About Book
2012 - 13 Common Book
Pellissippi State has a common reading experience for new students. Each year a new book is selected for this program. The intention is to stimulate a year-long discussion of issues related to the book, by encouraging exploration in classes, on and off campus, and with co-curricular programming. This common reading experience involves incoming first-year students, and many faculty and staff.
Definition
Common Book (n) - An innovative approach to orient new students to college. The Common Book gives students a reading experience to share with their peers at Pellissippi State.
Common Book Blog
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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Common Book
Book Description:
"Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance."
"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew. It’s a story inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we’re made of."
The book has won "several awards, including the 2010 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction, the 2010 Wellcome Trust Book Prize, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Award for Excellence in Science Writing, the 2011 Audie Award for Best Non-Fiction Audiobook, and a Medical Journalists’ Association Open Book Award."
From RebeccaSkloot.com
Trailer for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, from Rebecca Skloot's YouTube channel.
Common Book Movies - Spring 2013
These are streaming films watched anywhere anytime. Some are videos freely available on the web, others are streaming videos from the Library's streaming video databases including Films on Demand, and VAST: Academic Video Online.
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Monday, Feb 18, 2013 to Friday, May 10, 2013: Curing Cancer
A Documentary of WNET: Cancer research is being transformed by scientists who trace the origins of each specific type of cancer back to its DNA. A streaming video from the PSCC Library's Films on Demand database. -
Monday, Feb 18, 2013 to Friday, May 10, 2013: The Human RaceScience and business are hunting for the blueprints of the human race. Understanding our genes would bring dramatic medical advances, but should companies own the codes of life itself? From the Library's VAST: Academic Video Online streaming video collect
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Monday, Feb 18, 2013 to Friday, May 10, 2013: The Way of All FleshA one-hour BBC (1998) documentary freely available on the web, about Henrietta Lacks and HeLa directed by Adam Curtis, won Best Science and Nature Documentary at the San Francisco International Film Festival
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Monday, Apr 1, 2013: Miss Evers' Boys movie to be shown in TWAV classroom, second floor GoinsExplores the social and ethical issues at the heart of the infamous Tuskegee Study of Untreated Blacks With Syphilis. From 1932 through 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service studied 600 poor African-American sharecroppers in Macon County, AL -- 399 chronic
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Tuesday, Apr 2, 2013: Something the Lord Made movie shown in TWAV classroom, 2nd floor Goins ells the moving story of an unusual partnership at The Johns Hopkins Hospital between one of the nation’s pioneering surgeons, Alfred Blalock, and his young African-American lab assistant, Vivien Thomas.
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Wednesday, Apr 3, 2013: The Way of All FleshThe Way of All Flesh by Adam Curtis
In 1998, Modern Times: The Way of All Flesh, a one-hour BBC documentary on Henrietta Lacks and HeLa directed by Adam Curtis, won the Best Science and Nature Documentary at the San Francisco International Film Fest -
Thursday, Apr 4, 2013: Wit movie shown in TWAV classroom, 2nd floor GoinsEmma Thompson and Mike Nichols' adaptation of Margaret Edson's intellectual anti-intellectual play "Wit," which won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize, movingly explores a tough but emotionally homeless scholar's confrontation with a life-threatening illness. At the
Borrow book
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the Pellissippi Campus Common Book, is available on reserve in the library and at satellite campus ERCs for reading while on-campus.
Events Calendar
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Events Calendar
Watch recorded event again, or watch for first time. If available, click on lecture link to view recorded event.
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Thursday, Oct 4, 2012: President's Convocation10:50 a.m.-11:50 a.m., Clayton Performing Arts Center. David Lacks, son of Henrietta Lacks, will speak about his mother's life and the consequences of the use of his mother's cells in medical research.
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Monday, Nov 5, 2012 to Friday, Nov 9, 2012: Building an Artificial Jellyfish - Implications for the Construction of Living Muscular Pumps First Floor Alexander Lobby. The presentation discusses the creation of an engineered jellyfish by scientists at Harvard and Caltech, who aimed to use their results to assist in the construction of tissues for the treatment of transplant patients.
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Monday, Nov 12, 2012 to Friday, Nov 16, 2012: Building an Artificial JellyfishBlount County Campus
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Monday, Nov 19, 2012 to Friday, Nov 23, 2012: Building an Artificial JellyfishStrawberry Plains Campus
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Monday, Nov 26, 2012 to Friday, Nov 30, 2012: Building an Artificial JellyfishMagnolia Avenue Campus
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Monday, Dec 3, 2012 to Friday, Dec 7, 2012: Building an Artificial JellyfishDivision Street Campus
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Friday, Feb 22, 2013: PSCC Faculty Lecture - Stem Cells: The Hope for the Futurebiology, faculty lecture, faculty lecture series, mcmahon, stem cells
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Wednesday, Mar 6, 2013: HeLa Cells - Contributions to Modern Science Goins Auditorium, GN 136; 2-3 pm
Professor Minoo Askari will offer an overview of the history of how cells from Henrietta Lacks have become a foundation for groundbreaking biological research. -
Thursday, Apr 11, 2013: A Trailblazer in Medicine: The Career of Dr. Barbara Yarn Goins Auditorium, GN 136; 12:30 - 2pm.
She was one of the first African-American female graduates of Nashville’s Meharry Medical College. She was also one of the first women to serve as chief of staff at an American hospital.
Events Movies
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Movies Calendar
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Tuesday, May 8, 2012: History of Cancer (28:00) / Films on Demand Streaming Video Cancer treatments have changed dramatically since Congress declared war on cancer in 1971 with the passage of the National Cancer Act. This program explores the history of the Cancer Act and takes a look at breakthrough treatments that would not have occu
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