6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Roger A Ekirch. Photo: Tom Cogill
How did we use to sleep, and how do we sleep now? The eight hours that we now associate with sound sleep and health is quite a new phenomenon in human history. Before, just as many animals do, man slept in sync with the shifts of seasons and daylight, and often in two segments. People even spoke of the first and the second sleep. The time in between them, which came in the middle of the night and could vary between one and several hours, was a period of wakefulness in which people ate, had sex or worked. These sleepless night hours could also bear with them a particular sense of creativity.
Roger A Ekirch is an award-winning writer and professor of history at Virginia Tech, USA. This Wednesday evening he will speak about past and present nights. We will be offered a historical perspective on sleep and sleeplessness, and how they have been represented in art and literature through time. Moderator is Jonas (J) Magnusson, writer and editor.
Language: English
Roger Ekirch is a writer and professor of History at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He has, among other things, written the book At Day’s Close. Night in Times Past.
Jonas (J) Magnusson is the editor of OEI Magazine and has produced a special issue about sleep.