Object lessons, old and new: experimental media archaeology in the classroom

Ellis, Patrick; Williamson, Colin

doi:10.1080/17460654.2020.1751434

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 17 publications

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“…(Fors, Principe, and Sibum, 2016: 96) While EHS originated in physics instruction (Riess, 2007), the pedagogical potential for this practice has enjoyed renewed currency since the founding of Pamela Smith's Making and Knowing Project at Columbia University in 2014 (Uchacz, 2020) and Lori Emerson's Media Archaeology Lab at the University of Colorado at Boulder (Kirby and Emerson, 2016). EMA, 'following in the footsteps of the experimental history of science', has similarly embraced 'how (re)making, (re)using, and playing with old media' is not only pedagogically but epistemologically productive (Ellis and Williamson, 2020) by heightening the researcher's awareness of sensory and material conditions, past media technologies and contexts of spectatorship (Fickers and van den Oever, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reanimating experimental psychology: Media archaeology, Hugo Münsterberg, and the ‘Testing the Mind’ film series

Blatter

2023

History of the Human Sciences

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For historians of psychology, Hugo Münsterberg is best remembered as William James’ successor as director of the Harvard Psychological Laboratory and a pioneer of applied psychology. By contrast, for film and media studies scholars, Münsterberg is recognized less for his contributions to experimental psychology than for those to film theory, a field in which his penultimate book, The Photoplay: A Psychological Study (1916), is frequently claimed as an inaugural text. However, lost in the blind spots of both disciplinary perspectives has been a thorough examination of Münsterberg's collaboration with Paramount Pictures, translating psychological tests into experimental short films. Despite reaching millions of moviegoers in 1916, Münsterberg’s ‘Testing the Mind’ series has received little attention from historians of science and early cinema alike. One reason for this neglect is that, to date, not a single extant copy of a ‘Testing the Mind’ release has been located. This article is about the author's efforts, in collaboration with students, to reanimate these lost psychological tests for the screen through meticulous historical reconstruction based on the original scripts, journalistic accounts, and correspondence between Münsterberg and Paramount. This reconstructive process, I show, yields new insights into the relationship between psychology and early cinema and an opportunity for reflection on this promising new space for research at the intersection of media archaeology, the history of psychology, and experimental history of science. Film URL: https://archive.org/details/munsterberg_paramount.pictographs

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reanimating experimental psychology: Media archaeology, Hugo Münsterberg, and the ‘Testing the Mind’ film series

Blatter

2023

History of the Human Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Object lessons, old and new: experimental media archaeology in the classroom

Cited by 1 publication

References 17 publications

Reanimating experimental psychology: Media archaeology, Hugo Münsterberg, and the ‘Testing the Mind’ film series

Reanimating experimental psychology: Media archaeology, Hugo Münsterberg, and the ‘Testing the Mind’ film series

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