At San Diego Who Con 2024 (https://www.sdwhocon.com/), I enjoyed lecturing on “From Shakespeare to Shelley or Dante to Dickens: The Literary References Who Has Introduced You To!”.
I first thought of it while watching an episode with my favorite classic Doctor Peter Davison. I heard a line that was so specific I thought that it had to come from some book I didn’t know. It did. So then I researched what other famous authors had been quoted by the various Doctors and deeply enjoyed finding lots of Shakespeare and Dylan Thomas and of course, Byron and Shelley were in that mix. It was a reminder that writers READ. They read a lot to fuel their work.
The lecture also allowed me to highlight some great English actors who’ve starred in Shakespeare’s works like Patrick Stewart, Derek Jacobi, and Alex Kingston – some of whom also (of course) guested on Doctor Who.
With the conference theme “A Conversation Beyond Script,” I decided to use my presentation time to “Celebrate the Daring Dialogue of Women Writers,” which allowed me to introduce the audience to the work of famous female screenwriters, from Anita Loos to Mae West to Lillian Hellman.
Then I delved into some names lesser-known to our international SRN members because they came from the TV world before the great sharing that streaming has offered us. From Gertrude Berg of The Goldbergs in the 1950s to Susan Harris (Soap, Golden Girls) and Linda Bloodworth Thomason (Designing Women) we covered the progressive (and often controversial) topics they brought to mainstream Americans.
Since there’s been so much talk this week about mothers being proud of their highly accomplished children it’s a wonderful week to share the link to the latest Writers Guild Foundation panel co-sponsored by the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting covering the topic of “Writing Females in Leadership Roles”.
Moderated by our Executive Director Dr. Rosanne Welch the panel includes three writers from shows that celebrate female leaders from the real-life 23-year-old Miep Gies who hid Anne Frank’s family to real-life First Ladies Eleanor Roosevelt, Michelle Obama, and Betty Ford to the fictional female leaders of Station 19. Many thanks to Joan Rater (A Small Light), Zora Bikangaga (The First Lady), and especially to our Stephens College MFA alum Alexandra Fernandez (Station 19) for joining us to discuss everything from our childhood role models of female leadership (mostly moms and aunties) to the traits we expect to see in our leaders, to the nuts and bolts of working in a television writers room.
Here’s the video of the presentation that my friend Kristine Gunnell and I recently made to the current History and English masters at the Claremont Graduate University campus where we both earned our Ph.D.
Surrounded by our most recent publications we discussed “Opportunities and Adventures in Scholarly Publishing”. I shared ideas for gaining your first academic credits – from doing book reviews in journals to writing entries for encyclopedias to submitting essays or chapters to anthologies and discussed creating working relationships with editors. Kristine went in-depth into working in archives when researching and writing books on very specific subjects and how to find connections in the lives of other women whose lives you are bringing to the attention of modern readers.
In this presentation given at the 2023 San Diego WhoCon I talked about what really happened at Pompeii on volcano day; the agricultural knowledge of the Aztecs; when Robin Hood began appearing in literature, and the bravery of Noor Inayat Khan and Rosa Parks.
Transcript:
What we’re talking about today is the real history behind the history behind Doctor Who. We know from the beginning the show was meant to teach history. It was a children’s program and I think that’s a really lovely idea and so they began with two teachers as companions. That was so intentional and it worked. It was a great way to warm people up and you had to have people who knew something about where they were going. Who had something to say and of course we had a student. You have to have someone you can talk to right? So it was a really lovely blend of characters.The very — one of the earliest ones they did went into the world of the Romans. Everyone’s always fascinated by the Romans and I think what’s really interesting is, sadly, just a little bit later, Highlanders was the last historical one they produced in that early period. They decided it wasn’t what the audience wanted. What did the audience want? Audience:Gimmicks and Robots? Duh, Daleks, right? The Daleks showed up and that was it they were like oh no no this is what the audience is coming for. Forget that history. Forget that study. Don’t learn anything.It’s okay. Also we know that once we get to John Pertwee and he’s trapped on Earth he can’t travel. So there’s no way he’s going to go into the past. So we lose a chunk of time where there was this moment to do something about history and then new Who showed up and we gained it back. What we’re talking about today is the real history behind the history behind Doctor Who. We know from the beginning the show was meant to teach history. It was a children’s program and I think that’s a really lovely idea and so they began with two teachers as companions. That was so intentional and it worked. It was a great way to warm people up and you had to have people who knew something about where they were going. Who had something to say and of course we had a student. You have to have someone you can talk to right? So it was a really lovely blend of characters.The very — one of the earliest ones they did went into the world of the Romans. Everyone’s always fascinated by the Romans and I think what’s really interesting is, sadly, just a little bit later, Highlanders was the last historical one they produced in that early period. They decided it wasn’t what the audience wanted. What did the audience want? Audience:Gimmicks and Robots? Duh, Daleks, right? The Daleks showed up and that was it they were like oh no no this is what the audience is coming for. Forget that history. Forget that study. Don’t learn anything.It’s okay. Also we know that once we get to John Pertwee and he’s trapped on Earth he can’t travel. So there’s no way he’s going to go into the past. So we lose a chunk of time where there was this moment to do something about history and then new Who showed up and we gained it back.
In this presentation given at the 2023 San Diego WhoCon I talked about what really happened at Pompeii on volcano day; the agricultural knowledge of the Aztecs; when Robin Hood began appearing in literature, and the bravery of Noor Inayat Khan and Rosa Parks.
Transcript:
well welcome everybody very nice to see everybody um I’m glad that the title sounded interesting I hope that the entire presentation will prove interesting um I am Rosanne Welch I teach at a couple places actually because that’s how you do it these days uh Steven’s college is actually in Missouri but we run an uh MFA in screenwriting here in Los Angeles well here north of here in Los Angeles um and so that’s my specialty I was a television writer for about 20 years and then I got into Academia so I studied history because I wasn’t sure I wanted to study writing so I ended up doing a lot of history stuff which was fascinating um and so today we’re going to look at this show that we all love which started out to teach history and how much of it you know is real and how much is fake um and these are kind of the breath of the place that I want to cover um I come from as I said TV writing so I was on all these shows in the past and even on a show like Touch by an Angel we would deal with history because angels of course last forever it was a traveling Angels show where the Angels happen to be Angels but right stylistically The Fugitive is a traveling Angel show MacGyver is a traveling Angel show Doctor Who is a traveling Angel show someone who just goes from place to place and helps other people out and I think that’s really really cool um and then like I said I got a PhD at Claremont University also in slightly above us a couple hours and that’s where I focused on history for a while before I went back into working and writing so that’s where I’m sort of interested in both of these areas and I think we see that show up in Doctor Who um I’m also on the editorial board for these various journals so very interested in how writing is presented to people and how stories are told um I was extremely lucky uh the the magazine of The Writers Guild written by magazine uh I was on the board for that like I said and the editor knew that I was a huge Doctor Who fan so in that period when Russell came to town and did that fourth season of Torchwood here in town um he called me the editor called me and said we’re going to interview him would you like to be the one to talk to him to which I said uh yeah can I do that right away and it was great because as most of these things go the pr person set me up in a room with Russell and it was this Glass Room in the middle of this fancy place in in in Santa Monica and uh the guy said well you have 20 minutes and I was like I can do this in 20 minutes right I’m happy to be here and 20 minutes passed and you saw the pr guy open the door and poke in and Russell was like I’m not done yet and you kicked the pr guy because I knew what I was talking about and I was asking him these really interesting questions and he was having such a great time we ended up talking for an hour and you just saw the man walk around looking but he didn’t want to poke his head in again and get yelled at so it was a marvelous and fun time and this um interview is online uh on this particular website um which is on the writer Guild website and I’ve I’ve also written a bunch of books not all about Doctor Who these three happen to be about Doctor Who and just got me very interested in analyzing the show and why has it been so popular for so long we know it’s provided us a really interesting character who obviously there are many versions of and we’re all very happy to see all those different versions but why else right why else does it stick with us the latest book is the one that’s right up here and it’s about Jodi’s era hello um because that was of course a very iconic moment in all Television right
In this presentation given at the 2023 San Diego WhoCon I talked about what really happened at Pompeii on volcano day; the agricultural knowledge of the Aztecs; when Robin Hood began appearing in literature, and the bravery of Noor Inayat Khan and Rosa Parks.
I’m pleased to have been invited as a guest panelist for a Kopenhaver Center Conversation as I share in their goal to “empower both women and non-binary professionals and academics in all the fields of communication, in order to develop visionaries and leaders who can make a difference in their communities.”
Along with my friend and colleague Rashaan Dozier-Escalante we discussed “Writing as Activism: Creating for Inclusion
We empower women in all fields of communication
As a satellite location of the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication, we share the organization’s primary mission: To empower both women professionals and academics in all the fields of communication, in order to develop visionaries and leaders who can make a difference in their communities and their profession.
Since that other, of course, shows have exploded more. We were talking with some folks the other day about these guys but you start with “Inspector Morse” which again was on PBS in the 70s and then that became the spin-off of “Lewis”. So “Lewis” who is the original assistant now becomes the head guy and there’s a “Doctor Who” connection because the guy who played Hathaway was married to Billy Piper and then, of course, they blended that into doing the prequel the “Endeavor” show which is really Morse as a young man right because his real name was Endeavor but he never liked that as a name so they used it for the new show but now that’s something that Americans know a lot about. I have friends who’d never heard of Morse but they all watch “Endeavor” and so then they’re like oh let’s go backwards and see what this guy you know what happens to him later in life.
In this presentation given at the 2022 San Diego WhoCon I had the chance to trace the many ways Doctor Who changed the TV universe. By focusing on the interesting and innovative things the many writers did with the show across the years we were able to see the Who footprint by becoming the first narrative program to reach 50 years on the air, the first to create a spin-off across the ocean, and a show alongside Star Trek that created the Con-craze that brought the world of cosplay to the mainstream. Perhaps most importantly, a love of Doctor Who lead more Americans to watch programming from other countries – from Korean dramas to Mexican telenovelas – which has so enriched our culture.
We tend to forget that actors are sometimes also writers. The same thing happens when I teach something with Emma Thompson. She wrote Sense and Sensibility and then won the Oscar for that and people don’t realize that. She wrote The Nanny McPhee movies. So she adapted the books into film and also starred in them. So Sherlock has gone Global. Again the books always did but shows done earlier no one had paid attention to in the same way. Of course, our Doctor Who connection to Victoria is that it was the next piece that Jenna Coleman did and that became something that everybody was paying some attention to. So the power of Doctor Who and for all these characters is amazing.
In this presentation given at the 2022 San Diego WhoCon I had the chance to trace the many ways Doctor Who changed the TV universe. By focusing on the interesting and innovative things the many writers did with the show across the years we were able to see the Who footprint by becoming the first narrative program to reach 50 years on the air, the first to create a spin-off across the ocean, and a show alongside Star Trek that created the Con-craze that brought the world of cosplay to the mainstream. Perhaps most importantly, a love of Doctor Who lead more Americans to watch programming from other countries – from Korean dramas to Mexican telenovelas – which has so enriched our culture.
![The Literary References Doctor Who Has Introduced You To With Dr. Rosanne Welch– San Diego Who Con 2024 [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Slide1-1-1200x675.png)
![“Writing Females in Leadership Roles” WGA Panel Now Online [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/wgaf-female-characters-1.jpg)
![Join Dr. Rosanne Welch for a Free Web Conversation on Writing as Activism, Friday, April 7, 2023 [Online]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/WritingAsActivism.png)
![14 Inspector Morse, Young and Old from The Doctor Who Changed the TV Universe – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/sdwhocon-2022-dwtv-14.jpg)
![13 Writing and Acting Crossovers from The Doctor Who Changed the TV Universe – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/sdwhocon-2022-dwtv-13.jpg)