Article ID: CBB294365137

Mobilizing Moving Images: Reusing a German Flow Film of the 1920s for U.S. Science Education in the Cold War (2021)

unapi

This essay focuses on the reuse of film footage from a 1920s German hydrodynamics laboratory in U.S. science education films of the 1960s. By pointing out how these U.S. science education films were seen as a means of recruitment in the Cold War, it makes a case for the power of film as a medium of knowledge circulation with the ability to bridge geographical, chronological, and political gaps. The old footage of flow experiments served as a convenient tool to mobilize people for aerodynamic research. This reuse thus shows that research films were not only used to render visible something that is usually not visible to the human eye, but also for engaging people to serve the government. This essay argues that searching for such reuses of research films can enrich our understanding of the way laboratory traces actually make their way into education, society, and politics.

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Article Anja Sattelmacher; Mario Schulze; Sarine Waltenspül (2021) Introduction: Reusing Research Film and the Institute for Scientific Film. Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 291-298). unapi

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB294365137/

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Authors & Contributors
Patrick Ellis
Waltenspül, Sarine
Sattelmacher, Anja
Olszynko-Gryn, Jesse
Schultz-Figueroa, Benjamín Alberto
Stamp, Shelley
Concepts
Science and film
Visual representation; visual communication
Film and media studies
Science education and teaching
Motion pictures; cinema; movies
Research methods
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, early
21st century
Places
Soviet Union
Saxony
Germany
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