Transcript

Thank you all for joining us tonight, and it's my pleasure to welcome a close friend UC San Diego's Distinguished Professor Emeritus and psychiatry, Joel Dimsdale. I'm sure many of you know Joel and his incredible scholarship and service to UC San Diego. He joined UC San Diego back in 1985 after serving on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School, and even in his retirement, continues to consult and engage in research.

In addition to being a respected scholar, Joel's an incredible friend and supporter of the library, and in fact, just last year, Joel donated a collection of Holocaust survivor interviews that he collected in the late 1960s and early 1970s and I'm glad to report that just this past week, we finished digitizing those collections, Joel is with us tonight to speak about his new book, Dark persuasion, a history of brainwashing from Pavlov to social media. In this book, Joel traces the evolution ofbrainwashing from its beginnings in torture and religious conversion into the age ofneuroscience and social media. I just finished reading the book this past weekend, and just I'm so excited to have us with us, to have Joel with us tonight, and so with that, Joel, thank you so much for joining us this evening.