Science, medicine, and the moving image by Scott Curtis
British Journal for the History of Science, 2025
Arguing that the right balance between education and entertainment in science communication has o... more Arguing that the right balance between education and entertainment in science communication has often been framed in terms of the correct proportion and use of animation and live-action footage in popular-science media, using the Bell System Science Series (1957-1964) as an example.
History of the Human Sciences, 2024
Examining a common technique in the analysis of scientific research film: tracing the projected i... more Examining a common technique in the analysis of scientific research film: tracing the projected image onto paper.
animation: an interdisciplinary journal, 2023
Defining and exploring the history of "useful animation": animation designed to persuade, educate... more Defining and exploring the history of "useful animation": animation designed to persuade, educate, or inform, rather than merely entertain. Tracing potential historiographic pathways for this exploration via three case studies from the pre-WWII era.
Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 61, no. 1 , 2021
What use has animation been to the scientific community and how would animation historians write ... more What use has animation been to the scientific community and how would animation historians write about these applications?
Bildwelten des Wissens, volume 14: Scientific Fiction: Inszenierungen der Wissenschaft zwischen Film, Fakt und Fiktion, 2018
Explores how the use of animation in scientific and educational films expresses the relationship ... more Explores how the use of animation in scientific and educational films expresses the relationship between the abstract and the empirical in knowledge production.
Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture 37.3, 2015
An interview with the late Harvard biologist Robert Lue about his film, "The Inner Life of the Ce... more An interview with the late Harvard biologist Robert Lue about his film, "The Inner Life of the Cell" (2007).
Objectivity and the Effects of Truth: Early Cinema and the Realist Tradition, 2015
Examining the notion of "objectivity" in the discourse about early scientific film.
Film History , 2013
Through a discussion of an early example of scientific filmmaking, this essay explores the connec... more Through a discussion of an early example of scientific filmmaking, this essay explores the connections between the history of science and film studies. It argues that scientific filmmaking has strong historiographical implications for film and media studies, and that film and media studies can learn much from approaches common to the history of science.
Beyond the Screen: Institutions, Networks and Publics of Early Cinema, 2012
The early medical training film as an opportunity to explore the discourse of efficiency in medic... more The early medical training film as an opportunity to explore the discourse of efficiency in medical education.
The Educated Eye: Visual Culture and Pedagogy in the Life Sciences, 2012
Positing a connection between the specific formal features of the serial photographic image (and ... more Positing a connection between the specific formal features of the serial photographic image (and its use in medicine) and the medical gaze.
Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft , 2011
Early descriptions of microcinematography displayed the wonder of the viewer before the magnified... more Early descriptions of microcinematography displayed the wonder of the viewer before the magnified image, evoking descriptions of the sublime in aesthetics. This essay explores how the specific features of the film frame contribute to this effect.
Science in Context , 2011
From 1924 to 1948, developmental psychologist Arnold Gesell regularly used photographic and motio... more From 1924 to 1948, developmental psychologist Arnold Gesell regularly used photographic and motion picture technologies to collect data on infant behavior. The film camera, he said, records behavior "in such coherent, authentic and measurable detail that. .. the reaction patterns of infant and child become almost as tangible as tissue." This essay places his faith in the fidelity and tangibility of film, as well as his use of film as evidence, in the context of developmental psychology's professed need for legitimately scientific observational techniques. It also examines his use of these same films as educational material to promote his brand of scientific child rearing. But his analytic techniques-his methods of extracting data from the film frames-are the key to understanding the complex relationship between his theories of development and his chosen research technology.
Film 1900: Technology, Perception, Culture, 2009
How physicians diagnosed early cinema depended on whether it was under their control or not, ther... more How physicians diagnosed early cinema depended on whether it was under their control or not, thereby creating the categories of "observation" and "spectatorship." For a revision and elaboration, see The Shape of Spectatorship, Ch. 2.
Films that Work: Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media, 2009
Examining the use of film by industrial consultants Frank and Lillian Gilbreth in relation to the... more Examining the use of film by industrial consultants Frank and Lillian Gilbreth in relation to their marketing goals and compared to other scientific uses of film.
montage/av: Zeitschrift für Theorie & Geschichte audiovisueller Kommunikation, 2005
An examination of the relationship between moving images and early-twentieth-century physics, usi... more An examination of the relationship between moving images and early-twentieth-century physics, using Brownian motion as an example. In German. For a revised version in English, see The Shape of Spectatorship, pp. 62-76.
Memory Bytes: History, Technology, and Digital Culture, 2004
The rise of digital medical imaging technologies prompts an exploration of the kinship between fi... more The rise of digital medical imaging technologies prompts an exploration of the kinship between film studies and medical hermeneutics, especially between the analysis of moving images and study of the human body.
Traditional film studies by Scott Curtis
Animation (Behind the Silver Screen series), 2019
A history of American animation during the silent era.
montage/av: Zeitschrift für Theorie & Geschichte audiovisueller Kommunikation 27, no.1 , 2018
Proposes that Hugo Münsterberg's theory of film was a departure from his usual approach to aesthe... more Proposes that Hugo Münsterberg's theory of film was a departure from his usual approach to aesthetics, and that this swerve was inspired by one of his favorite graduate students.
The Visual Culture of Modernism, 2011
Proposing "efficiency" as a key term for understanding the enthusiasm for visual education via mo... more Proposing "efficiency" as a key term for understanding the enthusiasm for visual education via motion pictures in the 1910s and 1920s.
Funny Pictures: Animation and Comedy in Studio-Era Hollywood, 2011
Comparing Tex Avery's narrative and gag formulae to Henri Bergson's theory of laughter to find th... more Comparing Tex Avery's narrative and gag formulae to Henri Bergson's theory of laughter to find the ennui hidden in his MGM cartoons.
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Science, medicine, and the moving image by Scott Curtis
Traditional film studies by Scott Curtis