Description
Book SynopsisA free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visitwww.luminosoa.orgto learn more. In The Celluloid Specimen, Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa examines rarely seen behaviorist films of animal experiments from the 1930s and 1940s. These laboratory recordingsincluding Robert Yerkes's work with North American primate colonies, Yale University's rat-based simulations of human society, and B.F. Skinner's promotions for pigeon-guided missileshave long been considered passive records of scientific research. In Schultz-Figueroa's incisive analysis, however, they are revealed to be rich historical, political, and aesthetic texts that played a crucial role in American scientific and cultural historyand remain foundational to contemporary conceptions of species, race, identity, and society.
