|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Norman Cousins: A Visual Autobiography
| Article
# : |
11345 |
|
|
Section : |
THE ARTS
|
| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1986 |
497 Words |
| Author
: |
Lynn Skow
|
Through the exacting eyes of Norman Cousins, photographer and world traveler, the world seems one. But it has yet to become whole. So his life has been devoted to being a representative voice for wholeness. American essayist and editor, presidential adviser, citizen-diplomat, intimate of the world's great (Schweitzer, Einstein, Nehru, Kennedy, and Pope John XXIII), and humanitarian, Norman Cousins has urged ways of seeing that promote options for humanity.
Cousins was born in Union City, New Jersey, on June 24, 1914. Before age five he had earned the nickname "The Professor." English composition was his best subject in school and his hobbies were writing, reading, and baseball. After graduation form Teachers College, Columbia University, he embarked on an editorial career. For over forty years, form editor in 1940 to editor emeritus in 1980, Cousins served on the staff of Saturday Review. His editorial policies brought the floundering magazine form a circulation of 15,000 to more than 650,000 at its height.
Author of hundreds of essays and more than a dozen books, he has won an impressive array of awards including the Thomas Jefferson Award for the Advancement of Democracy in Journalism, the Benjamin Franklin Citation in magazine journalism ht Overseas Press Club award for excellence in repotting foreign affairs, and the Eleanor Roosevelt peace Award. His works have ranged form a book of reflections on atomic every an world government Modern Man is Obsolete (1945), to his most noted contributions, Anatomy of an Illness (1979). This book describes his use of optimism, laughter, and positive patient threatening collagen disease that at one point paralyzed most of his body.
Cousin's upcoming book, The Human Adventure: A camera chronicle, is, in his own words, "a visual autobiography." From his first experiences with a Rolleiflex in the 1950s, cousins was intrigued with the combination of light and shutter speed that enabled a camera "to see deeply into things or to focus narrowly." He observes, "A man comes to know himself through the pictures he takes.. The two sides to a film are not just negative and positive; they are the object photographed and the mind that reveals itself when confronted by this object" (Human Options, 1981).
And what lies revealed in this picture story of Norman Cousins? A great optimism and a belief in regeneration not only of the body or an individual but of the "composite personality" of mankind. As Cousins reflects in Human Options, "There are no 'mere' men. Moral splendor comes with the gift of
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
