobile) to get overly bored with the adult presentations.

I wanted to go because the eminent Civil War historian James McPherson was talking about his new book War on the Waters: The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861-1865, which examines an under-appreciated aspect of the conflict. Actually, Professor McPherson gave a talk at UNCG the day before, but I was unable to attend.

McPherson framed his discussion around the issue of foreign intervention: the American Civil War was, he pointed out, a rare example of an internal conflict that did not require official intervention by foreign powers (the recent hostilities in Syria, on the other hand, reflect the more common pattern). The Union and Confederate navies played key roles in determining how nations such as France and Britain decided to deal with the belligerents. Three events were particularly important:

• The Trent Affair. In November of 1861 the Union navy intercepted the British mail ship Trent and, with it, two Confederate envoys whose aim was to secure British and French recognition of the Confederacy as a sovereign nation. Without permission from Washington, the Trent was boarded and the two envoys arrested. Although the ship was allowed to continue on its journey, Britain protested that the boarding violated her neutrality and demanded a formal apology and the release of the prisoners. Wanting to avoid an armed conflict, the Lincoln Administration eventually freed the captives. While Britain was focused on maintaining her neutrality throughout the affair, a Union bungling of the situation could certainly have significantly worsened its relationship with Britain (the latter, in fact, had ordered additional troops to Canada and ships to the Atlantic).
• The Union blockade. Almost as soon as hostilities broke out, Lincoln ordered a naval blockade of the entire Confederate coast. This was, of course, a nearly impossible task given that the cordon would need to extend from the Texas border with Mexico all the way to northern Virginia−a distance of around 2,500 miles. According to international law, the legitimacy of a blockade rested partly on its successful implementation; that is, a legitimate blockade is one that can successfully prevent outgoing ships from leaving and in-going ships from entering. The Confederacy pointed to the numerous ships that were able to run the blockade, while the Union maintained its legitimacy. Eventually, foreign powers recognized the blockade. Professor McPherson pointed out that Britain likely took this stance in part because blockading was an important tool for the Royal Navy itself and a failure to acknowledge the Union blockade would have set a potentially damaging precedent.   
• Construction of Confederate ships in foreign ports. Several ships, disguised as merchant vessels, were built in British yards and eventually served as Confederate commerce raiders. Protests from the American government convinced both Britain and France to seize other ships intended for Confederate service.     

My wife and I took a couple of photos during the talk, and you can see Professor McPherson's BookTV on War on the Waters here.

Professor McPherson giving his book talk. Photo by Noell Egeland.

My wife also pointed out that Adrian Miller would be speaking at the festival, reminding me that we had heard him on NPR a while ago discussing his research on Soul Food. So, we decided to stick around and listen to him, and I'm glad we did. Most importantly, he's a fellow Denverite, something I learned when he came around before his talk and introduced himself to the audience to thank them for coming. He spoke about his book Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time. The most fascinating point that Miller made was that "Soul" or "Southern" food, while partly a modification of African cuisines brought to the New World by slaves, actually partitioned itself by socio-economic status, and not race. That is, both whites and blacks used the same ingredients to make very similar dishes. His point was borne out by how the audience−black and white−nodded in agreement when he would list off classic southern ingredients.

References:

McPherson, J (2012). War on the waters: the Union and Confederate Navies, 1861-1865. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.

Miller, A (2013). Soul Food: the surprising story of an American cuisine, one plate at a time. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.