"Stories About Science" Symposium, Manchester, 4-5 June 2015
We are now in a golden age for science in entertainment.
Academy Award winning films such as Gravity and The Theory of Everything, and
television ratings titans like The Big Bang Theory have proven that
science–based entertainment products can be both critically acclaimed and
financially successful. In fact, many high profile scientific organizations
including the US National Academy of Sciences and the Wellcome Trust in the UK
now believe that science communication can, and perhaps should, be both informative
and entertaining. These groups have embraced movies and television as
legitimate vehicles for science communication by developing initiatives to
facilitate scientific involvement in the production of films and television
programs. Science communication scholarship on entertainment media has been
slow to catch up with the enthusiasm shown by these scientific organizations,
as science communication studies of science in mass media still predominantly
focus on news media.
This Wellcome Trust-funded two-day symposium brings
together scholars from across disciplines to explore the communication of
science through entertainment media in order to uncover new ways of
approaching, understanding, and theorizing about this topic. Our exciting range
of speakers will explore science communication and entertainment media from a
variety of disciplinary and global perspectives as it is practiced and
experienced by a diverse array of publics. Plenary speakers include science
consultant Kevin Grazier (Gravity; Battlestar Galactica; Defiance) and
television creator/producer Stephen Gallagher (Eleventh Hour; The Forgotten;
Silent Witness).
The event will run from Thursday 4 to Friday 5 June 2015
and is organized by the Science and Entertainment Lab research group within the
Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of
Manchester, comprised of David A. Kirby, William R. Macauley, and Amy C.
Chambers. There is no cost for attending the symposium, but spaces are limited.
Please contact the organizers if you are interested in attending or if you
would like further details storiesaboutscience@manchester.ac.uk.
Further information can be found here: http://www.chstm.manchester.ac.uk/newsandevents/conferences/storiesaboutscience