On Oct. 19, our colleagues John Durant and Anne Harrington will be the guest speakers at the Coolidge Corner Theatres presentation of Science on Screen, featuring the film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Details appear below. d The Coolidge Corner Theatres Science on Screen series returns on Monday, October 19 at 7:00 p.m. with a presentation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Victor Flemings 1941 adaptation of Robert Louis Stevensons classic Victorian gothic tale. The film will be introduced by MIT professor John Durant and Harvard professor Anne Harrington. The pair, both specialists in the history of science, co-taught a course on science and medicine in Victorian England at Londons Imperial College last summer. Screen legend Spencer Tracy stars in the dual title role in Flemings Oscar-nominated film. In 1887 London, Dr. Henry Jekyll is a socially upstanding physician whose unorthodox theories alarm his older colleagues. Jekyll believes that each man has two selves, one good and one evil, that can be separated through science, freeing the good so that it can triumph and allowing the bad to destroy itself in its own degradation. Toiling in his lab, he develops a drug which transforms him into the cruel and remorseless Edward Hyde. Initially, Jekyll is able to dispense of Hyde whenever he chooses. But as he repeatedly takes the potion, Hyde begins to dominate, until he can no longer be controlled. Lana Turner co-stars as Jekylls loving, forgiving fiancée and Ingrid Berman as a luckless barmaid pursued and abused by the malevolent Hyde. Before the film, John Durant and Anne Harrington provide a fascinating window into some of the scientific theories and debates of the era in which Stevensons famously divided character was born. In the late 19th century, mans animal origins, as revealed by Darwin, and the idea of degeneration (that humanity could fall downwards on the evolutionary ladder as easily as it could move upwards) had a strong hold on the Victorian imagination. It was a time when physicians circulated a theory of a double brain, when dual personality and other cases of mental illness were often attributed to brain hemisphere imbalance, and when people anxiously wondered where the soul lived in relation to the brain. About Our Speakers John Durant is director of the MIT Museum, adjunct professor in MITs Science, Technology and Society Program, and executive director of the Cambridge Science Festival. He was formerly assistant director and head of science communication at the Science Museum, London and professor of public understanding of science at Londons Imperial College. Dr. Durant has a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge. His areas of research have included the history of evolutionary and behavioral biology, particularly debates about animal nature and human nature in the late-19th and 20th centuries. Anne Harrington is chair of the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University and a professor in that department, specializing in the history of psychiatry, neuroscience, and the other mind sciences. She is also visiting professor for medical history at the London School of Economics, where she co-edits the journal Biosocieties. Dr. Harrington is the author of three books, Medicine, Mind and the Double Brain (1987), Reenchanted Science (1997), and The Cure Within (2008), and has also produced a range of articles and edited collections. About Science on Screen With Science on Screen, the Coolidge presents a feature film or documentary with a basis in science, medicine, or technology, paired with exciting introductions by noted guest speakers in a related field. Thanks to our fiscal sponsors Brit dArbeloff, Gesmer Updegrove, LLP and Richard Anders. Science on Screen is co-presented by the Museum of Science, Boston and New Scientist magazine. Science on Screen programs are $9.75 regular admission; $7.75 for students and Museum of Science members; and free for Coolidge Corner Theatre members. Tickets are available on-line at <http://www.coolidge.org/> www.coolidge.org or at the Coolidge Corner Theatre box office, located at 290 Harvard Street in Brookline. ============================ Upcoming Science on Screen programs: Nov. 16: BABETTES FEAST with professor Guy Crosby, science editor, Cooks Illustrated and Americas Test Kitchen Dec. 7: AMERICAN BEAUTY with Daniel Gilbert, Harvard social psychologist and author, Stumbling on Happiness Jan. 18: WILD CHILD (speaker TBD) ============================ Previous Science on Screen programs include: COMA with Robin Cook, MD AN EVENING WITH RAY KURZWEIL GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER with social psychologist Mahzarin Banaji GROUNDHOG DAY with physicist and science historian Peter Galison NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD with psychiatrist Steven Schlozman, MD THEREMIN: AN ELECTRONIC ODYSSEY with music technology pioneer Tod Machover RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK with archaeologist Curtis Runnels SLEEPER with Brock Reeve, executive director, Harvard Stem Cell Institute STAR TREK: THE WRATH OF KAHN with former NASA astronaut Jeffery Hoffman SUPERMAN with physicist Max Tegmark A CLOCKWORK ORANGE with evolutionary biologist Marc Hauser ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND with psychologist Daniel Schacter DONNIE DARKO with Bruce M. Cohen, president emeritus, McLean Hospital RICHARD FEYNMAN: NO ORDINARY GENIUS with physicist, mathematician and business leader Stephen Wolfram SO MUCH, SO FAST with Jamie Heywood, founder, ALS Therapy Institute FORBIDDEN PLANET with artificial intelligence pioneer Rodney Brooks 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY with cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN with epidemiologist Alfred DeMaria A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME with cosmologist Alan Guth JAWS with marine biologist Greg Skomal DIAL M FOR MURDER with experimental psychologist Steven Pinker
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