SCUA is pleased to announce the recent acquisition of the Daniel Levitin papers. Daniel J. Levitin is an award-winning neuroscientist, musician, and best-selling author. The collection contains his manuscripts and editor/publisher notes and correspondence related to his six published books. Further information about his books is available here.

The physical archive of his published books consists of original printed copies of the manuscripts, copyeditors’ notes, and editor’s printed notes, as well as copies of his books and many articles, and includes public outreach materials and announcements for his talks. The born digital archive consists of computer folders for each of the books and contains multiple, iterative versions of the manuscripts, along with his editor’s comments, material that didn’t make the book, articles to promote the book, details of tours, press interviews, bestseller lists, etc., as well as a correspondence folder for emails with editor, publicist, and agent.

His research encompasses music, the brain, health, productivity, and creativity. His book titled, This Is Your Brain on Music, is considered a groundbreaking union of art and science, which explores the connection between music — its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it — and the human brain.

Dr. Levitin earned his B.A. from Stanford in Cognitive Science, his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology with a Ph.D. minor in Music Technology from the University of Oregon and completed post-doctoral training at Stanford University Medical School and University of California (UC) Berkeley in Neuroimaging and Perception.

As a musician (tenor saxophone, guitar, vocals, and bass), he has performed with Mel Tormé, David Byrne, Rosanne Cash, Sting, Bobby McFerrin, Victor Wooten, and Tom Scott. Levitin has produced and consulted on albums by artists including Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell and on the films Good Will Hunting and Pulp Fiction and has been awarded 17 gold and platinum records.

Levitin taught at Stanford in the Departments of Computer Science, Psychology, History of Science, and Music, and has been a Visiting Professor at Dartmouth, and UC Berkeley. He is currently the Founding Dean of Arts & Humanities at the Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute in San Francisco, California, and James McGill Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Neuroscience and Music at McGill University.

Further information about Dr. Levitin is available here.

Please note that, per SCUA policy, unprocessed materials, including the Levitin collection, are not available to researchers. The Levitin papers will make their way through SCUA’s standard workflows, as staff work to accession, arrange, describe, and preserve the collection, and during that process, no material will be available for use in any format. In the meantime, researchers are encouraged to explore other holdings within SCUA.