About

Science and the Moving Image: Histories of Intermediality is an online workshop that will take place on three afternoons, 1-3 November. The workshop will showcase recent work from international scholars working at the intersection of science history and media studies. It is hosted by the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, and funded by a grant from the History of Faculty’s G.M. Trevelyan Fund and the Researcher Development Fund.

Keynote Speaker: Tim Boon

Tim Boon, Head of Research & Public History for the Science Museum Group, is a historian and curator of the public culture of science. His published research (Films of Fact (2008) and Material Culture and Electronic Sound (with Frode Weium, 2013) and more than 40 papers) is concerned with the history of science in documentary films, television, museums and, latterly, music. He has contributed to the exhibitions Health Matters (1994), Making the Modern World (2000) and Oramics to Electronica (2011) amongst others. He is a former President of the British Society for the History of Science. Tim’s keynote talk is entitled “Intermediality: Modes of Science Film Research Between the Museum and the Cinema“.

If you wish to attend Tim Boon’s keynote online, please make sure that you have registered via the main workshop Eventbrite page. All registered attendees will be able to access the Keynote speech by using the Zoom link for Day 3 of the workshop, which will be emailed to attendees in advance via Eventbrite. For those wishing to attend the keynote speech in person in Cambridge, please register using the separate Eventbrite page for in-person attendees.

Science and the Moving Image is organised by three graduate students:

Anin Luo is a PhD student at Princeton University, where she works broadly on the intellectual and cultural history of the life sciences, especially histories of animals and the environment in the early twentieth century. Her research focuses human/nonhuman boundaries in the science and politics of animal-borne diseases, and she retains strong interests in science and media, historiography, and philosophy of history.

Max Long is a PhD student at Cambridge, where he is completing a dissertation on mass media science in interwar Britain. His work centres on non-fiction film and radio, exploring how the natural world was represented through new technological media, from the BBC’s live radio broadcasts of zoo animals to films about London’s urban birdlife. He curates an online resource about natural history films, Secrets of Nature.

Miles Kempton is a PhD student in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. He works on the history of the Granada TV-Zoological Society Film Unit, based at London Zoo between 1956 and 1963. More broadly, his interests lie in the history of science on British TV in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly ITV natural history programmes, and the development of primate and human ethology.

New: Information for panellists and attendees

Zoom

You may already be familiar with Zoom, which is the platform that we will be using for the workshop. We recommend that you download Zoom to your desktop or device before the workshop begins, or make sure that it is updated if you already have the application installed. Links to access the workshop will be shared via Eventbrite. Please ensure that you are using the right link to access the workshop – each day will have a separate link assigned to it. Once you have clicked on the link you will be placed on a waiting list, and a moderator will admit you as soon as possible so that you can access the workshop.

Please note the following:

  • We ask that panellists enter the Zoom room 10 minutes in advance of their panel. This is so that we can do a quick mic test, and so that panellists can share their screens if they have slides. 
  • Please familiarise yourself with the Zoom interface, and in particular the option to ‘share screen’ in advance of your session. This will help us to avoid any unwanted technical issues. You can find out more about this by clicking on the following link: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362153-Sharing-your-screen
  • If you are intending to share any video material as part of your presentation, please ensure that you familiarise yourself  with how to do this. If audio is an important part of your content, please make sure that you have enabled the correct settings on Zoom. More information: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362643-Sharing-computer-sound-during-screen-sharing
  • If you are presenting during a panel, we ask that you please stick to your allotted time – we are running a tight schedule!

Safety

  • We ask that attendees keep their microphones on mute during the sessions. You may turn your microphone and camera on in order to ask a question in the Q&A. 
  • The workshop will not be recorded – please do not record or photograph any of the sessions
  • The chat function will be enabled for the Q&A after each panel, and for attendees to report any technical issues or concerns
  • Please do not share images, files or links in the chat
  • If you are joining from home or from a shared space, please make sure that those around you are aware that you are joining. 

We will have two members of the organising committee present on Zoom during every session. They will be there to answer any questions and to resolve any technical issues that may arise. We will also be monitoring the workshop email for the duration of the event. You can reach us with any questions by emailing: movingimagescience@gmail.com.

Keynote

Tim Boon’s keynote, which will take place at 17.30 on Wednesday 3rd November, will be a hybrid event. For online attendees, we will be using a separate Zoom link, which will be shared via the main workshop Eventbrite page. At the end of the keynote, there will be a Q&A. Unlike in the rest of the workshop, audience members are asked to only ask questions in the chat during the Q&A, which will be read out to Tim by one of the organisers in the room. 

For those who want to attend in person, Tim Boon will also be simultaneously delivering his keynote speech in the Department for the History and Philosophy of Science in Cambridge. If you want to attend the keynote in person, you must book a separate eventbrite ticket, which you can do by following this link. Tickets for this event are limited, and we expect them to sell out. 

We ask that in-person attendees respect social distancing norms, and strongly recommend that everyone wear facemasks.