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SUMMARY:Indecent science: religion\, science and movie censorship\, 1930
 –1968 - David A. Kirby (University of Manchester)
DTSTART:20141127T130000Z
DTEND:20141127T140000Z
UID:TALK54702@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Richard Staley
DESCRIPTION:From 1930 to 1968 movie studios sent their screenplays to cens
 orship groups in the US and UK including Hollywood's official censorship b
 ody the Production Code Administration (also known as the 'Hays Office')\,
  the Catholic Church's Legion of Decency and the British Board of Film Cen
 sors. These censorship boards made sure that studio scripts met the moral 
 standards of religious groups who were concerned about movie's impact on t
 he public. This talk uses material from the archives of these censorship o
 rganizations to explore how filmmakers tried to tell stories about science
  and how censorship groups modified these cinematic narratives in order to
  tell what they considered more appropriate stories about science as a soc
 ial\, political and cultural force. Movie censors' mistrust of the public 
 led them to attempt control over audience interpretations through the remo
 val of ambiguity. I will discuss how censors showed anxiety over specific 
 sciences like evolution\, psychiatry and nuclear physics\, as well as gene
 ralized concerns about scientific ways of thinking including the theologic
 al implications of scientific research\, the blasphemy of scientism and th
 e horror of scientific realism. Specific examples will include _Frankenste
 in_ (1931)\, _Possessed_ (1947)\, _I Was a Teenage Werewolf_ (1957) and _T
 he Last Man on Earth_ (1964).
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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