Science – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

The live reading cast of “Mount Wilson” at @seriesfest runs through their tech rehearsal for tonight’s show. [Photos]

The live reading cast of “Mount Wilson” at @seriesfest runs through their tech rehearsal for tonight’s show.

Written by Adam Parker @wawparker , Misty Brawner, Betsy Leighton , Dr. Rosanne Welch

From SeriesFest…

Join us for the first public read of Mount Wilson, a drama pilot which follows Edwin Hubble, a rising astronomer, as he navigates his own web of lies as he works to disprove the theories of some of the greatest minds of the 20th Century. Hubble finds an unlikely alliance in Milton Humason, a maintenance worker at the Mount Wilson Observatory, who may just hold the key to the secrets of the Universe. Mount Wilson was written in partnership with the SeriesFest Writers Room Initiative and produced by Dilettante Productions and Unreal Media.

Where’s Her Movie? Computer Scientist, Margaret Hamilton – 9 in a series

“Where’s HER Movie” posts will highlight interesting and accomplished women from a variety of professional backgrounds who deserve to have movies written about them as much as all the male scientists, authors, performers, and geniuses have had written about them across the over 100 years of film. This is our attempt to help write these women back into mainstream history. — Rosanne

Margaret Heafield Hamilton (born August 17, 1936) is an American computer scientist, systems engineer, and business owner. She was director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for NASA’s Apollo program. She later founded two software companies—Higher Order Software in 1976 and Hamilton Technologies in 1986, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Hamilton has published more than 130 papers, proceedings and reports about sixty projects and six major programs. She is one of the people credited with coining the term “software engineering”.[1]

On November 22, 2016, Hamilton received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from president Barack Obama for her work leading to the development of on-board flight software for NASA’s Apollo Moon missions. — Wikipedia

Where’s Her Movie? Physician/Author, Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler – 7 in a series

Rebecca Lee Crumpler, born Rebecca Davis, (February 8, 1831 – March 9, 1895), was an American physician and author. After studying at the New England Female Medical College, in 1864 she became the first African-American woman to become a doctor of medicine in the United States.[a] Crumpler was one of the first female physician authors in the nineteenth century.[4] In 1883, she published A Book of Medical Discourses. The book has two parts that cover the prevention and cure of infertile bowel complaints, and the life and growth of human beings. Dedicated to nurses and mothers, it focuses on maternal and pediatric medical care and was among the first publications written by an African American about medicine.

Crumpler graduated from medical college at a time when very few African Americans were allowed to attend medical college or publish books. Crumpler first practiced medicine in Boston, primarily serving poor women and children. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, she moved to Richmond, Virginia, believing treating women and children was an ideal way to perform missionary work. Crumpler worked for the Freedmen’s Bureau to provide medical care for freed slaves.

She was subject to “intense racism” and sexism while practicing medicine. During this time, many men believed that a man’s brain was 10 percent bigger than a woman’s brain on average, and that a woman’s job was to act submissively and be beautiful. Because of this, many male physicians did not respect Rebecca Lee Crumpler, and would not approve her prescriptions for patients or listen to her medical opinions. Still, Rebecca Lee Crumpler persevered and worked passionately.

She later moved back to Boston to continue to treat women and children. The Rebecca Lee Pre-Health Society at Syracuse University and the Rebecca Lee Society, one of the first medical societies for African-American women, were named after her. Her Joy Street house is a stop on the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail. — Wikipedia

Where’s Her Movie? Civil Rights Activist, Rose Matsui Ochi – 6 in a series

Ochi broke barriers as the first Asian American woman to serve as a Los Angeles Police Commission member and as an assistant U.S. attorney general

she particularly cherished her contributions to the successful campaigns to win recognition and redress for the mass incarceration of 120,000 people of Japanese descent during World War II — including her and her family.

from The Los Angeles Times

Where’s Her Movie? Civil Rights Activist, Elizabeth Peratrovich – 5 in a series

By Source, Fair use, Link

from Wikipedia…

Elizabeth Peratrovich (née Elizabeth Jean Wanamaker, Tlingit name: Kaaxgal.aat; July 4, 1911 – December 1, 1958)^[1] was an American civil rights activist, Grand President of the Alaska Native Sisterhood,^[2] and member of the Tlingit nation who worked for equality on behalf of Alaska Natives.^[3] In the 1940s, her advocacy was credited as being instrumental in the passing of Alaska’s Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, the first state or territorial anti-discrimination law enacted in the United States.

In 1988, the Alaska Legislature established February 16 as Elizabeth Peratrovich Day “for her courageous, unceasing efforts to eliminate discrimination and bring about equal rights in Alaska”.^[2]^[4] In March 2019, her obituary was added to The New York Times as part of their “Overlooked No More” series,^[5] and in 2020, the United States Mint released a $1 gold coin inscribed with Elizabeth’s likeness in honor of her historic achievements.^[6] The Peratrovich family papers, including correspondence, personal papers, and news clippings related to the civil-rights work done by Elizabeth and her husband, are currently held at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.^[7]

Where’s Her Movie? Astronomer, Margaret Harwood – 4 in a series

Observatory Photo By Versageek – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

from Wikipedia…

After graduating college, she worked at the Harvard Observatory and taught in private schools in the Boston area. In 1912, an astronomical fellowship was created for women to work at Maria Mitchell Observatory; Harwood was the first recipient of the fellowship, receiving $1,000.[2][3] In 1916, at 30 years old, Harwood was named director of Mitchell Observatory, and worked there from 1916 until her retirement in 1957.[2] Her specialty, photometry, involved measuring variation in the light of stars and asteroids, particularly that of the small planet Eros. A member of the American Astronomical Society and Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, she traveled widely in Europe and the United States. She was the first woman to gain access to the Mount Wilson Observatory, the world’s largest observatory at the time.[4]

In 1917, she discovered the asteroid 886 Washingtonia four days before its formal recognition by George Peters.[5] At the time, “senior people around her advised her not to report it as a new discovery because it was inappropriate that a woman should be thrust into the limelight with such a claim”.[6][7] However, Harwood did send her photographs of her discovery to Peters for him to include in his study of the asteroid’s orbit.[6] In 1960, an asteroid discovered at Palomar, was named in her honor, 7040 Harwood.[6][3]

04 Mary Shelley and The Monster from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (38 seconds)

Watch this entire presentation

The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

This one allowed me to riff on some of my favorite female science fiction writers across time, whether they be novelists or television writers. It also opened up a good conversation on what art we support and include in our lives – and what that art says to us and about us. — Rosanne

Transcript:

…and she came up with Frankenstein which is pretty crazy because we all think of Frankenstein. It’s like the bedrock of… it’s been around forever because it has, but she just made it up. Which i think is fascinating and there’s a lot of themes to it that if you take a class — some classes discuss Frankenstein — very interesting what’s going on in her world there. She had had a miscarriage and she had a lot of thoughts about loss and about parenthood and in many ways when you think about Frankenstein it’s crazy because it’s the story of a bad father right? Who creates a child and then lets it go running loose and doesn’t teach or care for it. She’s really thinking about the obligations and all of that.

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03 Mary (Godwin) Wollstonecraft Shelley from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute)

Watch this entire presentation

The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

Transcript:

First off I’m gonna start with the officially the grandmother of science fiction. Somebody knows who she is. Shelley. Thank You. Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley. The lady had a lot of names right? Yes, Mary Shelley is most famous. She literally invented the genre and its funny because when we think of science fiction we often do think of the names of famous male writers. They kind of took it over when, you know, men you got to do more of the cool stuff, but Mary invented it and she invented it with what character? Frankenstein! Exactly. She’s the lady — then I mean she was having a party. We’re not sure how drunk everybody was and exactly what substances they might have been imbibing at that time but her and Lord Byron, her boy or her boyfriend slash soon-to-be husband Percy Bysse Shelley. They all were hanging out with this really cool sort of villa in Italy and they were having a contest — which is also very fun. Instead of watching other people’s art, they were making their own and the contest was can you write a ghost story over the weekend and we’ll see who writes the best one.

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02 Science Fiction As A Place For Discussion from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute)

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The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

Transcript:

I think what’s interesting about science fiction is it’s a place where writers go and where audiences go to discuss the issues of our current world in sort of a safer place because we’re having trouble discussing them maybe in the present. So if we think about the future and how we hope it’s gonna look and how we hope we’re gonna behave to each other that’s a place we can have those debates and then sort of bring them back into our regular life and that’s true of most writing. We sort of work out the world in writing so that’s why reading is so good for our brains because it relaxes us teaches us empathy. It makes us think about more complex thoughts then you know a quick Reddit post. Which is a nice piece of news very quickly but it’s not all the information that you need to have right? So that’s the goal for today. It’s just a look at some interesting writers. Summer is coming up. Perhaps you all might want to have a summer book to read right or perhaps a movie that you’re like “Wow I should know that movie. That’s really iconic and people reference it. it’s a popular culture sort of moment. I should know about that.” So hopefully, in the summer you have some time to pay attention. So I’ll give you some stuff to pay attention to.

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01 Introduction from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute)

The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

Transcript:

All right everybody. Hello. How are you? Thank you for coming today. Hopefully you’ll find what I have to say interesting. Some of you are in my class so it kind of suits what we’re talking about. Some of you have wandered in from nowhere. So luckily you’ve seen your poster and that’s very nice of you. Our College does a lot of really cool things. I think it’s important to remember that it’s above and beyond just going to class. There’s a lot of stuff you can pick up from around here. We were talking about Earth Day before. See what’s going on. What suits you particularly. A lot of times when you’re going off to do — again — interviews or visiting with people — the fact that you did above and beyond — that you tried other things — that’s gonna make you look like an interesting, engaging person right? So so thank you for coming today. We’re going to be discussing the Sisterhood of Science Fiction. I’m basically going to go through a run of interesting female science fiction writers you may or may not have heard of and then some characters that are very iconic especially in American science fiction in film and television and kind of what they stood for what they said to us what we’ve learned from them.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

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