ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Shifting Science in Film and Television: Historically-Informed Performance Practice, Artistic License, and the Spectacular Screen

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

English Abstract

A single pineapple; a hot air balloon; a telescope... In this roundtable, panelists tackle both the recent prominence and the occasional outrageous and subtle liberties taken by filmmakers, screenwriters, and playwrights as they include scientific spectacles and inventions in historical periods. Focusing on prominent eighteenth-century films and musicals such as Sanditon, Bridgerton, Queen Charlotte, Jefferson in Paris, and Chevalier, as well as media set in more recent periods, panelists will explore and debate the merits of how early science and culture are portrayed in these popular cultural artifacts. Roundtable presenters will share our areas of focus: Portrayals of field work and expeditions to explore the othering of nature and how nature in the "wild" is experienced (Caomhanach); HAM radio and shortwave radio in science fiction TV and film (Eguiarte Souza); Natural history spectacle on screen (Louson); and Astronomy and other space sciences as depicted in popular culture (Simpson). Panelists' brief remarks will be followed by an interactive discussion on the following themes and questions. The public forms a particular relationship with the past through these visual and musical narratives, whose possibilities for criticism, commentary, and intervention are tantalizing. Do misrepresentations create more distance between a current film audience and the historical truth? We aim to write histories that are as true as possible, while understanding that these are entertaining fictions whose motives are not exclusively informative. Is absolute historical accuracy possible? Of course not. Should historians be involved in these productions? Absolutely! How might historians market their skills to intercede in fractured storytelling? How can as historians of science better represent the past in our own narratives by expanding our focus to larger cultural currents outside the history of science? How might we better teach with/about science on film? And what might we learn from science communication's appreciation of how science shows up in these complex media products? Bring examples of your own artifacts, texts, and other pieces of evidence that you use to think or teach with. Let’s brainstorm ways to motivate further the inclusion of historians in writing more historically-informed depictions of the past and to respond more effectively when science shows up on screen.

Sub Unit

• Roundtable

Chair

• Tamara Caulkins, Central Washington University

Participants

• Nuala Caomhanach, New York University/American Museum of Natural History

• Luis Felipe Eguiarte Souza, Pavek Museum

• Ellie Louson, Michigan State University

• Emily Simpson, Oregon State

Session Organizer

• Ellie Louson, Michigan State University