Leonard Shlain

Leonard Shlain, MD

Leonard has won several literary awards for his visionary work and holds several patents on innovative surgical devices. Sex, Time and Power: How Women’s Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution explores the reasons why Homo sapiens evolved so far away from other animals in several key attributes. He is the author of Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time and Light and Alphabet versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image. Leonard is also Chairman of laparoscopic surgery at California Pacific Medical Center and Professor of Surgery at UCSF.

Keynote: Time and Power: How Changes in Women's Sexuality Affected the Evolution of Human Consciousness
Sunday, March 30 - 4:30pm to 5:30pm

Why did big-brained Homo sapiens suddenly emerge some 150,000 years ago? In his books Art and Physics and The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, Shlain argues that profound alterations in female sexuality hold the key to this mystery.

He explores how these archaic insights about sex, time and power dramatically altered all subsequent human cultures, from the nature of courtship to the institution of marriage to the evolution of language. Along the way, the author also offers innovative and provocative theories concerning the human origins of menstrual harmony among close knit women, homosexuality, superstition, masturbation, early menopause, circumcision, left-handedness, baldness, color blindness, sadism, and orgasms. He also addresses the reasons why humans have the deepest capacity to love each other over the longest periods of time compared to any other animal. His presentation challenges accepted views of human sexuality and is sure to stimulate new thinking about old matters.

Goal: To learn how sex, time and power have altered accepted views in human culture.

Learning Objectives:
● To understand the evolutionary basis of human menses,
● To understand the cultural effect of the discovery of mortality, and
● To understand the ramifications of bipedalism .

Workshop: From Newton's Apple to Cezanne's Apples: Revolutions in Concepts Concerning Gravity in Both Art and Physics
Monday, March 31 - 10:30am to 12 noon

In this program, Leonard correlates the upheaval that occurred as a result of Albert Einstein’s complete overhaul of Newton’s conception of the force of gravity and the revolution that simultaneously swept through the art world concerning sculpture. Shlain emphasizes the theme that both endeavors simply use two entirely different languages: physics relies on numbers and equations, and art relies on image and metaphor. He proposes that the two basically address the same issues during the same period of history.

Goal: To understand the relationship of physics and art.

Learning Objectives:
● To understand the revolution in art that coincided with Einstein’s theory of relativity,
● To understand the revolution in sculpture that coincided with Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, and
● To understand that art and physics are simple two different languages addressing the same issues.