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FALL 2006 BECKMAN INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ISSUE 3 Richard Powers weaves neuroscience and nature in his new book, The Echo Maker, to explore the stories of what makes us who we are. Page 2 T he Beckman Before being honored as one T he ability to continue Institute and of the top young the interdisciplinary researcher s like scientists in the country, approach he enjoyed at Michael Insana are Mark Hersam gained some Bell Labs was one rea- leading the way in the vital experience son Richard Sproat growing field during his time at Beckman. joined the Beckman of bioimaging. Page 11 Institute. Page 14 Page 5 QUESTION AND ANSWER WITH RICHARD POWERS views prior to coming here. But once I was here I R had several new avenues of connection and new ichard Powers is one of resources available. One was access to informal America’s most acclaimed novel- conversations with scientists here, and that’s been ists and a faculty member in the invaluable. The number of times that somebody has Beckman Institute’s Cognitive pointed me to other bibliographies, to an error in Neuroscience group. Powers, a my preconceptions, or just to new and exciting professor in the Department of English, has earned research, I can’t count. Just in casual conversations. numerous literary and academic awards and hon- Beyond that, I’ve had several chances to sit down ors, including Time magazine Book of the Year with some incredibly exciting researchers like Award, four National Book Critic Award finalist William Greenough and Neal Cohen, people who nominations, an American Academy of Arts and were working in areas that were important to my Sciences Fellowship, and a MacArthur Fellowship. own narrative. The ability to sit and be in seminars On November 15 his latest novel, The Echo Maker, with them and pick their brains one on one was won what many consider the highest honor for really invaluable to me. Then I also started to works of fiction, the National Book Award for attend the regular research seminars here, for Fiction. instance the Advances in Sensory and Powers had been at Beckman in the 1990s, Developmental Neuroscience events. That’s where then returned to the Institute last year to continue folks are bringing stuff fresh out of the lab and put- researching and writing The Echo Maker, a book ting it up for public discussion, even stuff that is that weaves family tragedy and the annual migra- still in formulation. The benefits of that were really tion of the Sandhill cranes to Nebraska’s Platte Netherlands for many years and was invited by two-fold: learning about research before it actually River into a story that probes basic questions about Illinois to stay as an artist-in-residence, Dick hit publication, just as a sense of where things are the self. Wheeler and Ted Brown – who was head of the going right now. But also a chance to see as an Powers read the neuroscience literature, attend- Beckman then – came up with this plan to give me observer – but someone sitting in the same room – ed seminars, and talked with neuroscientists at an office and an affiliation here; this was in 1992. the whole culture of science. The way that scien- Beckman and elsewhere in researching the book. And by spending that year here, I came up with the tists interact with each other as people was very The Echo Maker tells the story of Mark Schluter, a idea for Galatea 2.2. There’s a fictionalized Center interesting and eye-opening and part of the story 27-year-old Nebraska slaughterhouse worker in that book that’s sort of a thinly disguised that I ended up creating. whose truck accident leaves him with a rare case of Beckman. So after finishing that book I gave up the Capgras syndrome. Unable to recognize his sister office and went back south of Green to the English SM: There are numerous references to real world or even his dog, Schluter is trapped inside a mind Department and stayed there, wrote some more neuroscience cases in the book, such as HM, the that is connected to his old self in many ways but books and taught some classes and helped start the man Neal Cohen discussed in his Director’s strangely disconnected to those people and things graduate program, the Masters in Fine Arts degree Seminar talk Oct. 20 of 2006. How much research that were most familiar to him before the accident. that the English Department now issues. I’d been did you do before sitting down to write and why A famous neurologist, Dr. Gerald Weber, is brought teaching with them for some years when I started was Capgras syndrome the choice for Mark, the in and a story unfolds that reveals how fragile our working on this book with neuroscientific themes. character the story revolves around? connections to the world can be and how amazing I realized that I needed to come back and test my the workings of the mind really are. The Echo story against the stories that were unfolding here RP: I did hear the Director’s Seminar and Dr. Maker is Powers’ ninth novel and was composed and the research that was being done. I came back Cohen’s work is just stunning. I was knocked out with a tablet PC using speech recognition software. a year ago last spring and have been enjoying being by that. But I have had a couple of chances to talk a fly on the wall once again. to Neal privately and I also heard a similar talk that – Steve McGaughey, Beckman Institute Writer he had given in the past. I was participating in a SM: What do your interactions with neuroscientists memory seminar that he also participated in and, of SM: You’ve been at Beckman since March of at Beckman consist of and did they influence The course, I read him. So being at the Beckman was 2005. How did you end up here? Echo Maker? an exciting way to connect the formal presentation of these insights and discoveries as you come RP: This is my second time through. When I first RP: Very much so. I was working on the book and across them in published form with the actual guy came back to the States after living in the had done a lot of research in print and also in inter- doing the work. To see what he’s like and what his 2 FALL NO. 3 www.beckman.uiuc.edu fears and his hopes and his dreams are. That was recent years is that the self is messy and aggregate very thrilling to me. I had read him on HM and RP: That would be my guess. As a lay bystander in and improvised and made up of all these multiple read a lot about other people’s research with HM, this, watching the field as someone in the grand- parts. The feeling of continuity and recognizability but to actually hear him stand up and talk personal- stands trying to figure out the rules of the game, I and consistency may be a story, it may be some- ly about the narrative of his experience with this would say the fact that you can have hugely accom- thing of a narrative. On the one hand that’s a terri- guy, the kind of stuff that you can’t put into schol- plished and masterful scientists at war with each fying thing. The more that we look under the hood arly publications, was really useful to me. other about their prevailing model leads me to and see that we aren’t what we feel that we are, the believe that the issues are going to remain compli- more destabilizing and de-centering it is to contin- SM: In The Echo Maker, the neurologist Weber, cated for awhile to come and the grand unified ue to be alive. And science has always done that to when assessing his career, wonders about con- sense of consciousness will incorporate all these us, right? It’s always taking a hard look at the story sciousness – what are its neurological correlates, do views in the final model somewhere. The mental that we’re telling about who we are and saying, we have free will, etc. After researching and writ- network, when we learn how to think and talk clear- let’s think about this again. So, yes, neuroscience is ing this book, what are your thoughts on what neu- ly about it, is not going to be dominated by any just the latest blow to our narrative of self. On the roscience tells us about the “basic riddle of con- simple mechanism. It’s going to be a hybridized and other hand, there are things that are coming out of scious existence”? aggregate view that partakes of many positions that neuroscience now that give us our first glimpse of the field has embraced. These countervaling ways how the brain itself makes empathy and how our RP: What’s really interesting about writing this of looking at what’s going on inside the brain are individual selves are actually quite dependent on book and publishing it in the year 2006 is I think going to have to be integrated in some way. our connections to other people. How memory is a we’re right in the middle of a complete trans- collaborative phenomenon and how mirror formation of attitude, even toward asking that neurons inside our brain are actually simu- question.

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