STS Circle Lecture

Gregg Mitman (University of Wisconsin, History of Science)
Documenting the World: Film, Photography, and the Scientific Record

Sandwich lunches are provided. Please RSVP to sts@hks.harvard.edu by 5pm Thursday, April 5th.

 

Abstract: Through what means and for what purposes have photographs and films come into being and circulated as scientific documents in the world?  How might the visual record offer not only a powerful tool for seeing the changing culture of science, but also for investigating the original impulse to document the world on a grand scale?  This talk offers an introduction to a collaborative project that brought together scholars from the history of science, science and technology studies, history of photography, visual anthropology, art history, and archaeology to address what photography and film do in the world.  United in an approach to the visual as material, we seek to call into question the canonical hierarchy of the authored, the singular and the valuable image, and to transgress the divides separating the still photograph and the moving image.

Biography: Gregg Mitman is the Vilas Research and William Coleman Professor of History of Science, Medical History, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also serves as the Interim Director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.  He is the author of several award-winning books, including Breathing Space: How Allergies Shape Our Lives and Landscapes (Yale, 2007), Reel Nature: America’s Romance with Wildlife on Film (Harvard, 1999), and The State of Nature: Ecology, Community, and American Social Thought (Chicago, 1992), and has contributed essays to popular periodicals such as Orion and High Country News.   He is the founding director of the Nelson Institute’s Center for Culture, History, and Environment, and is curator of Madison’s popular environmental film festival, Tales from Planet Earth.