10:45 a. m. — Hotel Monteleone, New Orleans, Queen Anne Ballroom
LIFE & LITERATURE IN THE GLOBALVILLAGE
The Importance of Our Dreams to Our Lives and Our Creativity
This session will feature bestselling non-fiction writer and poet Rodger Kamenetz, who is author of The History of Last Night's Dream: Discovering the Hidden Path to the Soul; and internationally noted photographic artist and author Joséphine Sacabo, whose most recent book, Duino Elegie, contains luscious photographs strongly influenced by her own dream life and the dreams of others. They will discuss the importance of dreams to the creative process and the importance of our dreams in harsh reality of today's shrinking village. And they will address the issue of art as a universal language to promote mutual understanding.
In eras of extreme stress, such as the one in which we are living today, dreams become even more important to healthy lives and creative processes. Since becoming obsessed with dreams and researching the subject for more than five years before writing the book, Rodger has become a dream analyst. Oprah Winfrey read Rodger's book and interviewed him and had this to say about his work: "What’s so exciting about this book is that it talks about how there’s a whole other life that we are living when we sleep and that our dreams are there as offerings and gifts to us if we only recognize what the dreams are there to teach us, what they’re there to tell us about our waking lives."
Joséphine's dreamily beautiful new collection is entitled Óyeme con los Ojos (Hear Me With Your Eyes and was inspired by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a 17th century Mexican nun who was one of the greatest poets and intellectuals of the American continent. Sor Juana lived in Mexico City in the late 1600’s and was very active in defending women’s rights in Mexico through her writing and poetry which centered on freedom, specifically the intellectual and social freedom of women.
