The celluloid specimen : moving image research into animal life / Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schultz-Figueroa, Benjamin, 1985- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Animals in motion pictures--20th century.

Animals in motion pictures.

Laboratory animals.

Physical Description:

viii, 259 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2023]

Summary:

"The Celluloid Specimen examines twentieth-century behaviorist films that captured animal experiments, revealing the central role of cinema in generating psychosocial definitions of species, race, identity, and culture that continue to shape our contemporary political and scientific discourses. Benjami̹n Schultz-Figueroa analyzes rarely seen archival films made by Robert Yerkes in the 1930s at the first experimental primate colonies in North America, the rat films made to simulate human society at Yale University in the 1930s and 1940s, and the promotional films made by B.F. Skinner to sell the U.S. military on his design for a pigeon-guided missile during World War II. These laboratory films have long been categorized as passive recordings of scientific research, but when examined in their own right, they become rich historical, political, and aesthetic texts that played a crucial role in the history of science"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: pt. ONE A SCIENCE OF SYMPATHY: THE FILMS OF ROBERT MEARNS YERKES

1. Stimulating Intelligence: IQ Exams and the Cinema

2. "Getting a Feeling for the Animal": Ape Affects Onscreen

3. Primate Figures: Social Darwinism, Anthropology, and Ingagi

Conclusion to Part One Expressive Labor

pt. TWO MODEL ANIMALS: NEAL E. MILLER'S MOTIVATION AND REWARD IN LEARNING

4. Rodent Simulations: Stimulus-Response, Laboratory Rats, and a Southern Lynch Mob

5. Distributed Suffering: Animal Experiments, Speculative Modeling, and Their Effects

6. From Lab to Classroom: Animal Testing and Educational Film

Conclusion to Part Two Scientific Folklore in "A Sea of Potential Facts"

pt. THREE POSTHUMAN CONTROL: B. F. SKINNER AND THE ONSCREEN PIGEON

7. Project Pigeon: Rendering the War Animal through Optical Technology

8. A Trip through the Senses: The Media Theory of Radical Behaviorism

9. Utopian Behavior: The Televisual Figure of a Pigeon That Hailed the Future

Conclusion to Part Three The Pigeon as a Figure for Our Times.

Notes:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND license. To view a copy of the license, visit. http://creativecommons.org/licenses.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Schultz-Figueroa, Benjamin, 1985- Celluloid specimen

ISBN:

9780520342347

0520342348

OCLC:

1343207106

Publisher Number:

99992986202