Jill Bolte Taylor

For other uses, see Jill Taylor (disambiguation).
Jill Bolte Taylor

Bolte Taylor at TED, 2008
Born (1959-05-04) May 4, 1959
Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Residence Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.
Nationality United States
Alma mater Terre Haute South Vigo High School, B.A. Indiana University, Ph.D. Indiana State University, Postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School (Depts of Psychiatry and Neuroscience)
Known for Work in neuroanatomy
Website
DrJillTaylor.com
External video
"A blood vessel exploded in the left half of my brain...", Jill Bolte Taylor, TED Talk

Jill Bolte Taylor (/ˈbɒlti/; born May 4, 1959) is an American neuroanatomist, author, and inspirational public speaker.

Her personal experience with a massive stroke, experienced in 1996 at the age of 37, and her subsequent eight-year recovery, influenced her work as a scientist and speaker. It is the subject of her 2006 book My Stroke of Insight, A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey. She gave the first TED talk that ever went viral on the Internet, after which her book became a NY Times bestseller and was published in 30 languages.

Bolte Taylor's training is in the postmortem investigation of the human brain as it relates to schizophrenia and the severe mental illnesses. For her book and public outreach related to strokes, in May 2008 she was named to Time Magazine's 2008 Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.[1] "My Stroke of Insight" received the top "Books for a Better Life" Book Award in the Science category from the New York City Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society on February 23, 2009 in New York City.[2]

Taylor at the 2016 Butler University commencement, where she received an honorary degree

Bolte Taylor founded the nonprofit Jill Bolte Taylor Brains, Inc., she is affiliated with the Indiana University School of Medicine, and she is the national spokesperson for the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center.

Stroke

On December 10, 1996, Bolte Taylor woke up to discover that she was experiencing a stroke. The cause proved to be bleeding from an abnormal congenital connection between an artery and a vein in the left hemisphere of her brain, an arteriovenous malformation (AVM). Three weeks later, on December 27, 1996, she underwent major brain surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) to remove a golf ball-sized clot that was placing pressure on the language centers in the left hemisphere of her brain.

My Stroke of Insight

Following her experience with stroke, in 2006 Bolte Taylor came out with the initial edition of her book My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey,[3] about her recovery from the stroke and the insights she has gained into the workings of her brain because of it.

Bolte Taylor's February 2008 TED Conference talk[4] about her memory of the stroke[5] became an Internet sensation, resulting in widespread attention and interest around the world. It became the second most viewed TED talk of all time.[6] The next edition of the book quickly emerged as a best-seller.

After Bolte Taylor's representative, transmedia agent and attorney Ellen Stiefler, conducted an auction for worldwide publishing rights to "My Stroke of Insight," Penguin won the book.[7] and it was published in hardcover in May 2008, debuting near the top of the New York Times Non-fiction Hardcover Bestseller list. "My Stroke of Insight" spent seventeen weeks on the New York Times Bestseller Lists, reaching number 4.[8] My Stroke of Insight is also available in paperback, large print, audio book, and for some tablets.

My Stroke of Insight is available in over 30 languages. [9]

Subsequently, Bolte Taylor appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on October 21, 2008.[10] In her later commencement address at Duke University on May 10, 2009, Oprah Winfrey quoted Bolte Taylor's assertion that, "You are responsible for the energy that you bring" in encouraging the students to assume this same responsibility in their future lives.[11] Bolte Taylor was the first guest featured on Oprah's Soul Series[12] webcast on Oprah.com and Satellite radio show.

Ballet

Cedar Lake Ballet Company made a ballet about My Stroke of Insight called "Orbo Novo." Deborah Jowitt from the Village Voice writes: "The piece's title, Orbo Novo, is drawn from a 1493 reference to North America by Spanish historian Pietro Martire d'Anghiera. The "new world" that Cherkaoui is exploring, however, is current theories about the brain, and the text that the seventeen dancers speak during the first moments of the 75-minute work comes from My Stroke of Insight, neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor's uncanny recollection of her stroke. The choreography is based on the ramifications of a single resonant idea: the duality between rationality (the left brain) and instinctive, sensual responses (the right brain); between control and the lack of it; between balance and instability, solitude and society."[13] A review in Los Angeles Times said: "Thus were the dancers speaking Bolte Taylor's words ('My spirit soared free like a great whale gliding through the sea of silent euphoria'), while they physically embodied brain waves and misfiring synapses, with a nod, perhaps, to the double helix: rubbery splayed limbs; über-arched backs; ever-rippling torsos."[14] Lauren Roberts of the Daily Brun wrote: ""'Orbo Novo' is a humorous and insightful take on [Bolte Taylor's] story," said dancer Jubal Battisti. "It has a lot to do with the hemispheres of the brain switching between left and right and what that reveals.""[15]

References

  1. ↑ Clark, Dick (2008-05-12). "The 2008 Time 100: Jill Bolte Taylor". Time Magazine. 171 (19). Retrieved 2008-05-02.
  2. ↑ "Chapter announces Books for a Better Life". Feb 24, 2009.
  3. ↑ Bolte Taylor, Jill (2008). My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey. Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-02074-4.
  4. ↑ Ted.com
  5. ↑ "Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight". Technology entertainment design. 2008-02-27. Retrieved 2008-05-24.
  6. ↑ Kaufman, Leslie (2008-05-25). "A Superhighway to Bliss". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-24.
  7. ↑ "Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor Explains Her Stroke of Insight". Oprah.com. 2008-10-21. Retrieved 2012-10-23.
  8. ↑ http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/blogs/categories/bestsellers?page=5/
  9. ↑ My Stroke of Insight is available in over 30 languages including Portuguese in Brazil and Portugal, Ediouro Publicacoe S.A.; Editorial Presenca; Bulgaria, Janua '98 LTD; Chinese, Hainan Publishing House; Croatian, Planetopija; Danish Borgen Forlag; Estonian Pilgrim Publishing; Finnish, Otava Publishing; French in France, Editions Jean-Claude Lattes; German in Germany, Droemer; Greek in Greece, Livanis Publishing Organization S.A.; Hungarian in Hungary Agykontroll Kft.; Indonesian in Indonesia, PT Elex Media Komputindo; Hebrew in Israel Modan Publishing House; Italian in Italy, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore SPA; Japanese in Japan, Shincho-Sha Co. Ltd; Korean in Korea, Will Books; Mandarin Chinese in Mainland China, Hainan Pub House; Marathi and other Indian dialects and languages in India (Marathi), Mehta Publishing House,;Dutch in the Netherlands, Kosmos Uitgevers BV; Norwegian in Norway, Cappelen Damm A/S; Polish in Poland, Galaktyka; Romanian in Romania, Curtea Veche; Russian in Russia, Atticus Publishing Group LLC; Slovene in Slovenia, Mladinsk Knjiga; Spanish in Spain, Random House Mondadori; Swedish in Sweden, Bra Bocker; Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese in Taiwan, Commonwealth Publishing Co. LTD.; Thai in Thailand, Saengdao Publishing House Co., LTD.; Turkish in Turkey, Kuraldisi Yayincilik; British English in United Kingdom, Hodder Headline Ltd. and American English in the United States, Penguin Books.
  10. ↑ "Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor Explains Her Stroke of Insight". Oprah.com. 2008-10-21. Retrieved 2012-10-23.
  11. ↑ Oprah Winfrey, commencement address May 10, 2009 http://news.duke.edu/2009/05/winfrey_address.html
  12. ↑ Oprah.com
  13. ↑ "Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui Tries Getting In Our Heads".
  14. ↑ "Cedar Lake Ballet at UCLA – Review". Los Angeles Times. 2010-05-09.
  15. ↑ "Not The Typical Ballet Show".
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