materials

One of the major challenges each time I teach "Science and Popular Culture" is figuring out what to assign as the course texts and what visual materials to screen. The question about books is the hardest since I'm looking for texts that will work in a lower-division class, are in paperback, aren't prohibitively expensive, have some commonality of themes, and so forth. Choosing the visual material is hard just because there are so many fascinating possibilities!

In general, I tend to mix it up a lot from year to year so that I can learn new things along with the students -- what follows is a compilation from the ten years I've taught the course, first of books, then of films & videos.

list of assigned texts
Abbott, Edwin A. Flatland: A Romance of Many
     Dimensions (Dover, 1992)
Abraham, Carolyn. Possessing Genius: The True
     Account of the Bizarre Odyssey of Einstein's Brain
     (St. Martin's, 2003)
Allin, Michael. Zarafa: A Giraffe's True Story, from
     Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris (Dell, 1998)
Asimov, Isaac. I, Robot.
Baron, David. The Beast in the Garden: A Modern
     Parable of Man and Nature (W.W. Norton, 2004)
Blum, Deborah. Ghost Hunters: William James and the
     Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death
     (Penguin, 2006)
Bradbury, Ray. Dinosaur Tales (I Books, 2003)
Cole, K.C. Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens:
     Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up
     (Houghton Mifflin, 2009)
Cox, Lynne. Grayson (Harcourt, 2006)
de la Pena, Carolyn Thomas. The Body Electric: How
     Strange Machines Built the Modern American (NYU
     Pr, 2005)
Denzler, Brenda. The Lure of the Edge: Scientific
    Passions, Religious Beliefs, and the Search for UFOs
     (UC Pr, 2003)
Doyle, A.C. Six Great Sherlock Holmes Stories (Dover,
      1992)
Ellis, Richard. The Search for the Giant Squid: The
    Biology and Mythology of the World's Most Elusive
    Sea Creature (Penguin, 1999)
Ferris, Timothy. Seeing in the Dark: How Amateur
     Astronomers are Discovering the Wonders of the
     Universe (Simon & Schuster, 1993)
Frayling, Christopher. Mad, Bad, and Dangerous? The
     Scientist and the Cinema (Reaktion Books, 2006)
Genuth, Sara Schechner. Comets, Popular Culture, and
     the Birth of Modern Cosmology (Princeton, 1999)
Gregory, Jane and Miller, Steve. Science in Public:
     Communication, Culture, and Credibility (Perseus,      1998)
Halpern, Paul. What's Science Ever Done for Us? What
      The Simpsons Can Teach Us About Physics, Robots,
      Life and the Universe (Wiley, 2007)
Hartwell, David. Age of Wonders: Exploring the World of
     Science Fiction, rev. ed. (Tor, 1996)
Haynes, Roslynn. From Faust to Strangelove:
     Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature
     (Johns Hopkins, 1994)
Hickham, Homer. The Rocket Boys (Delta, 2000)
Hulbert, Ann. Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a
    Century of Advice About Children (Vintage, 2004)
James, Edward and Farah Mendelsohn, eds. The
     Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (Cambridge
     U Pr, 2003)
Markoff, John. What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties
    Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer
    Industry (Penguin, 2006)
Mayor, Adrienne. The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology
    in Greek and Roman Times (Princeton, 2001)
McCurdy, Howard. Space and the American
    Imagination, new ed. (Smithsonian, 1999)
Meisler, Andy. The Official Guide to the X-Files: I Want
     to Believe, vol. 3 (HarperPrism, 1998)
Montgomery, Scott. The Moon and the Western
    Imagination (U of Arizona, 1999)
Morantz-Sanchez, Regina. Conduct Unbecoming a
     Woman: Medicine on Trial in Turn-of-the-Century
     Brooklyn (Oxford, 2000)
Nelkin, Dorothy. Selling Science: How the Press Covers
     Science and Technology, rev. ed. (W.H. Freeman,
      1995)
Nye, Bill. Bill Nye the Science Guy's Big Blast of Science
     (Addison-Wesley, 1993)
O'Neill, J.P. The Great New England Sea Serpent: An
     Account of Unknown Creatures Sighted by Many
     Respectable Persons Between 1638 and the Present
     Day (Down East Books, 1999)
Poe, Edgar Allen. Tales of Terror and Detection (Dover,
      1995)
Pohl, Frederick and Kornbluth, C.M. The Space
      Merchants  (St. Martin's, 2002)
Rea, Tom. Bone Wars: The Excavation and Celebrity of
     Andrew Carnegie's Dinosaur (U of Pittsburgh, 2004)
Scamander, Newt (pseud., J.K. Rowling). Fantastic
     Beasts and Where to Find Them (Arthur A. Levine,
     2001)
Schmitt, Peter. Back to Nature: The Arcadian Myth in
     Urban America (Johns Hopkins, 1990)
Sears, John. Sacred Places: American Tourist
      Attractions in the Nineteenth Century (U of
      Massachusetts, 1999)
Silverstein, Ken. The Radioactive Boy Scout: The
      Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and a
      Homemade Nuclear Reactor (Villard, 2005)
Standage, Tom. The Turk: The Life and Times of the
     Famous Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine
     (Berkley, 2003)
Standish, David. The Hollow Earth: The Long and
     Curious History... (Da Capo, 2007)
Wallace, David Rains.The Bonehunters' Revenge:
     Dinosaurs and Fate in the Gilded Age (Mariner, 2000)
Watson, Bruce. The Man Who Changed How Boys and
     Toys Were Made (Penguin, 2003)
Weidensaul, Scott. The Ghost with Trembling Wings:
     Science, Wishful Thinking, and the Search for Lost
     Species (North Point, 2003)
Weinberg, Samantha. A Fish Caught in Time: The Search
      for the Coelacanth (Harper, 2001)
Wells, H.G. The First Men in the Moon (Ballantine, 1963)
Wilson, Daniel. Where's My Jetpack? A Guide to the
     Amazing Science Fiction Future that Never Arrived
     (Bloomsbury, 2007)


list of films/videos used
Ancient Creature of the Deep / NOVA (2003)
The Arrival (1996)
Beakman's World (1993)
The Beast of Loch Ness (1999)
Bill Nye, the Science Guy (1993)
CBS Reports: "The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson" (1963)
Columbo: "A Stitch in Crime" (1973)
C.S.I. (2005)
The Curse of T. Rex (1997)
"Duck and Cover" (1951)
Fantastic Voyage (1966)
Felix the Cat (1959)
Fly Away Home (1996)
Ghost Hunters / "Haunted Lighthouse" (2006)
Gideon's Crossing (2001)
Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)
Hemo, the Magnificent (1957)
I.Q. (1994)
Invisible Man (1933)
Jane Goodall: Among the Wild Chimpanzees (1984)
Jurassic Park (1993)
The Kid Glove Killer (1942)
King Tut: The Face of Tutankhamen (1992)
La voyage dans la lune (1902)
"Man and the Moon" / World of Disney (1955)
March of the Penguins (2005)
The Matrix (1999)
Men in Black (1997)
Mickey Mouse: "The Mad Doctor" (1933)
Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees (1965)
No Highway in the Sky (1951)
"Our Friend the Atom" / Disney (1954)
Pinky and the Brain / "Leave it to Beavers" (1995)
R.E.M.: "Man on the Moon" (2003/1992)
A Sidewalk Astronomer: A Film About Astronomy,
    Cosmology and John Dobson (2005)
Searching for Bobby Fisher (1993)
Silent Running (1972)
The Simpsons: "Bart's Comet" (1995) and "The Genesis     Tub" (1996)
Star Trek: The Next Generation: "The Measure of a Man"
     (1989)
Tarzan (1999)
Them! (1954)
The Thing from Another World (1951)
Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau: "The Desert
     Whales" (1967)
Wargames (1983)
Watch Mr. Wizard! (1960)
Watch the Skies! Science Fiction, the 1950s & Us (2005)
Westworld (1973)
"Wilderness & the West" from American Visions (1998)
The World of Tomorrow (2006)
The X-Files: "The War of the Coprophages" (1996)