Originally posted: May 2016
When I started as a postdoc on the Unsettling Scientific Stories project in 2016 I was asked to produce a ‘top ten’ list of SF texts that were favourites, inspiration, and the types of works that I hoped to look at as part of the project.
This is mine: Continue reading “SF Suggestions (2016 edition)”
Originally posted: February 2015
Recently I went to a fascinating research seminar on the history of the theory of mass extinction and the human fears of and impact on extinction given by historian of biology, Dr David Sepkoski (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin) at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (University of Manchester). It got me thinking about not only imagined extinction in fiction (I’ve researched/written about Planet of the Apes’ and its post-human/post-apocalyptic worlds), but also about how some recent science fiction shows, predominately in the Marvel (MCU) and DC storyworlds, have drawn upon human fears of extinction and being replaced (and thus super threatened) by another human race (or more specifically, a secondarily evolving hominin species). The fear isn’t of an invading species of aliens, or the rise of intelligent apes – but a threat that is much closer to home, a threat from within human DNA (what Kirby [2007] refers to as ‘the Devil in our DNA’). Continue reading “You gotta make way for the Homo Superior: Mutation, Evolution, and Super Powers on Screen”
Originally posted: August 2015
We are experiencing a golden age for the fusion of science and entertainment. Oscar-winning films such as Gravity and The Theory of Everything, television ratings titans like The Big Bang Theory, video games including The Last of Us (2013), and high-traffic web-comics like XKCD have shown that science-based entertainment products can be both critically and financially successful. Continue reading “What Entertainment Can do for Science, and Vice Versa”
Originally posted: June 2015 – co-written with Ray Macauley
We are now in a golden age of science-based entertainment media.
Every science-based entertainment product is a unique and complex cultural artefact created for a specific audience, format, and purpose. It would be difficult to come up with a template or set of generic rules that could be applied by practitioners in all science communication projects or encompass all forms of entertainment media. Continue reading “Stories about Science: Communicating Science Through Entertainment Media”
Originally posted: July 2015
I am a self-proclaimed Orphan Black geek monkey and I am obsessed with Clone Club (and their marvelous dance parties). When I first started to explore the representation of women in science in entertainment media I wrote a blog post on the subject to help organize my thoughts on how and where women working in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) were represented. I got a great response from people who read the article and received lots of tweets about the mysterious Cosima Niehaus. After a quick google I binge-watched the first two seasons of Orphan Black (an almost entirely female-led science-based series) and excitedly watching seasons three on four on TV. Continue reading “If She Can See It, She Can Be It: Women of STEM on Television”
Originally posted: 20th April 2015
Netflix recently released its most recent original series, an adaptation of Marvel’s Daredevil. It joins Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Agent Carter’s focus upon the more human characters of the Marvel Universe. Agent Phil Coulson, Agent Peggy Carter, and Daredevil/Matt Murdock are all human and definitely distinct from the god, the genetically enhanced super-soldier, the angry green scientist, and even the genius (billionaire playboy philanthropist) and his super-suit of armour. Unlike Agents of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Agent Carter that were produced for weekly broadcast on television, the newest addition to the Marvel franchise has been released in a 13-episode load. This gives the audience the option to binge-watch the entire series, space it over a few days, or (if you have the willpower) over a few weeks. I have taken a break from my viewing marathon to think about a few things that came up during the first half of the series relating to the way the series communicates Murdock’s blindness and how this sensory deprivation makes him a super (human) hero. Continue reading “‘You’re Blind, But You See So Much’: Netflix’s Daredevil and Blindness”
Originally posted: March 2015
One of my major issues with the most recent addition to the Planet of the Apes franchise, Dawn of the Planets of the Apes (Reeves, 2014), were the roles available to women – both human and ape. In my blog on the film I explored some of my thoughts on it and I noted that (the very few) female characters were only ‘represented as child bearers and care takers’. Continue reading “Rise of the Women?: Screening Female Scientists”
Originally posted: January 2015
Jill Trent first appeared in issue #6 of the pulp comic The Fighting Yank published by Nedor Comics. The Fighting Yank was a patriotic Second World War series launched in 1941 and was about ‘America’s Bravest Defender’ – Nedor’s pulpy equivalent to the Shield and Captain America. Jill Trent is a rather unusual character for the era; a scholarly female scientist who used her own knowledge to fight crime. Continue reading “The Science Sleuths: Fighting Crime with ‘Science’ in Golden Era Comics”
Originally posted: September 2014
Do vampire narratives become science fiction when vampirism is created or/and ‘cured’ by science? Whether benevolent, malicious, or uncontrolled, science is rivalling if not, in some cases, entirely replacing the supernatural as the most prevalent component of recent vampire narratives. Where once there was a vampire slayer and her pointy stick there are now scientists armed with vaccines and syringes. Continue reading “Welcome back to humanity. Now you get to die: Vampires and… Science?”
Originally posted: November 2014
At the 2014 Film & History conference I presented my current research in a paper called ‘From Sacred to Scientific: Charlton Heston’s Second Golden Age’. The fascinating post-paper discussion revolved around eco dystopian cinema, with a focus on my work on Soylent Green and Omega Man. Following a discussion of the connections between epics and science fiction, and the recent attempts to give religious films a contemporary scientific twist I was asked if I thought that the new religious epics constituted a new science fiction. Continue reading “Nature Strikes Back: The Return of an Eco-Conscious Cinema?”
Dr Amy C. Chambers 