About this item
In the early days of the Cold War, a spirit of desperate scientific rivalry birthed a different kind of space race: not the race to outer space that we all know, but a race to master the inner space of the human body. While surgeons on either side of the Iron Curtain competed to become the first to transplant organs like the kidney and heart, a young American neurosurgeon had an even more ambitious thought: Why not transplant the brain? Dr. Robert White was a friend to two popes and a founder of the Vatican's Commission on Bioethics. He developed lifesaving neurosurgical techniques still used in hospitals today and was nominated for the Nobel Prize. But like Dr. Jekyll before him, Dr. White had another identity. In his lab, he was waging a battle against the limits of science, and against mortality itself - working to perfect a surgery that would allow the soul to live on after the human body had died.
About the Author
Historian and author Brandy Schillace writes about intersections of medicine, history, and literature. And steampunk. And vampires. (Let's not forget vampires.) Brandy works as Research Associate and Public Engagement Fellow for the Dittrick Museum of Medical History and Managing Editor of Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry. Her most recent non-fiction work, DEATH'S SUMMER COAT (E&T UK, Pegasus US) , explores cultural approaches to death and dying. Fiction includes short stories and the Jacob Maresbeth Chronicles (Coop Press) about a teen with a blood disorder and his struggle to be "normal" (or at the very least, *not* to be burned at the stake) . Brandy's current book project explores the science behind steampunk--that clockwork genre of gadgets and gizmos (and Victorian debonair) . You can find the TEDx talk at http://www.tedxcle.com/brandy-shillace/ --or visit her blog, the Fiction Reboot | Daily Dose. Brandy also writers for Huffington Post, InsideHigherEd, H-net, and the Centre for Medical Humanities. She has been an invited lecturer for the Health Sciences Library of University at Buffalo, University College of Dublin, Manchester University, and the New York Academy of Medicine, and she gives talks more locally at PechaKucha Cleveland, the Dittrick Museum and Cleveland Clinic. When she isn't researching automatons, writing fiction, taking over the world (or herding cats) she teaches as a SAGES fellow for Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Schillace is represented by Jessica Papin at Dystel and Goderich Literary Management.http://brandyschillace.com/http://fictionreboot-dailydose.com/@bschillace
