Celluloid Specimen

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visitwww.luminosoa.orgto learn more. In The Celluloid Specimen, Benjamn SchultzFigueroa examines rarely seen behaviorist films of animal experiments from the 1930s and 1940s. These laboratory recordingsincluding Robert Yerkess work with North American primate colonies, Yale Universitys ratbased simulations of human society, and B.F. Skinners promotions for pigeonguided missileshave long been considered passive records of scientific research. In SchultzFigueroas incisive analysis, however, they are revealed to be rich historical, political, and aesthetic texts that played a crucial role in American scientific and cultural historyand remain foundational to contemporary conceptions of species, race, identity, and society.