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The Hampshire College Program in Culture, Brain, and Development
Presents the second lecture in our Neuroscience & Society
Series:
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<blockquote type="cite">*"The Shortsighted Brain: Neuroeconomics
and the governance of choice in time" *
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A Public Lecture by Natasha Dow Schüll, associate professor
Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT
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March 27, 2012
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5:30pm FPH Main Lecture Hall, Hampshire College
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ABSTRACT: The young field of neuroeconomics converges around
behavioral deviations from the model of the human being as Homo
economicus, a rational actor who calculates his choices to
maximize his individual satisfaction. In a historical moment
characterized by economic, health, and environmental crises,
policymakers have become increasingly concerned about a
particular deviation for which neuroeconomics offers a
biological explanation: Why do humans value the present at the
expense of the future? There is contentious debate within the
field over how to model this tendency at the neural level.
Should the brain be conceptualized as a unified decision-making
apparatus, or as the site of conflict between an impetuous
limbic system at perpetual odds with its deliberate and
provident overseer in the prefrontal cortex? Scientific debates
over choice-making in the brain, I will argue in this talk, are
also debates over how to define the constraints on human reason
with which regulative strategies must contend. Drawing on
ethnographic and archival research, I will explore how the brain
and its treatment of the future become the contested terrain for
distinct visions of governmental intervention into problems of
human choice-making.
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BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT: Natasha Dow Schüll is a cultural
anthropologist and associate professor at the Program in
Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. She has recently
completed a book based on extended research in Las Vegas among
gambling addicts and the designers of the slot machines they
play. Her current, ongoing research concerns the field of
neuroeconomics and what its questions and methods reveal about
larger cultural values and priorities. Her research has been
funded by the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, among other
sources.
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This event is on Tuesday, March 27th, 2012.
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It is held at: Main Lecture Hall
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This event starts at 5:30 pm, and ends at 7:00 pm.
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This event is organized by: CBD Program
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If you need special accommodations, please contact Hampshire
College's Disabilities Services office (413)559-5423 at least
one week prior to the lecture date
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For more information visit <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.hampshire.edu/cbd/8161.htm">http://www.hampshire.edu/cbd/8161.htm</a>
or email <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:rmclaughlin@hampshire.edu">rmclaughlin@hampshire.edu</a>
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Ryan McLaughlin, Program Coordinator<br>
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<div class="moz-signature"><small>Program in Culture, Brain and
Development</small><br>
<small> Hampshire College </small><br>
<small> 893 West Street Amherst, MA 01002</small><small><br>
phone: 413.559.5501 </small><br>
<small> fax: 413.559.5438</small><br>
<small> <a href="http://cbd.hampshire.edu/">http://cbd.hampshire.edu</a></small>
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