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John Hull: Please click here for Prof
Hull’s biography
Oliver Sacks: Please click here for Dr Sacks’
biography
John Kennedy:
was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, into a
family of 5 children, in 1942. I was Robert and Isabel Kennedy's 4th.
Daddy was in the Royal Air Force as a flight sergeant. Mummy had been a
nurse. Times were hard, and my mother took in in
lodgers, and , eventually, old people, turning
our house with its 7 bedrooms and 2 boxrooms
into a kind of nursing house. My mother was very keen on education, and my
father was a steady churchgoer and choir-member, in the Non-Subscribing
Presbyterian church, which is affiliated with Unitarians. The catechism began
"who are you?" And it answered "I am a child of God, as all
other human beings are." The last phrase is more and more the part I
would ask us all to rely on. I attended Rosetta Primary
School, some 20 minutes away by bus, since
it was in a better area of town. Then I went to the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (Inst), quite young, since I
started taking the 11 plus exam at age 9. Rosetta had skipped me a grade.
Mr Johnson in 5th class was the first to recognize my stories.
He said one was publishable! He praised my artwork (a picture of a
stream), though a few days later the art teacher held it up to ridicule.
Mr Dunlop, in 4th class, smacked me for getting 15 out of 20 in
sums, though he had said 15 was a pass, saying I should do better. I was
afraid to go to school when I was in Mr. Dunlop's because I did not know
when I would be smacked. But we children did not complain. Benign neglect, and the school is right, my parents thought.
At Inst I discovered my acting talent, at an all-boys school. I still do
not know how to talk to girls, but I acted as Laertes,
MacDuff, as Mr Wu a Chinese teacher, and a
Spanish dancing girl complete with castanets. (In Cubs I had a leading
part in a play about
the Union Jack. At Sunday School I was in many Xmas functions,
and, later, in the choir. I sang in the Hallelujah chorus, the Amen, and
in Holst's "I vow to thee my country." ) I
remember writing that if I were to become a teacher my guiding principle
would be to be fair, in an essay for Mr. Snowden, the English teacher. The
Ulster Museum was near and we street urchins would go u[p there on
occasion on our own, to see the mummy, a Rodin "Thinker," and once as a teenager I went on my own
to see a modern art exhibition and to my pleasure I ran into several Inst
boys in a group. We discussed the works at length. Later a few of us
joined the Junior Drama League on Sat nights, and did play readings for
each other. My best friend Brian Scott joined too. I met Stephen Rea, Roma
Tomelty, Bud Tomelty
and other great talents there. My brother Michael joined.
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I
read incessantly. I numbered and arranged my books. I wrote a lot. I acted
a lot. I acted in summer stock at Portrush, a
holiday resort. I was in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, courtesy of
Michael Emmerson and his "Queen's
Players" mostly us from Queen's University, where I studied
Psychology at the most beautiful psychology dept in the world, in the
private road Lennoxvale. I fenced for the
university, and played squash, and occasionally ran. As a teen, I read
Robert H. Thouless "Straight and crooked
thinking." It has put sinew into my critical reasoning. I wanted to
know as much as possible, to critique it, and to contribute something
valuable. I blossomed at Queen's, and it welcomed me back for a Master's
and Dr. Peter McEwan there launched me into
Cornell, where I met the Gibson's and James and Eleanor were remarkable
kind supervisors. I followed my nose on ideas that interested me, and I
learned a very great deal from the Gibson's. James J. Gibson's theory of
perception was my basis for thinking clearly about what others were saying
was the basis of perception. Flourishing at Cornell, and backed by the Gibsons, I got a job at Harvard. James said of me that
I would rewrite a page in the history of psychology. Once I'd done that to
figure-ground, pieces started to fall into place. I realized outline
drawings would be recognizable in touch, if everthing
I'd theorized was correct. The finding of supportive evidence on this got
me a job at Toronto.
Again and again, new pieces fell into place in the Toronto work.
Realizing what the problem was, being ready for a solution, being
constantly surprised by the solution once it dawned on me -- that is the
name of the game. Often it has been colleagues like Andy Kukla and Abe Ross, students like Igor Juricevic, and Yvonne Eriksson, and informants like
Joan Eroncel and Elke Zollitsch and Paola di Guilio and Amedeo D'Anguilli who lead me to meet Gaia, Esref and Eriko,
who opened new scenarios of possibility to me. They often came along at
just the right time. Colleagues in the US like Pat Cabe and Morty Heller
offered constant connections in experimental tactile psychology. I have had great critics too, who have
been skeptical in all the right places. I
learned from many people. I'm duly grateful.
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To contact us:
E-mail:
editor@blindnessandarts.com
We are based in:
Leicester, UK
Eco
Ancient Greek, Verb, pronounced Ekh-o. The Transliterated word is Echo.
New Testament Greek Lexicon
“[To] have (hold) in the hand, in the sense of wearing, to
have (hold) possession of the mind (refers to alarm, agitating emotions,
etc.), to hold fast keep, to have or comprise or involve, to regard or
consider or hold as.”
Source:
http://www.crosswalk.com
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