Susan R. Barry is professor emeritus of biology and neuroscience at Mount Holyoke College, where she researched stereovision, plasticity, and coordination. She's written for and been covered by the New York Times, LA Times, Big Think, NPR's Morning Edition and Fresh Air, and elsewhere. You might know Barry as "Stereo Sue," a nickname bestowed by Oliver Sacks when he wrote about her for a New Yorker essay that was later anthologized in The Mind's Eye. She lives in Massachusetts.
"Coming to Our Senses is an engaging and illuminating book. Barry's
intimate account of people who gained the ability to see and hear
as adults offers rich insights into how we shape, and our shaped
by, our senses. Along the way Barry teaches us much about vision,
hearing and the human capacity to learn and adapt."--Dennis M.
Levi, UC Berkeley
"Barry, who spent over a decade getting to know these two
incredible people, profiles them with detail and compassion,
unraveling their stories through both personal and scientific
lenses. The result is a book that reveals the ways in which
scientific knowledge is profoundly tied to our understanding of
human nature... Fascinating."
--The Wesleyan Connection
"Interweaving McCoy and Damji's accounts with scholarly
investigations of how perception works, Barry celebrates her
subjects' determination to adapt to their newfound
senses."--Smithsonian Magazine Online
"Coming to Our Senses, by neurobiologist Susan Barry, explains how
our actions shape and reshape our senses throughout our lives,
delving into this deeply personal developmental process."--New
Scientist
"In telling the detailed stories of how Liam and Zohra learned to
navigate the world using their new senses -- stories that in many
ways mimic the way able-bodied infants accomplish the same thing --
Barry gives us insight into what it means to be human."--New York
Times
"Neurobiologist Barry explores sight, hearing, and perception in
this triumphant survey of people who gained a sense they were born
without. Barry skillfully balances scientific explanations with
empathetic stories of how senses shape the human experience... This
powerful tale is as thoughtful as it is informative."--Publisher's
Weekly
"Through stories of two amazing individuals, a neurobiologist
explains how we see and hear...Even science-savvy readers will find
surprises in this insightful exploration of how two humans learned
a new sense." --Kirkus
"While researching the fascinating and inspiring story of a boy and
a girl - born blind and deaf, respectively - who learned to see and
hear after receiving surgical intervention, Barry, a neurobiologist
who herself gained sight in both eyes in midlife, arrived at a new
theory about the nature of perception."--Toronto Globe & Mail
"Absolutely fascinating."--Temple Grandin
"What would happen if you had a new sense grafted on your body? Sue
Barry is alert to the many fascinating details of how Liam and
Zohra navigated their new sensory experiences, essentially giving
the reader a lab course in experimental philosophy. This moving
work of biography and scholarship explores the deep questions that
arise when people choose to live in bodies that have been made new
and strange."--Michael Chorost, author of, Rebuilt: How Becoming
Part Computer Made Me More Human
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