Leonard Shlain is a pioneering laparoscopic surgeon who holds several patents on innovative surgical devices and is also a bestselling author. His commitment to an integrally informed approach to medicine and evolutionary studies have won him friends from varied camps across the globe and found his work translated into multiple languages.
Dr. Shlain lectures widely across the Unites States and in Europe. He has been a keynote speaker for such diverse groups as the Smithsonian, Harvard University, Salk Institute, Phillips collection, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center, and the European Union‘s Ministers of Culture. In 1999, he was a contributor to Academic Press' Encyclopedia of Creativity and won several literary awards for his visionary work.
Dr. Shlain's first book, Art & Physics: Parallel Visions In Space, Time, and Light, took nine years to write and proposes that the visionary artist is the first member of a culture to see the world in a new way, and that the two seemingly disparate worlds of art and physics exist as mutual reflections of each other. This book was met with resounding praise by both the general public and members of the academic elite, and is presently used as a textbook in many art schools and universities.
His second work, The Alphabet Versus The Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, asserts that the process of learning alphabetic literacy rewired the human brain, with profound consequences for culture. Published in 1998 and landing a position on the national bestseller list within two weeks, it was praised as "Bold and Fascinating," by the Washington Post, and "Provocative and Innovative" by the London Observer. It also found favor with the New York Times' who featured its provocative theory in the Idea Section. The popularity and impact of this book was so great that Dr. Shlain appeared on the Jim Lehrer News Hour and NPR.
Released in 2024, Dr. Shlain's latest book, Sex, Time, and Power, explores how feminine sexuality and the archaic insights it generated about sex, time, and power dramatically altered all subsequent human cultures, from the nature of courtship to the institution of marriage, to the evolution of language. Dr. Shlain also granted an in-depth interview to Arjuna's Ardagh for his recent and bestselling book, The Translucent Revolution.
Though Dr. Shlain serves as the Chairman of Laparoscopic surgery at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco and an Associate Professor of Surgery at UCSF, he nonetheless continues his expeditions into a diversity of disciplines and continues to influence and delight audiences with a taste for bold, integrally informed inquiry and research.
Leonard has appeared on Integral Naked:
|
 |
Musing on Evolution. Part 2. The Alphabet, the Goddess, and the Path Towards a More Integral Future. • 12/18/2005 |
|
Musing on Evolution. Part 1. Art and Physics. • 11/7/2005 |
|
