TV Lobotomy

TV Lobotomy
Author: Michel Desmurget
Publisher: Max Milo
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2023-07-04
Genre: Science
ISBN: 2315011051

• "TV unleashes the imagination and feeds intelligence." • "A child deprived of TV risks social isolation." • "TV dumbs you down." • "TV makes you obese." It seems that everything—and its opposite—has already been said about TV. But what is it really? How can we distinguish between the radical "No TV" of some and the supposedly entertaining virtues touted by others? Michel Desmurget, a doctor in neuroscience, has sifted through and synthesized thousands of research articles published over the last fifty years in the most rigorous international journals. The conclusion is unequivocal—we must stop watching television for good, whatever the program. All content, even that meant to teach, can never come close to any other learning method. The data is clear—television viewing is detrimental to school performance. For a child in elementary school, for example, every hour spent daily watching television increases the likelihood that he or she will one day leave the school system without any qualifications. For specialists, there is no doubt that television has a negative influence, not only on intellectual development but also on behavior. Thus, certain eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia) are related to a frantic consumption of—television programs! In short, watching television has an impact on our life expectancy. However, the harmful impact of this risk is largely underestimated, because of the large sector of the public exposed to television (more than 85% of Western households have at least one television set), and because of a debate on the subject that has become inaudible and confused. Moreover, the results of the research initiated by the big media groups on the subject remain "proprietary," i.e., closed to the general public. Believing that we is facing a real public health problem, Michel Desmurget wants to act as a responsible scientist—with a clear, concise and rigorously referenced book, the message cannot go unnoticed. Michel Desmurget is a doctor of neuropsychology. He attended several major American universities (MIT, Emory, UCSF) and is now a research director at INSERM in cognitive neuroscience. He is particularly interested in the problems of brain organization and plasticity. He is the author of the book TV Lobotomy (Max Milo, 2022), which is based in part on his personal history. Exasperated by having to constantly justify the choice not to have television at home—and to prevent his children from having access to it—and not to be seen as a sociopath in the eyes of those around him, he has done a massive job to argue his point.

The Lobotomist

The Lobotomist
Author: Jack El-Hai
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2007-02-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0470098309

The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, M.D., who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Drawing on Freeman’s documents and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look at the life and work of this complex scientific genius. The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, M.D., who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Although many patients did not benefit from the thousands of lobotomies Freeman performed, others believed their lobotomies changed them for the better. Drawing on a rich collection of documents Freeman left behind and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look into the life of this complex scientific genius and traces the physician's fascinating life and work.

Cognitive Prosthethics

Cognitive Prosthethics
Author: Maxime Derian
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2018-11-22
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0081027575

Computerized machines can be found in many forms and all around us – in our pockets, and even sometimes in our body. For many of us, they are now essential elements of everyday life. When it comes to smartphones, connected objects, medical digital devices and e-health, these digital tools have proliferated in our environment, continually transforming our modes of social organization. They act as prostheses and orthotics that "enhance our cognitive capacities and influence our inherent behaviors. Are digital tools that perpetually envelop the body and the spirit able to overwhelm the social order? Could our cognitive prosthetics lead to permanent, radical change to our society, which could become similar to a hive? This book explores this reflection, which is at the center of social research on digital tools. - Presents a complete review of the field of computerized human prosthetics - Drawn from research conducted over 6 years and from 2 post doctoral surveys conducted at renowned institutions in France and Japan (Sorbonne University, CNRS, Tokyo Institute of technology) - Provides an interdisciplinary approach, combining anthropology, sociology, psychology and philosophy

The TV Showrunner's Roadmap

The TV Showrunner's Roadmap
Author: Neil Landau
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2013-12-04
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1134621329

If you’ve ever dreamed of being in charge of your own network, cable, or web series, then this is the book for you. The TV Showrunner’s Roadmap provides you with the tools for creating, writing, and managing your own hit show. Combining his 20+ years as a working screenwriter and UCLA professor, Neil Landau expertly guides you through 21 essential insights to the creation of a successful show, and takes you behind the scenes with exclusive and enlightening interviews with showrunners from some of TV’s most lauded series, including: Breaking Bad Homeland Scandal Modern Family The Walking Dead Once Upon a Time Lost House, M.D. Friday Night Lights The Good Wife From conception to final rewrite, The TV Showrunner’s Roadmap is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to create a series that won’t run out of steam after the first few episodes. This groundbreaking guide features a companion website with additional interviews and bonus materials. www.focalpress.com/cw/landau So grab your laptop, dig out that stalled spec script, and buckle up. Welcome to the fast lane.

American Horror Story and Cult Television

American Horror Story and Cult Television
Author: Richard Hand
Publisher: Anthem Press
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2023-11-14
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1785279351

Over ten seasons since 2011, the television series American Horror Story (AHS), created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, has continued to push the boundaries of the televisual form in new and exciting ways. Emerging in a context which has seen a boom in popularity for horror series on television, AHS has distinguished itself from its ‘rivals’ such as The Walking Dead, Bates Motel or Penny Dreadful through its diverse strategies and storylines which have seen it explore archetypal narratives of horror culture as well as engaging with real historical events. Utilising a repertory company model for its casting, the show has challenged issues around contemporary politics, heteronormativity, violence on the screen, and disability to name but a few. This new collection of essays approaches the AHS anthology series through a variety of critical perspectives within the broader field of television studies and its transections with other disciplines.

Lobotomy Nation

Lobotomy Nation
Author: Jesper Vaczy Kragh
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 457
Release: 2021-10-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 3030653064

This book tells the story of one of medicine’s most (in)famous treatments: the neurosurgical operation commonly known as lobotomy. Invented by Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz in 1935, lobotomy or psychosurgery became widely used in a number of countries, including Denmark, where the treatment had a major breakthrough. In fact, evidence suggests that more lobotomies were performed in Denmark than any other country. However, the reason behind this unofficial world record has not yet been fully understood. Lobotomy Nation traces the history of psychosurgery and its ties to other psychiatric treatments such as malaria fever therapy, Cardiazol shock and insulin coma therapy, but it also situates lobotomy within a broader context. The book argues that the rise and fall of lobotomy is not just a story about psychiatry, it is also about society, culture and interventions towards vulnerable groups in the 20th century.

Psychosurgical Problems

Psychosurgical Problems
Author: Mettler, Fred A
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2013-07-04
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1136298479

First published in 1999. This book contains the thirteenth volume in the nineteen-volume series: Abnormal and Clinical Psychology - part of The International Library of Psychology. This study has moved into an examination of the influence of social environmental factors upon the postoperative course of psychosurgical patients. An appendix is included giving the status of the patients included in the first project, two years after their operation. Additional, still later, material on these cases is included in the first chapter, which brings our information up-to-date at the time of going to press.

They Live

They Live
Author: Jonathan Lethem
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 140
Release: 2010-10-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 159376393X

“One of the cleverest, most accessibly in-depth film books released this year . . . a smart-ass novelist exploring a cheesy-cheeky ‘80s sci-fi flick.”—Hartford Advocate Deep Focus is a series of film books with a fresh approach. Take the smartest, liveliest writers in contemporary letters and let them loose on the most vital and popular corners of cinema history: midnight movies, the New Hollywood of the sixties and seventies, film noir, screwball comedies, international cult classics, and more . . . Kicking off the series is Jonathan Lethem’s take on They Live, John Carpenter’s 1988 classic amalgam of deliberate B-movie, sci-fi, horror, anti-Yuppie agitprop. Lethem exfoliates Carpenter’s paranoid satire in a series of penetrating, free-associational forays into the context of a story that peels the human masks off the ghoulish overlords of capitalism. Taking into consideration classic Hollywood cinema and science fiction—as well as popular music and contemporary art and theory—They Live provides a wholly original perspective on Carpenter’s subversive classic.

Terror Television

Terror Television
Author: John Kenneth Muir
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 687
Release: 2013-02-25
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1476604169

Although horror shows on television are popular in the 1990s thanks to the success of Chris Carter's The X-Files, such has not always been the case. Creators Rod Serling, Dan Curtis, William Castle, Quinn Martin, John Newland, George Romero, Stephen King, David Lynch, Wes Craven, Sam Raimi, Aaron Spelling and others have toiled to bring the horror genre to American living rooms for years. This large-scale reference book documents an entire genre, from the dawn of modern horror television with the watershed Serling anthology, Night Gallery (1970), a show lensed in color and featuring more graphic makeup and violence than ever before seen on the tube, through more than 30 programs, including those of the 1998-1999 season. Complete histories, critical reception, episode guides, cast, crew and guest star information, as well as series reviews are included, along with footnotes, a lengthy bibliography and an in-depth index. From Kolchak: The Night Stalker to Millennium, from The Evil Touch to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twin Peaks, Terror Television is a detailed reference guide to three decades of frightening television programs, both memorable and obscure.

My Lobotomy

My Lobotomy
Author: Howard Dully
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2007-09-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307407675

In this heartfelt memoir from one of the youngest recipients of the transorbital lobotamy, Howard Dully shares the story of a painfully dysfunctional childhood, a misspent youth, his struggle to claim the life that was taken from him, and his redemption. At twelve, Howard Dully was guilty of the same crimes as other boys his age: he was moody and messy, rambunctious with his brothers, contrary just to prove a point, and perpetually at odds with his parents. Yet somehow, this normal boy became one of the youngest people on whom Dr. Walter Freeman performed his barbaric transorbital—or ice pick—lobotomy. Abandoned by his family within a year of the surgery, Howard spent his teen years in mental institutions, his twenties in jail, and his thirties in a bottle. It wasn’t until he was in his forties that Howard began to pull his life together. But even as he began to live the “normal” life he had been denied, Howard struggled with one question: Why? There were only three people who would know the truth: Freeman, the man who performed the procedure; Lou, his cold and demanding stepmother who brought Howard to the doctor’s attention; and his father, Rodney. Of the three, only Rodney, the man who hadn’t intervened on his son’s behalf, was still living. Time was running out. Stable and happy for the first time in decades, Howard began to search for answers. Through his research, Howard met other lobotomy patients and their families, talked with one of Freeman’s sons about his father’s controversial life’s work, and confronted Rodney about his complicity. And, in the archive where the doctor’s files are stored, he finally came face to face with the truth. Revealing what happened to a child no one—not his father, not the medical community, not the state—was willing to protect, My Lobotomy exposes a shameful chapter in the history of the treatment of mental illness. Yet, ultimately, this is a powerful and moving chronicle of the life of one man.