works

Galleries and Reading Room

Library

Wellcome Café

Wellcome Kitchen

Wellcome Shop

To make your visit as safe and enjoyable as possible, you’ll need to follow our safety measures inside our venue, including wearing a face covering unless you’re exempt. Find out how we're keeping you safe. You no longer need to book a ticket to enter the museum or library.

We’re undertaking research with website visitors to find out some more about you and what you thought about your visit. This survey will take less than 10 minutes to complete. Thank you for your time!

What brought you to our website today?

Devices of curiosity : early cinema and popular science / Oliver Gaycken.

Smokin' rockets : the romance of technology in American film, radio, and television, 1945-1962 / Patrick Lucanio and Gary Coville.

Lab coats in Hollywood : science, scientists, and cinema / David A. Kirby.

Houston, we have a narrative : why science needs story / Randy Olson.

<p>They were mad, of course. Or evil. Or godless, amoral, arrogant, impersonal, and inhuman. At best, they were well intentioned but blind to the dangers of forces they barely controlled. They were Faust and Frankenstein, Jekyll and Moreau, Caligari and Strangelove-the scientists of film and fiction, cultural archetypes that reflected ancient fears of tampering with the unknown or unleashing the little-understood powers of nature. In From Madman to Crime Fighter, Roslynn D. Haynes analyzes stereotypical characters-including the mad scientist, the cold-blooded pursuer of knowledge, the intrepid pathbreaker, and the bumbling fool-that, from medieval times to the present day, have been used to depict the scientist in Western literature and film. She also describes more realistically drawn scientists, characters who are conscious of their public responsibility to expose dangers from pollution and climate change yet fearful of being accused of lacking evidence. Drawing on examples from Britain, America, Germany, France, Russia, and elsewhere, Haynes explores the persistent folklore of mad doctors of science and its relation to popular fears of a depersonalized, male-dominated, and socially irresponsible pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. She concludes that today's public response to science and scientists-much of it negative-is best understood by recognizing the importance of such cultural archetypes and their significance as myth. From Madman to Crime Fighter is the most comprehensive study of the image of the scientist in Western literature and film. --Back cover.</p>

xi, 407 pages : black and white illustrations ; 23 cm

From madman to crime fighter : the scientist in western culture / Roslynn D. Haynes.

9 loose, unnumbered sheets in folder : colour illustrations ; 31 cm

Wellcome uses cookies.

More filters

Active filters:

Devices of curiosity : early cinema and popular science / Oliver Gaycken.

Smokin' rockets : the romance of technology in American film, radio, and television, 1945-1962 / Patrick Lucanio and Gary Coville.

Lab coats in Hollywood : science, scientists, and cinema / David A. Kirby.

Houston, we have a narrative : why science needs story / Randy Olson.

From madman to crime fighter : the scientist in western culture / Roslynn D. Haynes.

Science on stage and screen : award winners 1998 / The Wellcome Trust.

Don't be such a scientist : talking substance in an age of style / by Randy Olson.

Mad, bad and dangerous? : the scientist and the cinema / Christopher Frayling.

Hollywood science : movies, science, and the end of the world / Sidney Perkowitz.

Stay in the know

Wellcome collection

Finding us:

Opening times:

Today's opening times

Wellcome uses cookies.

Search the collections

More filters

Active filters:

Devices of curiosity : early cinema and popular science / Oliver Gaycken.

Smokin' rockets : the romance of technology in American film, radio, and television, 1945-1962 / Patrick Lucanio and Gary Coville.

Lab coats in Hollywood : science, scientists, and cinema / David A. Kirby.

Houston, we have a narrative : why science needs story / Randy Olson.

From madman to crime fighter : the scientist in western culture / Roslynn D. Haynes.

Science on stage and screen : award winners 1998 / The Wellcome Trust.

Don't be such a scientist : talking substance in an age of style / by Randy Olson.

Mad, bad and dangerous? : the scientist and the cinema / Christopher Frayling.

Hollywood science : movies, science, and the end of the world / Sidney Perkowitz.

Stay in the know

Wellcome collectionWellcome Collection

Finding us:

Opening times:

Today's opening times

Wellcome collection