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- Volume 2, Issue 1, 2019
Journal of Science & Popular Culture - Volume 2, Issue 1, 2019
Volume 2, Issue 1, 2019
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Medieval mad science: Depicting scientists in HBO’s Game of Thrones
By Steven GilWith its medieval-styled sword and sorcery, Game of Thrones hardly presents a narrative world where we would expect to find science or scientists. Yet science plays a prominent role in the high-fantasy narrative and at the centre of this is Qyburn, a scientist figure worth detailed consideration. Using the perennial sociocultural concept of the mad scientist as the starting point, this article examines how the morally complex world of Game of Thrones presents science as dangerous yet essential to the boundary breaking necessary for the creation of new medical and technical knowledge.
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‘Mother says I’m just an odd duck’: Alan Turing, The Imitation Game and the ‘gay boffin’
More LessThe legacy of mathematician Alan Turing comprises both his contribution to the British war effort decrypting the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park and his treatment after the war, when he was convicted of gross indecency, underwent hormonal therapy and committed suicide. The Imitation Game (Tyldum, 2014), a ‘prestige’ biopic about his life, negotiates Turing’s problematic legacy as both war hero and gay martyr by modelling him through the ‘boffin’ stereotype present in British films about scientists. The boffin’s key characteristic is his ‘outsider’ status and the biopic reworks this to construct Turing as an outsider in different communities – at Sherborne School, within the code-breaking team at Bletchley but also, due to contemporary homophobic legislation, in wider British society. This article examines The Imitation Game’s depiction of Turing as ‘gay boffin’, how it negotiates the different histories that Turing’s life embodies and how film reviewers criticized The Imitation Game for its lack of scenes depicting gay relationships. Unlike other contemporary efforts that challenged the suppression of Turing’s homosexuality in public memory, The Imitation Game’s gay boffin instead exemplifies a continued anxiety with Turing’s legacy as a homosexual war hero.
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Lowering the tone in art and science collaboration: An analysis from science and technology studies
Authors: Charlotte Sleigh, Sarah Craske and Simon ParkThis article analyses a collaborative project in art and science (A&S) from a science and technology studies (STS) perspective. In so doing, it reorientates discussion of the affinity between these two disciplines away from abstract epistemology and towards pragmatic questions in the areas of expertise, credit, space, institutions and money.
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Scienfeld: A preliminary look at representations of science in Seinfeld
More LessSeinfeld episodes were made available for streaming on Amazon Prime for the first time in 2017. The sitcom from the 1990s remains popular and relevant today, and yet no one has analysed how it portrays science. This article begins that analysis by investigating how Seinfeld represents science. A surprisingly large number of nuanced references to science and scientific expertise appear across the series. Seinfeld did not shy away from including science and even scientific jargon into its narratives, some of which revolve around a scientific topic. Seinfeld presents a rich source for studying science in popular culture, one that has so far been neglected but that merits study due to its continuing fame and the popular influence of the series.
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Spaces of normality, pictures of monstrosity: Socio-spatial configurations of the abnormal in David Lynch’s The Elephant Man
More LessDavid Lynch’s film The Elephant Man (1980), provides a narrative to explore concepts of normality and abnormality, specifically, how each is shaped by and in return shapes social space, scientific discourse, and institutional power. Against the socio-historical background of Victorian London around 1880, the article draws on Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia and Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the narrative chronotope to analyse the cinematic framing and systemic challenge presented by the extraordinary life of ‘abnormal’ titular hero John Merrick. Investigating spaces like the hospital, freak show, and theatre, this article argues that Lynch’s film transcends its historical subject matter by fostering awareness about how we conceive of and are governed by socio-spatial and institutional configurations of (ab)normality.
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