Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Monday 21 August
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
In her new book on anaesthesia, journalist Kate Cole-Adams looks at the facts, and explores the enigma of this mysterious medical practice – interweaving scientific and historical research with personal experience to present a haunting meditation on memory, paralysis and consciousness.
How common is it for patients to ‘wake up’ during surgery? Is pain still pain if you can’t feel it? And what do we know about consciousness, anyway? Cole-Adams will broach these questions and more in a fascinating panel discussion, hosted by Benjamin Law.
Presented in partnership with Sydney Writers’ Festival and Belvoir.
Featuring
Kate Cole-Adams
Kate Cole-Adams is a Melbourne-based writer and journalist. Her 2017 book Anaesthesia won the Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award and was shortlisted for the 2018 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award (Non-Fiction category) and Melbourne Prize Best Writing Award. Her 2008 novel, Walking to the Moon, was short-listed in the 2006 VPLA Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. She is fascinated by unconscious processes and other things she can’t understand.
Benjamin Law
Benjamin Law is the author of The Family Law (2010), Gaysia (2012), the Quarterly Essay Moral Panic (2017) and editor of Growing Up Queer in Australia (2019). He's also an AWGIE Award-winning screenwriter who created and co-wrote three seasons of the award-winning TV series The Family Law (SBS/Hulu/Comedy Central Asia), wrote the sold-out mainstage play Torch the Place (Melbourne Theatre Company, 2020), and is co-executive producer, co-creator and co-writer on the forthcoming Netflix comedy-drama Wellmania. Every week, Benjamin co-hosts ABC Radio National's weekly national pop culture show Stop Everything! and interviews public figures for Good Weekend magazine (the Age/Sydney Morning Herald). He is a literary scout for Hachette Australia, board member of Story Factory, committee member of the Jesse Cox Audio Fellowship and ambassador for Plan Australia, the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation, Victorian Pride Centre, Bridge for Asylum Seekers and the Pinnacle Foundation.
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Tim McCulloch
Tim McCulloch is a specialist anaesthetist at Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and also does regular anaesthetic work in developing countries. He has particular expertise in monitoring brain function during surgery.
Besides his professional role rendering patients unconscious, Tim has a longstanding amateur interest in the mysteries of consciousness itself.