Author, Neuroscientist to Discuss Drugs, Society, Social Justice During Free April 8 Presentation at Ohio Wesleyan University
DELAWARE, Ohio – Carl Hart, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Columbia University, will discuss “High Price: Promoting Social Justice Through a Neuropsychopharmacology Lens” at 7 p.m. April 8 when he presents Ohio Wesleyan University’s 2015 Butler A. Jones Lecture on Race and Society.
Hart, author of “High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society,” will speak in the Bayley Room on the second floor of OWU’s Beeghly Library, 43 Rowland Ave., Delaware.
In addition to teaching at Columbia, Hart also is a research scientist in the Division of Substance Abuse at the New York State Psychiatric Institute; a member of the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse; and a member of the board of directors of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence and the Drug Policy Alliance.
His research involves studying the behavioral and neuropharmacological effects of psychoactive drugs in order to understand factors that mediate drug self-administration behavior and develop effective treatments.
Hart’s 2013 book “recalls his journey of self-discovery, how he escaped a life of crime and drugs and avoided becoming one of the crack addicts he now studies,” publisher HarperCollins states. “Interweaving past and present … he examines the relationship between drugs and pleasure, choice, and motivation, both in the brain and in society. His findings shed new light on common ideas about race, poverty, and drugs, and explain why current policies are failing.”
The New York Times calls his book “a fascinating combination of memoir and social science: wrenching scenes of deprivation and violence accompanied by calm analysis of historical data and laboratory results.” And, according to The Boston Globe, Hart’s “account of the ways in which scientific evidence has been ignored in the war on drugs is as alarming as it is fascinating.”
Hart’s Ohio Wesleyan presentation is sponsored by the university’s “Crime, Responsibility, and Punishment” Course Connection and co-sponsored by the Department of Sociology-Anthropology and the “Poverty, Equity, and Social Justice” Course Connection. OWU’s faculty-developed Course Connections enable students to study a topic or problem from a variety of academic perspectives – such as economic, political, and scientific – and to integrate those perspectives into a coherent and complex understanding of the topic. Learn more at https://www.owu.edu/academics/the-owu-connection/course-connections/.
Ohio Wesleyan’s Butler A. Jones Lectureship on Race and Society was established in 1995 in honor of Jones, Ph.D., a former sociology/anthropology faculty member. In contributing to the quest for equality among races, Jones submitted 10 briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court in cases involving equal treatment of all citizens and completed background research for the 1940 Carnegie-Myrdal Study of African Americans. He also was heavily involved in the field of sociology and committed to the development of other scholars and professionals.
Founded in 1842, Ohio Wesleyan University is one of the nation’s premier liberal arts universities. Located in Delaware, Ohio, the private university offers 86 undergraduate majors and competes in 23 NCAA Division III varsity sports. Ohio Wesleyan combines a challenging, internationally focused curriculum with off-campus learning and leadership opportunities to connect classroom theory with real-world experience. OWU’s 1,750 students represent 46 U.S. states and territories and 43 countries. Ohio Wesleyan is featured in the book “Colleges That Change Lives,” listed on the latest President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction, and included in the U.S. News & World Report and Princeton Review “best colleges” lists. Learn more at www.owu.edu.