Benoit Denizet-Lewis: The Promise and Price of Self-Transformation

On social media, in recovery meetings, through name-change petitions, deconversion blogs, and political conversion manifestos, we’ve been surrounded by stories of radical personal change. But what does it really mean to shed an old skin? Whose change narratives do we celebrate—and whose do we suspect are performance, reinvention as strategy, or even grift? Emerson College Professor Benoit Denizet-Lewis’s new book You’ve Changed offers a fresh and clarifying lens on how we arrived at this bewildering cultural moment marked by fractured truths, shifting identities, and a public dizzy in a world that seems to be changing too fast and not nearly enough.  Denizet-Lewis introduces us to an unforgettable array of people in flux—including psychedelic reality benders, sexual and gender transitioners, ideological shapeshifters, seemingly reformed murderers—as well as those working to engineer change: psychologists, neuroscientists, name-change specialists, even his own father, a breath and meditation teacher who once wrote a newsletter about “the art and science of transformation.” Intertwined with those portraits of change is Denizet-Lewis’s own reckoning—by turns painful, poignant, and hilarious—with his misfires and epiphanies. He shows us that profound, positive change is possible, but that it is rarely easy, linear or free of consequence. Denizet-Lewis’s message is aimed at anyone who’s ever tried to become someone new, fix what felt broken, drag someone else into changing, or wondered whether real transformation is more than a myth.  Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California is a nonprofit public forum; we welcome donations made during registration to support the production of our programming. Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices