Narrativising Dinosaurs: Science and Popular Culture from 1850 to the Present

对于我们大多数人来说，与恐龙相遇是一种例行公事。他们在博物馆里高高耸立在我们面前，在书籍和电影中娱乐我们，从我们的麦片盒里凝视着我们。虽然从科学的角度对恐龙的了解越来越多，但文化历史学家对恐龙的研究要少得多：对一些人来说，了解这些动物是如何生活(和死亡)的可能已经足够，但这种理解在21世纪文化中变得重要的原因本身就值得研究。恐龙是什么让它们如此吸引人？为什么我们要用它们来相互讲述故事，这些故事是如何运作的？最重要的是，自从恐龙首次被发现以来，这些故事是如何演变的，它们的演变能教会我们什么关于科学和文化之间更广泛的关系？恐龙既是文学和科学之间明显裂痕的表现，也是观察文学和科学之间明显裂痕的理想视角。1959年，C.P.斯诺臭名昭著地将这种裂痕称为“两种文化鸿沟”。它们的存在本身就证明了这些学科的相互依存：恐龙是从稀少的化石遗骸中煞费苦心地重建出来的，它们总是想象力和经验数据的产物。因此，它们体现了讲故事和科学的结合；可以说，它们本质上是跨学科的。通过将恐龙理解为过去160年文学和科学之间不断变化的对话的焦点，这项研究因此谈到了跨学科知识的更广泛的问题，以及我们与中生代生活的具体关系。这个项目将研究恐龙在最广泛的意义上向公众和由公众讲述的方式。它的研究材料从19世纪写的科学文献(如理查德·欧文在1842年创造“恐龙”一词的论文)到当代科幻小说(如斯蒂芬·巴克斯特2002年的小说“进化论”)。这些类别往往没有我们想象的那么明显--例如，1995年的小说《猛禽红》就是著名的古生物学家罗伯特·T·巴克写的，明确地利用了他的科学的戏剧性潜力。恐龙似乎经常打破各种文字之间的空间距离，以及古代动物、维多利亚时代的博物学家和现代消费者之间的时间距离。恐龙不仅在印刷品文本中做这类工作，所以联谊会也考虑到机构作为流行知识来源的重要性。博物馆在看到恐龙的方式上一直扮演着核心角色，这一重要性反映在RA的研究重点上。该项目的关键是与拉普沃斯地质博物馆的合作，拉普沃斯地质博物馆是一所维多利亚时代的机构，为21世纪而新翻修，位于大华大学主要的埃奇巴斯顿校园，最近获得了艺术基金2016年度博物馆奖的提名。到奖学金开始时，Tattersdill博士已经与Lapworth合作举办了一场关于恐龙图像的公开展览；与博物馆、其工作人员及其广泛的档案进一步合作，将使Tattersdill博士和RA获得有关过去的宝贵信息的来源，并提供一种令人兴奋的方式，让更广泛的当今公众参与他们的研究。在奖学金期间，Tattersdill博士将巩固他作为研究领导者的日益增长的声誉-不仅是在构成项目核心的研究方面，而且是在一个为期两天的研讨会上，这将使从事相关领域工作的学者受益，并参与一系列旨在吸引专业教育工作者和普通公众参与的活动。通过指导RA以及与该项目相关的教学和影响活动，他还将获得重要的协作、管理和知识传授经验。

Encountering dinosaurs is a routine experience for most of us. They tower over us in museums, entertain us in books and films, and peer out at us from our cereal boxes. Though increasingly well-understood from a scientific standpoint, dinosaurs are far less frequently considered by cultural historians: it may be enough for some people to understand how these animals lived (and died), but the reasons such understandings have become important in twenty-first century culture are in themselves worthy of investigation. What is it about dinosaurs that makes them so appealing? Why do we use them to tell stories to each other, and how do those stories work? Most importantly of all, how have those stories evolved since dinosaurs were first discovered, and what can their evolution teach us about the broader relationships between science and culture?Dinosaurs are both a manifestation of and an ideal lens through which to view the apparent rift between literature and science which C. P. Snow infamously called 'The Two-Culture Divide' in 1959. Their very existence serves to demonstrate the interdependence of these disciplines: painstakingly reconstructed from scant fossil remains, dinosaurs are invariably the product of imaginative faculties as well as empirical data. They therefore embody a combination of storytelling and science; they are, so to speak, inherently interdisciplinary. By understanding dinosaurs as a focal point for the shifting conversations between literature and science over the last 160 years, this study therefore speaks to wider questions of interdisciplinary knowledge as well as to the specifics of our relationships with Mesozoic life.This project will examine the ways in which dinosaurs are narrated to and by the public in the broadest possible sense. The materials of its study range from scientific documents written during the nineteenth century (such as the treatise in which Richard Owen coined the word 'dinosaur' in 1842) to contemporary science fiction (such as Stephen Baxter's 2002 novel Evolution). These categories are frequently less distinct than we might suppose - the 1995 novel Raptor Red, for instance, was written by acclaimed palaeontologist Robert T. Bakker explicitly to capitalise on his science's dramatic potential. It seems that dinosaurs often serve to collapse the spatial distances between kinds of writing, as well as the temporal distances between ancient animals, Victorian naturalists, and present-day consumers.Dinosaurs do this kind of work beyond, as well as within, printed texts, so the Fellowship also takes account of the importance of institutions as sources of popular knowledge. Museums have always played a central role in the way dinosaurs are seen, and this importance is reflected in the RA's research focus. Key to the project is its partnership with the Lapworth Museum of Geology, a Victorian institution newly refurbished for the twenty-first century, located on UoB's main Edgbaston campus and recently nominated for the Art Fund's 2016 Museum of the Year award. By the time the Fellowship begins, Dr Tattersdill will already have collaborated with the Lapworth on a public exhibition about dinosaur images; working further with the museum, its staff, and its extensive archive will give Dr Tattersdill and the RA privileged access to both a source of valuable information about the past and an exciting means of engaging the wider, present-day public in their research.During the Fellowship, Dr Tattersdill will consolidate his growing reputation as a research leader - not only in the studies which form the centrepiece of the project but in a two-day workshop which will benefit academics working in cognate areas and in a series of events designed to engage specialist educators and the general public. Through mentoring the RA and through teaching and impact activities associated with the project, he will also gain significant experience of collaboration, admin, and knowledge transfer.