Dir. Don Bluth / 1982 / 83 min
With a talk on rodent dystopia, and the experiments of John B. Calhoun by evolutionary biologist Dr. Lee Dugatkin
Generously funded by Science on Screen
RIGHT BEFORE YOUR EYES, AND BEYOND YOUR WILDEST DREAMS.
To relocate her family - including an ailing son - and save them from a farmer's plow, a widowed field mouse seeks the aid of a crow, and a myserious colony of rats, with whom she has a deeper link than she ever expected. Don Bluth's miraculous debut film is both a visually stunning gem of tradional American animation, and a delightfully grim blend of fantasy and science fiction.
Dr. Dugatkin's book 'Dr. Calhoun's Mousery: The Strange Tale of a Celebrated Scientist, a Rodent Dystopia, and the Future of Humanity' details the work of John B. Calhoun, whose controversial experiments on rodents in the 60's served as the inspiration for Robert C. O'Brien's 1971 novel, 'Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH'
Dr. Dugatkin is an evolutionary biologist and a historian of science in the Department of Biology at the University of Louisville. Forbes Magazine describes Dr. Dugatkin's book, Dr. Calhoun's Mousery: The Strange Tale of a Celebrated Scientist, a Rodent Dystopia, and the Future of Humanity as “A compelling biography about a groundbreaking scientist and his controversial work, using rodent cities—rodentopias—to identify and examine the potential catastrophes that might befall human overpopulation. . . . Dugatkin does an excellent job of investigating, documenting and writing about Dr. Calhoun’s life and work. . . . Drawing on previously unpublished archival research and interviews with Calhoun’s family and former colleagues, Dugatkin offers a riveting account of an intriguing scientific figure. Considering Dr. Calhoun’s experiments, he explores the changing nature of scientific research and delves into what the study of animal behavior can teach us about ourselves.”
Brad Bolman is Assistant Professor of History and Environmental Studies at Tulane University. His research focuses on the history of science, technology, and medicine and environmental history, with attention to the ways that we come to know and live with nonhuman organisms under capitalist economic systems. His first book, Lab Dog: What Global Science Owes American Beagles, traces the history of experimental dogs across the twentieth century. It shows how attempts to standardize and mass produce laboratory dogs, particularly beagles, transformed scientific research and reshaped the human relationship with Canis familiaris. His second book, Rotten Beauty, explores the global history of mycology and fungal biology over the last three centuries.
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