''Proust Was a Neuroscientist'' is a non-fiction book written by

Jonah Lehrer Jonah Richard Lehrer (born June 25, 1981) is an American author and blogger. Lehrer studied neuroscience at Columbia University and was a Rhodes Scholar. Thereafter, he built a media career that integrated science and humanities content to addre ...

, first published in 2007. In it, Lehrer argues that many 20th and 21st-century discoveries of

neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...

are actually re-discoveries of insights made earlier by various artists, including

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and ...

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman Jr. (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist; he also wrote two novels. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature and world literature. Whitman incor ...

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work introduced new modes of representation, influenced avant-garde artistic movements of the early 20th century a ...

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...

, and, as alluded to in the title,

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...

. Lehrer became embroiled in controversy following the publication of his third book, ''Imagine: How Creativity Works'' (2012), and his work was subject to charges of plagiarism and fabrication. Though both ''Imagine'' and one of his other books, ''

How We Decide ''How We Decide'', is a 2009 book by journalist Jonah Lehrer, that provides biological explanations of how people make decisions and offers suggestions for making better decisions. It is published as ''The Decisive Moment: How the Brain Makes Up ...

'', were pulled from publication, ''Proust Was a Neuroscientist'' was found by his publisher to be without significant problems and would remain in print.

References

Neuroscience books 2007 non-fiction books Books by Jonah Lehrer Works about Marcel Proust {{neuroscience-book-stub