Sharon Guskin + Jim Tucker

Can consciousness continue after the brain stops working? Author Sharon Guskin’s striking debut novel The Forgetting Time is inspired by the real-life work of Jim Tucker of the Division of Perceptual Studies at UVA. Tucker joins Guskin for a conversation about the probability of past lives and reincarnation.

About the Speakers

Jim B. Tucker, MD, is Bonner-Lowry Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia. A board-certified child psychiatrist, he served as the medical director of the UVA Child and Family Psychiatry Clinic for nine years. Tucker is continuing the research of Ian Stevenson at the UVA Division of Perceptual Studies. It involves children’s reports of memories from previous lives, which often include details that correspond to the experiences of one particular deceased individual. Tucker’s latest book is Return to Life: Extraordinary Cases of Children Who Remember Past Lives, a collection of recent American cases he has investigated.

Sharon Guskin is the author of the novel The Forgetting Time. In addition to writing fiction, she has worked as a writer and producer of documentary films, including Stolen and On Meditation. She began exploring the ideas examined in The Forgetting Time when she worked at a refugee camp in Thailand and later served as a hospice volunteer. She’s been a fellow at Yaddo, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Blue Mountain Center, and Ragdale and has degrees from Yale University and the Columbia University School of the Arts.

Brainwave is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.