Great pleasure being back at BBC Broadcasting House with Melvyn Bragg for BBC Radio 4 In Our Time, to explore all things “Alice in Wonderland” with Professors Kiera Vaclavik and Robert Douglas-Fairhurst. The programme will air on Thursday 15 February, 9am & 9:15pm GMT; it’ll be available as a podcast afterwards (with extra content!). If you can’t wait, you can listen to last time I was on IOT, speaking about automata, here.
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I’m very pleased to be one of the confirmed keynote speakers for the 2024 ESSSAT conference on the theme of “Sciences, Theologies, Fictions: The Construction of Narrative in Science and Religion” – the Call for Papers is now open, with a deadline of 31 January 2024.
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I’m so honoured to see my work on Storytelling & Narratives on the perception of Insects featured by the University of Leeds today. I’ve been so grateful to my colleagues for the collaborations, and the Royal Entomological Society for supporting and making visible this important work for so long – it’s great to see a shift in the public discussion of science towards the importance of traditionally humanities-based research. If this interests you, check out this radio programme on Moths, or this article on insects in games, films and books.
An extract from the blog highlights:
We may not always realise it, but our attitudes, likes and dislikes, fears and habits are often crafted for us by generations of narratives. For example, many people understand the benefits of a healthy bee population. They may see bees as cute, helpful and unique. However, they might hate wasps with a passion, find them to be a nuisance and want to avoid “wasp season” at all costs. In truth, both are pollinators who improve our natural world, even if they also have the potential to sting us. Dr Franziska E Kohlt researches how narratives shape our relationships with insects. From Alice in Wonderland to Animal Crossing, we have all absorbed stories about animals throughout our lives.
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This week I am off to offer a Keynote Lecture at the World Congress on Logic and Religion, which will feature a workshop on Symbolic Logic and Religion. The will be published as a paper in due course, and I am hoping to offer some new connection between Lewis Carroll’s understanding to the practical uses of Logic, to which his understanding of religion, and how it inflected all his work is integral, from his teaching to children’s literature to how he expressed his opposition to vivisection.
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If you’ve always been curious what Lewis Carroll’s Alice has to do with Science, Medicine and the Environment, this Saturday you’ll have a unique opportunity to find out in my online lecture for the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, where you’ll be able to get an exclusive preview for my two (!) forthcoming books on Alice, and my latest research in this field. The talk will be online, free, and, recorded, in case you can’t make it – and it’s this Saturday, 12th of August, 7pm British Summer Time, 2pm EDT & 11am Pacific Time. Zoom link & more info here.
UPDATE: Follow this link to the recording of the full talk!
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I was honoured to convene and chair this exceptionally stimulating roundtable on “Science for the People” – with James Wilsdon, Jon Topham, Charlotte Sleigh and Stuart Prior – and our shifting ideas of & relationship between “science” and “the people”, and surprising constants in the history and present of science, politics, culture, and in what we actually understand as science. We covered ground from the Society for the Diffusion for Useful Knowledge, to the role of scientific societies, and government science advice, the complexity of what we understand as science in the context of its intersections with “useful”, “applied” and “commercially valuable science”, the deceptive lure of scientistic simplicity, in such slogans as “following the science” or nationalist conceptions of “science superpowers” – but also how science historians can best make an impact in public science discourse, via engaging in such initiatives as Wikipedia, and the access it gives to a breadth of audiences, and huge numbers of them.
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Friday Rabbit Hole anyone? Catch me on The Colin McEnroe Show together with the brilliant Annie Rauwerda of “Depths of Wikipedia“, and nature writer Dominic Couzens, as we explore Rabbit Holes, from Alice in Wonderland and Greek mythology, via Jefferson Airplane and the Matrix to the depths of the Internet – podcast now available here and on and all the usual podcast channels!
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It took a while to clear the paperwork, but I’m incredibly honoured to have been appointed as the University of Southern California’s Inaugural Carrollian Fellow. Extremely humbled by the kind words of USC Libraries, who will be hosting me in the coming year:
“The USC Libraries have named Franziska Kohlt as their inaugural fellow in their newly re-envisioned Carrollian Fellowship. Kohlt, an accomplished historian of science, scholar of comparative literature, and expert in science communication, brings her diverse expertise and passion for Carroll’s works to the new fellowship.
“Dr. Kohlt exemplifies the scholarly excellence and creative vitality we hope to inspire and make possible through the Carrollian Fellow program,” said Marje Schuetze-Coburn, interim dean of USC Libraries. “We’re delighted to welcome her to the USC Libraries and excited about the new approaches she will bring to the Cassady Lewis Carroll collection and to engaging our academic and creative communities.”
The fellowship is the brainchild of Rebecca Corbett, curator of the Cassady Collection and director of special projects within the USC Libraries’ Specialized Collections group. “Fran’s appointment as our Carrollian Fellow is really exciting for the USC Libraries,” said Corbett. “She is an established Carrollian scholar who truly embodies the polymathic spirit of Dodgson, with her work spanning comparative literature, the history of science and science communication, and she will help us to explore connections between the Cassady Collection and our rare book holdings in natural history and the history of science.””
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To honour the 125th anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s death, BBC History asked me to write an article about the man, his life – and of course his most famous work: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
It’s unusual to have 2000+ words to explore a topic in a little more depth – so I hope you enjoy this portrait of the “maker of Wonderland” which is out today.
As for one of my favourite parts of the story, though, scroll on…
One of my favourite parts of this story comes right at the end. Among the people who admired Carroll and was inspired by his work – his mathematics as well as his fiction, was the young Alan Turing, who borrowed from his school library at Sherborne both Alice books – Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass – and The Game of Logic (pictures are courtesy of Sherborne School archives).
Sherborne School also feature the anniversary, as well as the Turing connection in a post on their website, as well as in their letter to current students and alumni.
Unfortunately, in the BBC article, some links seem to have disappeared from the text of my article in the process of online publication, so if youre interested in finding out more about how Carroll recorded his memories of the origin of Alice in his diaries, Alice’s own recollections of her acquaintance with Carroll, or the photomontages and photos of unclear provenance that have been named as Carroll’s in recent years – as well as quotes falsely attributed to Carroll & Alice, I provide the links here.
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Haven’t had enough of Halloween, and fancy figuring out the science behind table rapping?
The Royal Institution, some brave volunteers, some fab academics and myself explore the neuroscience, medical history and social context of seances in Victorian Britain, and why involuntary muscle-action was a big deal!
Did it work though? And are all volunteers now possessed? Click the video and find out!
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Dr Franziska Kohlt 