This book features a CD of rarely performed music, including a specially commissioned rap by Erik Weiner of Walter Benjamin's "Thesis on the Philosophy of History." Theodor W. Adorno was the prototypical German Jewish non-Jew, Walter Benjamin vacillated between German Jew and Jewish German, Gershom Scholem was a committed Zionist, and Arnold Sch#65533;nberg converted to Protestantism for professional reasons but later returned to Judaism. Carl Djerassi, himself a refugee from Hitler's Austria, dramatizes a dialogue between these four men in which they discuss fraternity, religious identity, and legacy as well as reveal aspects of their lives-notably their relations with their wives-that many have ignored, underemphasized, or misrepresented. The desire for canonization and the process by which it is obtained are the underlying themes of this dialogue, with emphasis on Paul Klee's Angelus Novus (1920), a canonized work that resonated deeply with Benjamin, Adorno, and Scholem (and for which Djerassi and Gabrielle Seethaler present a revisionist and richly illustrated interpretation). Basing his dialogue on extensive archival research and interviews, Djerassi concludes with a daring speculation on the putative contents of Benjamin's famous briefcase, which disappeared upon his suicide.

Four Jews on Parnassus: A Conversation: Benjamin, Adorno, Scholem, Sch'onberg

Literature & Fiction

Carl Djerassi

Dramas & Plays

Columbia University Press

Futurist and Other Stories

Short Stories & Anthologies

Macdonald

Cantor's Dilemma

Genre Fiction

Dr. Melanie Laidlaw is a woman scientist developing the first use of ICSI, short for intracytoplasmic sperm injection. Her colleague and collaborator, Dr. Felix Krankenthaler, turns out to have his own ideas about how to best implement their pioneering procedure. The wild card is Melanie's newly acquired lover, Menachem Dvir, a fellow scientist. This darkly comic menage-a-trois plays out not only in bedrooms and labs, but also in test-tubes and under the microscope. A Brave New World indeed! Directed by Jenny Sullivan. A L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring: Philip Casnoff, Kevin Kilner, Kendall Schmidt, amd Jobeth Williams.  An Immaculate Misconception is part of L.A. Theatre Works' Relativity Series featuring science themed plays. Major funding for the Relativity Series is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to enhance public understanding of science and technology in the modern world.

An Immaculate Misconception (Library Edition Audio CDs)

L.A. Theatre Works

In Retrospect: From The Pill To The Pen

These are the reflections of a nonagenarian polymath describing the shift from a fifty-year-long career as a world-famous chemist to a subsequent twenty-five-year immersion in “science-in-fiction” and “science-in-theater,” which is virtually unique among contemporary scientists. Sharply self-critical, yet full of humor, this autobiographical account covers themes such as the future of sex in an age of technological reproduction, the history of the Pill seen through the eyes of one of its inventors, innovative — even unique — pedagogic experiments, the insoluble homelessness of a refugee, suicide, and art collecting. This book is also heavily illustrated with 94 individual pictures.

In Retrospect : From the Pill to the Pen

Biographies & Memoirs

IMPERIAL COLLEGE PRESS

Newton's Darkness: Two Dramatic Views

"What purpose is served by showing that England's greatest natural philosopher is flawed ... like other mortals?" asks one of the characters in Newton's Darkness. "We need unsullied heroes!" But what if the hero is sullied? At stake is an issue that is as germane today as it was 300 years ago: a scientist's ethics must not be divorced from scientific accomplishments. There is probably no other scientist of whom so many biographies and other historical analyses have been published than Isaac Newton -- all of them in the standard format of documentary prose because of their didactic purpose to transmit historical information. Newton's Darkness, however, illuminates the darker aspects of Newton's persona through two historically grounded plays dealing with two of the bitterest struggles in the history of science.The name of Isaac Newton appears in virtually every survey of the public's choice for the most important persons of the second millennium. Yet the term "darkness" can be applied to much of Newton's personality. Adjectives that have been used to describe facets of his personality include "remote", "lonely", "secretive", "introverted", "melancholic", "humorless", "puritanical", "cruel", "vindictive" and, perhaps worst of all, "unforgiving". The trait most relevant to the present book is Newton's obsessively competitive nature, which was often out of proportion to the warranted facts, as demonstrated in three of Newton's best-known bitter conflicts: with the physicist Robert Hooke, the astronomer royal John Flamsteed, and a German contemporary of almost equal intellectual prowess, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz -- the last fight eventually turning into an England vs Continental Europe competition. It is two of these three relentless drawn-out battles that are illuminated in Newton's Darkness in the form of historically grounded drama.After a summary of the historical evidence, the book starts with the Newton-Hooke struggle (Chapter 2), which was conducted mano a mano, and is then followed by little-known aspects of the Newton-Leibniz confrontation (Chapter 3), which was fought largely through surrogates -- notably the infamous, anonymous committee of 11 Fellows of the Royal Society.

David Pinner

Reference

"What purpose is served by showing that England's greatest natural philosopher is flawed ... like other mortals?" asks one of the characters in Newton's Darkness. "We need unsullied heroes!" But what if the hero is sullied? At stake is an issue that is as germane today as it was 300 years ago: a scientist's ethics must not be divorced from scientific accomplishments. There is probably no other scientist of whom so many biographies and other historical analyses have been published than Isaac Newton -- all of them in the standard format of documentary prose because of their didactic purpose to transmit historical information. Newton's Darkness, however, illuminates the darker aspects of Newton's persona through two historically grounded plays dealing with two of the bitterest struggles in the history of science.The name of Isaac Newton appears in virtually every survey of the public's choice for the most important persons of the second millennium. Yet the term "darkness" can be applied to much of Newton's personality. Adjectives that have been used to describe facets of his personality include "remote", "lonely", "secretive", "introverted", "melancholic", "humorless", "puritanical", "cruel", "vindictive" and, perhaps worst of all, "unforgiving". The trait most relevant to the present book is Newton's obsessively competitive nature, which was often out of proportion to the warranted facts, as demonstrated in three of Newton's best-known bitter conflicts: with the physicist Robert Hooke, the astronomer royal John Flamsteed, and a German contemporary of almost equal intellectual prowess, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz -- the last fight eventually turning into an England vs Continental Europe competition. It is two of these three relentless drawn-out battles that are illuminated in Newton's Darkness in the form of historically grounded drama.After a summary of the historical evidence, the book starts with the Newton-Hooke struggle (Chapter 2), which was conducted mano a mano, and is then followed by little-known aspects of the Newton-Leibniz confrontation (Chapter 3), which was fought largely through surrogates -- notably the infamous, anonymous committee of 11 Fellows of the Royal Society.

Humor & Entertainment

Der Futurist und andere Geschichten

Haffmans-Verlag AG

Cantors Dilemma

Heyne

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Books by Carl Djerassi