Neuroscience and the “Seat of the Soul:” From Brain Maps to Brain Movies
Spring 2016
Tuesdays, 6-8:30pm, Gleacher Center
University of Chicago, Graham School
Instructor: Shannon Foskett
[email protected]
[email protected]
Course Description*
Neuroscience has always been an extremely visual discipline; many of its early investigators were
also practicing artists. Still today, it has been described as one of the “least mathematical” of the
sciences. Its methods are grounded in the use of various still and moving imaging technologies
towards a more complete mapping (of anatomy and functionality) of central and peripheral
nervous systems in humans and non-human species. This course will give an overview of the
discipline’s history, methods and reliance upon visual media from the past 150 years while also
considering its interplay with existing forms of popular visual culture that seek to accommodate its
findings in a manner that appeals to a wider, public audience.
*This course is part of a 4-part series on the Visual Culture of Mind and Brain, and is followed by
LASCBB: Beyond the Brain: (Dis)embodiment and the Extended Mind; LASCAV: Altered States, Altered
Visions; and LASCCS: Consciousness and the Senses. Individual courses may be taken separately; there
are no prerequisites.
Aims and Expectations
The goal of this class is to provide an introduction to the significance of the brain sciences in
relation to, and in their intersection with, broader aesthetic and cultural concerns, such as the role
of various visual media technologies in scientific development. No particular academic majors or
background are assumed; it is open to anyone interested. We will occasionally screen relevant
clips from films. While this is not a graded course, weekly readings are provided and students
should come prepared for discussion with the class.
Classes and Readings
Weekly readings for class discussion are listed below; a bibliography of additional background
readings and extended sources will be provided in class.
Week 1 (03/29): New Visibilities: Early Neuroscientific Representation
This week reviews a brief history of the early development of neuroscientific research and
representation up to the end of the nineteenth century and considers the roles played by medical
illustration, photography and the X-ray towards this science and the cultural understanding of
“nervous” or “cerebral” subjectivity.
Rousseau, George. “Brainomania: Brain, Mind and Soul in the Long Eighteenth Century.” British
1 of 3
Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 30 (2007): 161-191.
Parent, André. “Duchenne de Boulogne: A Pioneer in Neurology and Medical Photography.” Canadian Journal of
Neurological Sciences 32 (2005): 369-377.
Strotzer, Michael. "One Century of Brain Mapping using Brodmann Areas." Clinical Neuroradiology 19.3 (2009):
179-186.
Vidal, Fernando. “Brainhood, Anthropological Figure of Modernity,” History of the Human
Sciences 22:1 (2009): 6-35.
Smith, Christopher U.M. “Visual Thinking and Neuroscience.” Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 17.3
(2008): 260-273.
Week 2 (04/05): Brain Signals: Electrophysiological Representation and the first EEG
Where do we draw the boundary between the human, the mechanical and the technological? In
this week, we’ll look at the factors involved in the development of human electroencephalography
(EEG), such as the earlier histories of biophysical recording and the intersection of the history of
electromagnetism with mechanistic and materialist views on human behavior.
Cornelius Borck, “Recording the Brain at Work: the Visible, Readable, and the Invisible in Electroencephalography.”
Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 17 (2008): 367-379.
Collura, Thomas F. “History and Evolution of Electroencephalographic Instruments and Techniques.” Journal of
Clinical Neurophysiology 10 no. 4 (1993): 476-504.
Millett, David. “Hans Berger: From Psychic Energy to the EEG.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 44 no. 4
(2001): 522-542.
Week 3 (04/12): Modern Neuroscience
Here we’ll look at the structural and functional imaging techniques of PET and fMRI, with respect
to proposed neurological bases of empathy, depression, Alzheimer’s and autism. We’ll also begin
to consider limitations and critiques of neurological approaches from both within and outside
neuroscience.
Pickersgill, Martyn et al. “Constituting Neurologic Subjects: Neuroscience, Subjectivity, and the Mundane
Significance of the Brain.” Subjectivity 4: 3 (2011) 346-365.
Dumit, Joseph. “Is it Me or My Brain? Depression and Neuroscientific Facts.” Journal of Medical Humanities 24:1
(2003): 35-47.
Schulte-Rüther, Martin, et al. “Mirror Neuron and Theory of Mind Mechanisms Involved in Face-to-Face
Interactions: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Approach to Empathy.” Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience 19 no. 8 (2007): 1354-1372.
Raymond Tallis, “What Neuroscience Cannot Tell Us About Ourselves,” The New Atlantis (2010): 3-25.
D. Weisberg, “The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 20 no. 3
(2008): 470-477.
Fitzpatrick, Susan M. “Functional Brain Imaging: Neuro-Turn or Wrong Turn?” in Littlefield, Melissa M.
Littlefield and Jenell Johnson, eds. The Neuroscientific Turn: Transdisciplinarity in the Age of the
Brain. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan Press, 2012. pp.180-198.
Week 4 (04/19): After the “Neuroscientific Turn”
Problems and potential of the “neuro-“ prefix (neuroaesthetics, neurocinematics, neuropsychiatry,
etc.): a look at critical applications and interdisciplinary intersections with neuroscience, including
“natural movies,” bioprojectors and brain-to-brain/computer interfaces.
Nishimoto, Shinji, et al. “Reconstructing Visual Experiences from Brain Activity Evoked by Natural Movies.”
2 of 3
Current Biology 21 (2011): 1641-1646.
Hasson, Uri et al. “Neurocinematics: the Neuroscience of Film,” Projections 2 no. 1 (2008): 1-26.
Ortega, Francisco and Fernando Vidal. “Mapping the Cerebral Subject in Contemporary Culture.” Electronic
Journal of Communication, Information & Innovation in Health 1:2 (2007): 255-259.
Rao, Rajesh PN, Andrea Stocco, Matthew Bryan, Devapratim Sarma, Tiffany M. Youngquist, Joseph Wu, and
Chantel S. Prat. "A Direct Brain-to-Brain Interface in Humans." PLoS One 9 (2014): e111332.
Malabou, Catherine. What Should We Do With Our Brain?. New York: Fordham UP, 2009. (selections)
3 of 3