Thomas Söderqvist Historians of medicine are grudgingly beginning to acknowledge the changing media habits in the population — that is, why read a book or a journal article when you can see a streaming video on the web instead?
To prepare the scholarly community for the new media age, the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL is organizing a workshop on ‘History of Medicine in Motion’, Tuesday 26 May 2009:
The internet is rapidly transforming the boundaries of what is considered serious scholarly material, and allowing for a broader dissemination of findings than has hitherto been possible in history. The increased video saturation among new generation of students has been both a cause for alarm and excitement among academics as they note the decreased attention span of students for print literature on the one hand, and the potential for making their materials more immediately accessible on the other.
Grad students and university staff are invited to submit 3-5 minute video clips and podcasts on any subject within the history of medicine. The workshop will be led by Shigehisa Kuriyama (Harvard), Hal Cook (UCL) and Asher Tlalim (National Film and Television School). For those who don’t know how to make movies there will also be a one-day training session on 6 March, where participants will learn to use iMovie, Keynote and Garageband.
Excellent inititative. My only caveat: it’s not just ‘new generations of students’ who are changing their media habits; many old hawks like me are also saturated with new media.
