Front cover image for Screams of reason : mad science and modern culture

Screams of reason : mad science and modern culture

"In Screams of Reason, David J. Skal explores our perennial fascination with demented doctors, crazed clinicians, and technology-obsessed fiends. From nineteenth-century Romantic literature to Dr. Strangelove and Hannibal Lecter, the mad scientist proves himself to be a figure of myriad masks and guises - a far more interesting archetype than the nerd-run-amok of B-movies would indicate."--BOOK JACKET. "Screams of Reason is an exploration of the prop-laden laboratories of 1930s Hollywood, the mad-science mystique that colors the cult of the computer, the pseudo-science folklore of UFO abductions, and the demonization of doctors and medicine in the brave new world of HMOs and managed care."--BOOK JACKET
Print Book, English, ©1998
W.W. Norton, New York, ©1998
Criticism, interpretation, etc
368 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
9780393045826, 039304582X
38132723
Introduction: Laughing Sal and the science of screams
Frankenstein's gate
Miracles for the masses
Snap, crackle, scream
A-bombs, B pictures and C cups
Alien chic
The doctor will eat you now
Vile bodies, or Farewell to the flesh
Conclusion: Entertaining the apocalypse
A Hollywood hit parade of mad scientists, demented doctors, and assorted evil geniuses