Report from the First Dennis Rosen Memorial Lecture: Carl Djerassi
Friday June 30th 2000 at the Ri

A report of the evening is published below. The key themes of Professor Djerassi's speech were subsequently incorporated into chapter 11 of "This Man's Pill" by Carl Djerassi (Oxford University Press, 2001), and have been adapted further for an essay on Carl Djerassi's website.

The main speaker was Carl Djerassi, the eminent chemist and writer. But there were three other short addresses. The first speaker was Prof. Susan Greenfield, Director of the RI, who outlined the Institution's role to an audience for many of whom this was their first visit. Then the Trust itself was introduced by Professor Richard Kitney who spoke movingly about Dennis Rosen who had been his formative science teacher. Next, Prof Djerassi was introduced by Lisa Jardine, who explained her reasons for becoming a Trustee of the Dennis Rosen Trust. Both of these short speeches were important in filling out detail about the Trust and its aims, and it is hoped we can include short summaries in our future material.

The downstairs seating in the RI lecture hall was full thanks to pre-publicity including a large scale mail out to members of the University of London, a poster campaign at the University, and mentions on college web sites throughout the South East. The PR effort secured an interview with Djerassi on Start the Week, and there was a small display advertisement in Time Out.

These publicity efforts were themselves helpful in furthering the aims of the Trust to promote dialogue between Science and the Arts. The key result of the PR, however, was that a reasonable paying audience attended as well as the invited guests. This was one reason why Prof. Greenfield was able to endorse the event so enthusiastically.

Prof. Greenfield told us after the event that the RI is in the process of developing an arts policy and will soon have an artist in residence. There would also be many more Art and Science related events at the RI as the interest sparked by this suggests it is a neglected area upon which she could capitalise.

It is hoped that Carl Djerassi's speech will be circulated in full, although he has said that he will have to see how this can be resolved given that he wants to include it in his next book. [See Djerassi's website for an adapted article] The main points he made were as follows:

He had known Dennis and Sylvia and was able to speak about them before turning to the subject in hand. He had been asked to speak on 'science as drama' but said he would speak on 'science in drama'. He wanted to show that there were very few examples of good didactic work about science. He quoted from Stoppard, Frayne and Poliakoff as well as his own work..

He said his explicit intention in writing his play, The Immaculate Misconception, was to make science so accessible that everyone who watched the play, be they scientist or non-scientist, would come away with a clear understanding of its scientific theme. He had written the play because he wanted to explore the important moral implications of the Intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) technique for artificial insemination. The technique has major implications for genetics, fertility and the future of families, but the didactic purpose of the play was to ensure that audiences would fully understand the details of the technique.

The only way to achieve this kind of clarity , Djerassi said, was by intense effort, through writing many drafts while seeking extensive reader feedback on intermediate versions. Djerassi's challenge to playwrights is very important. He challenges them to use revolutionary science as a key ingredient in their plays. But, crucially he challenges them also that the science they weave into their plots should be accurate and exciting, too. Given the profound impact the new genetics will have on our whole human future, Djerassi's challenge seems well justified and his aim deserves wide publicity.

The presentation included a 10 minute extract from an overhead projected film showing an ovum being injected with a single sperm (the ICSI technique) against the background of dialogue between two lab technicians. The readings from Djerassi's own plays were successfully received by the audience. One of the highspots of the evening was the participation of the Director of the RI in a reading. Prof. Greenfield's unintentional yet apposite Freudian slip got the biggest laugh of the evening.