Performing Brains on Screen

Fernando Vidal is Research Professor of ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies) at the Medical Anthropology Research Center, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain.

"The Cartesian subject may be dead but our brains still haven’t figured that out. In Performing Brains on Screen, Fernando Vidal provides an impressive survey of the brain as protagonist across a pulpy expanse of fiction and cinema, examining how the continuing equation of brain and selfhood informs popular understandings of identity, consciousness, and memory. Essential reading for neuroscientists, cinephiles, and anyone else who has ever pondered the odd yet enduring convention of brains transplanted, escaped, switched, uploaded, and otherwise liberated from the body as spongy receptacle of selfhood." - Jeffrey Sconce, Professor in the Screen Cultures program at Northwestern University and a Guggenheim Fellow for 2020-2021. "The book’s detailed historical focus is its most valuable asset, especially for philosophers interested in the mechanics of genre formation. It condenses vast primary and secondary literature on the origins of science fiction, making it an important resource for philosophical work on genre." – Michel-Antoine Xhignesse, Metascience, issue 32, 2023

• Acknowledgments Note on References and Images 1. Brainhood and the Cinema The "Deficit Model" and the Agency of Film Bs to Zs Filmic Brains in the Neurobiological Age 2. Brains in the Pulps Resources Scientifiction, Textual and Visual Advertisement and "Prophetic Insight" Before Gernsback Weird Tales Stories Astounding and Amazing 3. Naked Brains and Living Heads Brain Movies Body Parts The Donor Portion Apes Semigrafts Living Heads Some Filmic Allografts Paradox of the Naked Brain 4. Personal Survival Immortality and the Brain Adam and Tithonus Staying the Same, Becoming Someone Else The Man Who Changed His Mind (1936) Change of Mind (1969) The Man With the Transplanted Brain (1971) 5. Frankenstein’s Brains Shelley’s Novel and Frankenstein Films The Final Touch: Frankenstein (1931) The Universal Series The Hammer Series Beyond Universal and Hammer 6. Memories, Lost and Regained A Preference for Retrograde Amnesia Localizing Memory in the Filmic Brain Personal Identity and the Authenticity of Memory Erasing Memories Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Dark City (1998) 7. "Imagine, They Are in the Human Mind" Bibliography Films Index