Varieties of Empathy in Science, Art and Culture

Executive Summary

Varieties of Empathy in Science, Art, and Culture (VOE), a workshop held at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies on 10-12 October, 2009, brought together twenty-two scholars, scientists, and artists from nine disciplines, working in six different countries, to consider the recent research into empathy, mirror neurons, autism and related phenomena and several historical antecedents and social implications of this research. Organized by Robert M. Brain of the UBC Department of History, with co-organizers Susan Lanzoni of MIT and Allan Young of McGill University, Varieties of Empathy aimed to illuminate the similarities and differences between dramatic new approaches to affect and emotion in several disciplines which often have little direct contact with each other. Besides the scientists and philosophers working at the cutting edge of empathy research today, the workshop included several practitioners of historical disciplines who have uncovered a strikingly similar, very productive, and yet largely forgotten interdisciplinary research tradition developed a century early largely in German-speaking countries. Besides sharing findings about the topic across present and past disciplinary boundaries, the historical component sought to gather what, if anything, might be understood about the historical conditions for the rise of this field of investigation in Europe at the end of the nineteenth-century and the international research field of today.

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CBC's The Current

Robert Brain was a guest on CBC radio's The Current on August 5, 2010, where he spoke on the topic of "empathy" and discussed his Wall Exploratory Workshop.

Listen to an archived recording of the show at: http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2010/08/august-5-2010.html