Free Download Sharon Packer, "Neuroscience in Science Fiction Films"
English | ISBN: 0786472340 | 2014 | 300 pages | EPUB | 5 MB
This volume focuses on neuroscience and psychiatry as running themes in SF-tracing tropes to 19th century literary inspirations that reverberate to this day. It finds correlations between turning points in "neuroscience fiction" and advances in the scientific field, using film to pinpoint paradigm shifts in psychiatric theory and practice.
As the gap between science fiction and science fact narrows, films that were intended as pure fantasy take on deeper meaning. The films covered include The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Robocop, The Stepford Wives, The Mind Snatchers and iconic franchises like Terminator, Ironman and Planet of the Apes, plus Donovan’s Brain, The Brain that Wouldn’t Die and other iconic examples from "classic SF". By examining the parallel histories of psychiatry, neuroscience and cinema, this book shows how science fiction films offer insightful commentary on the scientific and philosophical developments of their times.
Through SF film, readers come to understand why some generations revere the "mind" while other generations applaud the "brain" (and why such shifts are not always sequential). The extra-long chapter on 1950s SF-the era of "classic SF"-shows how big-brained aliens (BBAs) of "B-movies" call attention to brain-based behavior, just after the inventer of the lobotomy won a Nobel Prize.
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