Synopsis
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.
About the Author
Sharon Packer, M.D., is a New York City psychiatrist and an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Her most recent book is Neuroscience in Science Fiction Films (2015), which she began when she was an Asst. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Her other books include Dreams in Myth, Medicine and Movies (2012); Movies and the Modern Psyche (2007); Superheroes and Superegos: the Minds behind the Masks (2010); Cinema's Sinister Psychiatrists (2012); and a co-edited, two-volume A History of Evil in Popular Culture: What Hannibal Lecter, Stephen King and Vampires Reveal about America (2014). She has written many more book chapters and reviews, plus articles for the academic and lay press. Her Psychiatric Times series on "Why Psychiatrists are Physicians First" explains her philosophy of psychiatric medicine. Other articles, such as, "What Wordsworth Knew: Daffodils as Antidepressants," reflect her longstanding interest in the intersection between medicine, psychiatry & the arts. Her articles on "European Ergot Epidemics and Jewish Mystical Movements" (and related topics) and "Spider-Man's Symbiote and the Early AIDS Epidemic" reflect her focus on the History of Medicine.
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