Courses:

When you click the Amazon logo to the left of any citation and purchase the book (or other media) from Amazon.com, MIT OpenCourseWare will receive up to 10% of this purchase and any other purchases you make during that visit. This will not increase the cost of your purchase. Links provided are to the US Amazon site, but you can also support OCW through Amazon sites in other regions. Learn more.

The following books are required reading for the course. Please be sure to get the editions indicated below.

Hillerman, Tony. Sacred Clowns. New York, NY: HarperTorch, 1994. ISBN: 9780061092602.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1994. ISBN: 9780486282114. (Download a version of the text from Project Gutenberg)

Marlowe, Christopher. Dr. Faustus. New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1994. ISBN: 9780486282084. (Download a version of the text from Project Gutenberg)

Banville, John. Kepler. New York, NY: Vintage, 1993. ISBN: 9780679743705.

Brecht, Bertolt. Galileo. New York, NY: Grove Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780802130594.

Doyle, Arthur Conan. A Study in Scarlet. New York, NY: Penguin (Non-Classics), 1982. ISBN: 9780140057072. (Download a version of the text from Project Gutenberg)

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Birthmark," and "Rappacini's Daughter." Chapters in Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories. New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1992. ISBN: 9780486270609.

LeCarre, John. The Tailor of Panama. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1997. ISBN: 9780345420435.

Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. New York, NY: Vintage, 2004. ISBN: 9781400032952.

Frayn, Michael. Copenhagen. New York, NY: Anchor Books, 2000. ISBN: 9780385720793.

Recommended Readings

These books are only recommended, not required.

Angier, Natalie. Natural Obsessions. New York, NY: Mariner Books, 1999.

White, Pepper. The Idea Factory: Learning to Think at MIT. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2001.

Bloom, Harold. "Introduction: What Is Genius?" Chapter in Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds. New York, NY: Warner Books, 2002.

Rich, Adrienne. "Planetarium." (Read a version of this text on American Poems)

Kidder, Tracy. Among Schoolchildren. New York, NY: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1982.

Edmundson, Mark. Teacher. New York, NY: Vintage, 2003.

Thomas, Lewis. "Becoming a Doctor." In The Eloquent Essay: An Anthology of Classic & Creative Nonfiction. Edited with an introduction by John Loughery. New York, NY: Persea Books, 2000, pp. 120-129. ISBN: 9780892552412.

Williams, William Carlos. "The Use of Force," and "Old Doc Rivers." Chapters in The Farmers' Daughters: The Collected Stories of William Carlos Williams. New York, NY: New Directions, 1961.

———. "Medicine," "Hell's Kitchen," and "First Years of Practice." Chapters in The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams. New York, NY: New Directions, 1967.

Selzer, Richard. Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1987.

———. Letters to a Young Doctor. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1982.

Films and Video

Wiene, Robert. The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. 1920.

Christie, Agatha. "The Mirror Cracked From Side to Side." Miss Marple. Vol. 2. A&E Home Video, 1992.

Young, Terence. Dr. No. 1962. (The first James Bond film.)

Else, John. The Day After Trinity. 1980.

Kubrick, Stanley. Dr. Strangelove. 1964.