The Inner Spirit of Story and Soul of Literature

Can Art Save Us?

Dennis Clausen, is a professor of American Literature and Screenwriting at the University of San Diego in the USA. He’s a highly respected, award-winning author of many works of fiction that reflect his lived experience and special interest in American small towns. He’s also written, Storytelling as Art and Craftsmanship, offering practical strategies for Screenwriters and Creative Writers. The emphasis on storytelling as art and craft is critical which is reflected in his regular contributions to Psychology Today. He discusses the threat of Artificial Intelligence and technology to our own thinking skills, neurological development, mental fitness, our imagination, having an authentic voice and questioning, who’s soul will be in literature? We talk about the relationship in his current trilogy between social injustice, economic inequality, homelessness and how Art is critical to finding truth, purpose and human existence. Dennis shares powerful personal stories including how his father, Lloyd Clausen, was adopted to be a farm labourer, not a son, who was extremely deprived. In the 1920s, the Great Depression and droughts also made for his crushing existence. Dennis unravelled his father's life story before he sadly died from cancer and he consequently published, "Prairie Son." All of his work is a great act of humanity and an important reminder why the humanities must have freedom to survive, to respond to authoritarianism and exercise the health of our own minds.

Series Audio Editor - Joey Quan.

Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb

Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview, news, reviews and your host are here: www.canartsaveus.com

Discover Professor Dennis Clausen: www.dennisclausen.com

Professor Dennis Clausen, contributor to Psychology Today magazine: www.psychologytoday.com/us/contributors/dennis-m-clausen-phd