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

对我们大多数人来说，遇到恐龙是家常便饭。他们在博物馆里高高在上，在书和电影里娱乐我们，从麦片盒里窥视我们。虽然从科学的角度来看，人们对恐龙的了解越来越多，但文化历史学家却很少考虑恐龙：对一些人来说，了解这些动物是如何生活（和死亡）的可能就足够了，但这些理解在21世纪的文化中变得重要的原因本身就值得研究。是什么让恐龙如此吸引人？为什么我们要用它们来给彼此讲故事，这些故事是如何运作的？最重要的是，自从恐龙被首次发现以来，这些故事是如何演变的，它们的进化能告诉我们科学与文化之间更广泛的关系是什么？恐龙既是文学和科学之间明显的裂痕的表现，也是一个理想的镜头，c.p.斯诺在1959年臭名昭著地称之为“两种文化鸿沟”。它们的存在本身就证明了这些学科之间的相互依存：从稀少的化石遗骸中精心重建的恐龙，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年来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问题，以及我们与中生代生命的具体关系。这个项目将研究在最广泛的意义上向公众和由公众讲述恐龙的方式。其研究的材料范围从19世纪的科学文献（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》）。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》（Raptor Red）就是由著名古生物学家罗伯特·t·巴克（Robert T. Bakker）写的，他明确地利用了他的科学的戏剧性潜力。恐龙似乎经常起到缩小各种文字之间的空间距离的作用，同时也缩小了古代动物、维多利亚时代的博物学家和现代消费者之间的时间距离。恐龙不仅在印刷文本中，也在文本之外从事这类工作，因此，研究人员也考虑到机构作为大众知识来源的重要性。博物馆在人们了解恐龙的过程中一直扮演着核心角色，这种重要性反映在皇家恐龙学会的研究重点上。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个维多利亚时代的机构，位于大华银行的Edgbaston主校区，最近被提名为2016年艺术基金年度博物馆奖。到奖学金开始的时候，塔特斯蒂尔博士将已经与拉普沃斯博物馆合作举办了一个关于恐龙图像的公开展览；与博物馆、工作人员和大量档案的进一步合作，将使Tattersdill博士和RA有特权获得有关过去的宝贵信息来源，并以令人兴奋的方式吸引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声誉，不仅在构成项目核心的研究中，而且在为期两天的研讨会上，这将使在相关领域工作的学者受益，并在一系列旨在吸引专业教育工作者和公众的活动中。通过指导RA以及与项目相关的教学和影响活动，他还将获得协作、管理和知识转移方面的重要经验。

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.