Teaching, lectures, and media appearances
An experienced teacher and speaker, Jack El-Hai has led courses and workshops at the University of Minnesota, the Mayo Clinic, the Split Rock Arts Program, the Loft Literary Center, and elsewhere. He has taught nonfiction writing and literature, entrepreneurial journalism, and the techniques of biographical and popular historical writing to a variety of audiences.
He has lectured on his book topics — the rise and fall of lobotomy, the psychiatric appraisal of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, and the turbulent history of Northwest Airlines — at the University of Iowa, the Mayo Clinic, Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, Tufts University, the University of Mississippi, Carleton College, the Library of Virginia, Stanford University, the University of Michigan, the University of Maryland, the University of Toronto, Cornell University, the Nathan Kline Psychiatric Institute, and many other venues.
El-Hai is also a skilled media guest, having appeared on CNN’s Now with Paula Zahn, National Public Radio’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Talk of the Nation, and The Diane Rehm Show; the BBC’s All in the Mind; Australian Broadcasting’s The Science Show; Twin Cities Public Television's Almanac show; and numerous other programs. He is featured in the BBC Four television documentary Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery / Into the Brain and in the PBS American Experience documentary The Lobotomist.
Jack also appearaed in the BBC Four television documentary Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery / Into the Brain.