Monday, August 6, 2007

Free Radicals - Mad Scientists! and Pop Culture!

Today's show is pretty fun stuff, with an intellectual bent, of course, because that's what we tend to do here at Free Radicals; we just can't stop our big huge brains that way. Yes, we delve into a brief history of mad scientists in popular culture, whether in film, tv, fiction or comic books.

I talk with Mike Schulz, who holds an MA in Media Studies from Concordia, about the links between the trope of the mad scientist and how it has changed over - from Frankenstein to X-Men to Lex Luthor - from the insane individual playing God to the corporate-backed slightly maniacle inventor.

I also speak with Kamal Fox, MA in Media Studies, about the men and monsters of Frankenstein and Dracula as they relate to romanticism and technology during the late 19th century.

Related links (from wikipedia and beyond):
• Haynes, Roslynn Doris (1994). From Faust to Strangelove: Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-4801-6.
• Frayling, Christopher – Mad, Bad and Dangerous?: The Scientist and the Cinema (Reaktion Books, 2005)
• Junge, Torsten; Doerthe Ohlhoff (2004). Wahnsinnig genial: Der Mad Scientist Reader. Aschaffenburg: Alibri.
• Skal, David J. (1997). Screams of Reason Mad Science and Modern Culture - http://www.monstershow.net/
• Tudor, Andrew (1989). Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Weart, Spencer R. (1988). Nuclear Fear: A History of Images. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Listen to the mad, mad show!

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