IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB000954214

Off with Your Heads: Isolated Organs in Early Soviet Science and Fiction (2009)

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Volume: 40
Pages: 87--100
Publication date: 2009
Language: English

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Science and literature Science fiction Science and ethics Science and war; science and the military Organs; tissues 20th century, early Soviet Union

In the summer of 1925, a debutant writer, Aleksandr Beliaev, published a `scientific-fantastic story', which depicted the travails of a severed human head living in a laboratory, supported by special machinery. Just a few months later, a young medical researcher, Sergei Briukhonenko, succeeded in reviving the severed head of a dog, using a special apparatus he had devised to keep the head alive. This paper examines the relationship between the literary and the scientific experiments with severed heads in post-revolutionary Russia, which reflected the anxieties about death, revival, and survival in the aftermath of the 1914--1923 `reign of death' in that country. It contrasts the anguished ethical questions raised by the story with the public fascination for `science that conquers death'.

...More

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB000954214

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Book Maria Zalambani; (2022)
Letteratura e psicoanalisi in Russia all'alba del XX secolo (/p/isis/citation/CBB993623505/)

Chapter Ljudmilla Chapovalova; (2014)
Tra fantasia e realtà: lo scienziato russo nelle opere di Michail Bulgakov (/p/isis/citation/CBB731416132/)

Book Marco Castellari; (2014)
Formula e metafora: figure di scienziati nelle letterature e culture contemporanee (/p/isis/citation/CBB976488878/)

Article Schwartz, Matthias; (2013)
How Nauchnaia Fantastika Was Made: The Debates about the Genre of Science Fiction from NEP to High Stalinism (/p/isis/citation/CBB001201410/)

Book Krome, Frederic James; (2012)
Fighting the Future War: An Anthology of Science Fiction War Stories, 1914--1945 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001033384/)

Chapter Simpson, Pat; (2009)
Imag(in)ing Post-Revolutionary Evolution: The Taylorized Proletarian, “Conditioning”, and Soviet Darwinism in the 1920s (/p/isis/citation/CBB001035107/)

Article Vladimir A. Reshetnikov; Natalia V. Ekkert; Lorenzo Capasso; Evgeny V. Arsentyev; Maria S. Mikerova; Irina I. Yukushina; (2019)
The history of public healthcare in Russia (/p/isis/citation/CBB176501091/)

Book Froese, Paul; (2008)
The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization (/p/isis/citation/CBB000850363/)

Chapter Carla Konta; (2020)
Lo scienziato jugoslavo Ivan Supek tra attivismo antinucleare e collaborazione transnazionale (/p/isis/citation/CBB197493864/)

Chapter Federico Chiaricati; (2020)
Reti transnazionali di scienziati tra anni Cinquanta e Sessanta. Le Pugwash Conferences (/p/isis/citation/CBB087318412/)

Book Elisabetta Bini; Elisabetta Vezzosi; (2020)
Scienziati e guerra fredda: Tra collaborazione e diritti umani (/p/isis/citation/CBB957549150/)

Article Gomela, Elana; (2011)
Science (Fiction) and Posthuman Ethics: Redefining the Human (/p/isis/citation/CBB001212424/)

Article Clayton, Jay; (2013)
The Ridicule of Time: Science Fiction, Bioethics, and the Posthuman (/p/isis/citation/CBB001200682/)

Chapter Franz Haas; (2014)
Università, mediocrità, infelicità. Gli scienziati tormentati di Daniel Kehlmann (/p/isis/citation/CBB986682857/)

Chapter Francesca Ripamonti; (2014)
Victor Frankenstein, ovvero il Prometeo moderno nella cinematografia del xx secolo (/p/isis/citation/CBB534181860/)

Chapter Camilla Storskog; (2014)
"Neanche i nostri pensieri più intimi ci appartengono": lo scienziato come strumento del potere in Kallocain (1940) di Karin Boye (/p/isis/citation/CBB188577984/)

Chapter Alessandro Vescovi; (2014)
Decostruzione di uno scienziato coloniale: il Cromosoma Calcutta di Amitav Ghosh (/p/isis/citation/CBB662688431/)

Chapter Raffaella Vassena; (2014)
Lo scienziato-filosofo e il soldato rivoluzionario in Aelita, 1922-1923, di Aleksej Tolstoj: dal romanzo al film (/p/isis/citation/CBB103363152/)

Chapter Nicoletta Vallorani; (2014)
Creature: Faust e la scienza da Moreau a von Sasser (/p/isis/citation/CBB201051007/)

Article Ryan J. Morrison; (2019)
Ethical Depictions of Neurodivergence in SF about AI (/p/isis/citation/CBB696781856/)