Discover What Makes You Who You Are
Berwins Salon North is one of Harrogate’s most sought after tickets after the Salon was voted as number six in the ‘Top 100 Things to do in the World’ by GQ magazine.
The TED-style talks designed to fire up hearts and minds presents big ideas, answering key questions in life. Three expert speakers Oren Harman, Dr Merve Emre and Professor Gina Rippon use neuroscience, psychology and science to unlock the question, ‘What Makes You Who You Are?’ on Thursday 28 February.
The twenty-first century world is one which seems determined to magnify differences between men and women’s brains, from childhood to the workplace and the influence of social media. But where do these supposed differences come from and how ‘essential’ are they? In her new book The Gendered Brain, Professor Gina Rippon shows how we arrived at the idea of an inferior, female brain and how cutting-edge breakthroughs in neuroscience can liberate us from this outdated understanding. Rippon shows us the reality behind much of the data that is used to justify the gender gap and explains how major breakthroughs in neuroscience will help us dispel these stereotypes.
Next to the stage is Dr Merve Emre who takes on the strange and fascinating world of personality testing. Delve into the lives of the mother-daughter team who amazingly, with no formal training in psychology, invented the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. Dr Emre’s new book, What’s Your Type? explains how the test insinuated itself into our boardrooms, classrooms, and beyond, to become the most popular personality test in the world. Its language - of extraversion vs. introversion, thinking vs. feeling - has inspired online dating platforms and Buzzfeed quizzes alike. How did the Myers-Briggs insinuate itself into our jobs, our relationships, our internet and our lives and what does it mean?
Finally, Oren Harman brings to life the latest scientific thinking on the birth of the universe and the solar system, the journey from a single cell all the way to our human minds. We no longer think, like the ancient Chinese did, that the world was hatched from an egg, or, like the Maori, that it came from the tearing-apart of a love embrace but we now use genes and natural selection to explain fear and desire, and physics to demystify the workings of the universe. His book, 15 Myths That Explain Our World, uses modern science to create new and original mythologies to explain our place in the world.
Hosted by Harrogate International Festivals, Berwins Salon North is a cabaret-style night of the most stimulating ideas designed to change your life for the better.
What Makes You Who You Are? Thursday 28 February | 7.30pm, The Crown Hotel | Harrogate harrogateinternationalfestivals.com Box Office: 01423 562 303.