Andrew Solomon, a writer, lecturer and activist in psychology, LGBT rights and the arts, will speak at Lawrence’s next Convocation on Thursday, Feb. 2 at 11:10 a.m. in Memorial Chapel.
Solomon’s talk is titled Far From the Tree: How Difference Unites Us.
Solomon won the 2001 National Book Award for Nonfiction for The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (2001), a book that received much acclaim and was also a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize. A second edition was published in 2015. More recently, Solomon’s Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity (2012) was also an acclaimed best-seller, winning the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. He has contributed to the New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker in the past.
His latest book, Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change, came out last April and, per his website, includes “essays about places in dramatic transition.” View a trailer for Far and Away on Vimeo.
Solomon received a bachelor’s degree in English from Yale University and a master’s degree in English from Jesus College, Cambridge. He earned a Ph.D. degree in psychology from Jesus College, Cambridge. President of PEN American Center, he is currently a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University Medical Center and a lecturer in psychiatry at Weill-Cornell Medical College.