The Future of #Mood

How much is your identity tied to your emotional state? An urgent dimension of considering the future of mood is the increasing frequency with which emotional states are regulated by pharmacology, prescription medications from a young age, and more. Renowned scientist, researcher, and contributor to the New York Times Richard Friedman will join comedian and writer Janelle James for a discussion around emotion, mental health, and the creative process.

The phenomenon of sharing or commenting on an image with #mood is used less to express a conventional emotional state such as sadness, anger, or joy and more to associate an image with one’s identity. While #mood has a basis in the idea of mood as an affective state, it also recognizes how much one’s affective state influences the experience of daily life and the creative process.

This program is made possible by Rasika and Girish Reddy, Manoj and Rita Singh, and the Akhoury Foundation.

About the Speakers

Dr. Richard Friedman is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and Director of the Psychopharmacology Clinic in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Friedman has expertise and research experience in the psychopharmacology and neurobiology of mood disorders, in particular treatment-resistant depression. At Cornell, he is actively involved in teaching and training psychiatric residents and runs the biological psychiatry curriculum. He is also the director of the Cornell Student Mental Health Program, which provides psychiatric treatment to medical and graduate students. Dr. Friedman writes for several medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association, on psychiatric topics. He is also a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times where he writes on mental health, addiction, human behavior, and neuroscience.

Janelle James is a New York”“based comedian who can be seen on Night Train with Wyatt Cenac (NBC/Seeso), @midnight (Comedy Central), Uproarious (Fuse) and Crashing (HBO). She was included in Just For Laughs Montreal’s New Faces category for 2016, named one of The 50 Most Funny People in Brooklyn in 2016, and has been featured for her outstanding performance ability in the New York Times, Portland Tribune, and Time Out Magazine. Janelle’s debut comedy album, Black and Mild, was released on September 29, 2017, on Audible, iTunes, SiriusXM, Pandora, Spotify, and other outlets. Janelle recently wrapped as a staff writer on The Rundown (BET) after touring with Chris Rock on his Total Blackout tour and will soon be featured in a series of 15-minute stand-up specials released by Netflix.

Image Credit

Chitra Ganesh (b. 1975, Brooklyn, NY); Rainbow Body (still); 2018; digital animation; courtesy of the artist