The space dimension of alternative history: Popular science, transmedia storytelling, and the contemporary agenda
https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2022-8-3-100-118
Abstract
The purpose of the article is to consider the possibilities that the genre of alternative history applied to the history of space, scientific and technical achievements of the 20th century opens to public history and popular science professionals. The genre of alternative history, firstly, allows us to draw public attention to the fact that global scientific discoveries and technological inventions are no less important facts of modern history than wars and political confrontations. Secondly, due to stories that are deliberately antonymous to “textbook history” (for example, “Alexey Leonov landed on the Moon first”), an alternative history provokes viewers to consider in detail the documentable past. And finally, with the help of transmedia storytelling and modern digital tools, the historical project can be extended to topics from the natural and engineering sciences (for example, by studying a 3D virtual model of the lunar station). In addition, transmedia storytelling involves expanding an audience’s experience: now its members can not only watch a serialized program, but also be involved in gaming and crowdsourcing practices in the project’s applications. In general, this approach draws attention to the multivariance of the past, and to the uncertainty of events and ideological schemes of the history of the Cold War and the first space race.
Keywords
Supporting agencies: The publication was prepared within the framework of the Academic Fund Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2019-2021 (grant №19-01-078 “Visualization of Outer Spaces Objects in Digital Media (Cinema, Astrophotography, Games and 3D Projects): Political, Educational and Aesthetic aspects”)
About the Author
E. G. Lapina-Kratasyuk
National Research University Higher School of Economics; The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Ekaterina G. Lapina-Kratasyuk - Cand. Sci. (Сultural Studies) Associate Professor, media department, Communications, Media and Design Faculty, NRUHSE; Senior Researcher, Centre for Studies in History and Culture, School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, The RPA of NE and PA.
101000, Moscow, Myasnitskaya Str., 20, Tel.: +7 (495) 772-95-90; 119571, Moscow, Prospekt Vernadskogo, 82, Tel.: +7 (499) 956-96-47
References
1. Atkinson, S. (2019). Transmedia film: From embedded engagement to embodied experience.
2. In M. Freeman, & R. R. Gambarato (Eds.). The Routledge companion to transmedia studies (pp. 15–24). Routledge.
3. Bunzl, M. (2004). Counterfactual history: A user’s guide. The American Historical Review, 109(3), 845–858.
4. Burgoyne, R. (2008). The Hollywood historical film. Blackwell.
5. Cruddas, S. (2015, Febr. 5). The pioneering female astronauts who never saw space. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150205-unsung-heroines-of-the-space-race.
6. De Groot, J. (2016). Consuming history: Historians and heritage in contemporary popular culture (2nd ed.). Routledge.
7. Freeman, M., & Gambarato, R. R. (2019). Introduction: Transmedia studies — where now?
8. In M. Freeman, & R. R. Gambarato (Eds.). The Routledge companion to transmedia studies (pp. 1–12). Routledge.
9. Gagarina, D., & Ismakaeva, I. (2021). Publichnaia istoriia v kontekste tsifrovogo povorota (na primere Rossii) [Public history and the digital turn (the Russian case)]. Public History Weekly, 9(10). https://public-history-weekly.degruyter.com/9-2021-10/russia-digital-publichistory. (In Russian).
10. Gallagher, C. (2018). Telling it like it wasn’t: The counterfactual imagination in history and fiction. The Univ. of Chicago Press.
11. Hutcheon, L. (1989). Historiographic metafiction: parody and the intertextuality of history.
12. In P. O’Donnell, & R. Con Davis (Eds.). Intertextuality and contemporary American fiction (pp. 3–32). Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
13. Klinger, B. (2016). Cave of forgotten dreams: Meditations on 3D. In J. Kahana (Ed.). The documentary film reader: History, theory, criticism (pp. 989–995). Oxford Univ. Press.
14. Kozhanov, A. A., & Abramov, R. N. (2015). Kontseptualizatsiia fenomena Popular Science: modeli vzaimodeistviia nauki, obshchestva i media [Popular Science conceptual analysis: Models of science, society and media communications]. Sotsiologiia nauki i tekhnologii, 6(2), 45–59. (In Russian).
15. Lapina-Kratasyuk, E. G., Pravdiuk, A. S., & Ekomasova, A. O. (2020). Pravila obrashcheniia s tsariami: chastnaia zhizn’ monarshei sem’i kak predmet obshchestvennoi diskussii i istoricheskoi refleksii (na primere serialov o dinastii Romanovykh) [Rules for dealing with tsars: The private life of the royal family as a topic of public discussion and historical reflection (based on series about the Romanov dynasty). In M. S. Neklyudova (Ed.). Ukroshchenie povsednevnosti: Normy i praktiki Novogo vremeni (pp. 374–398). Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. (In Russian).
16. Lapina-Kratasyuk, E. G., & Rubleva, M. V. (2018). Proekty sokhraneniia lichnoi pamiati: tsifrovye arkhivy i kul’tura uchastiia [Projects to preserve personal memories: Digital archives and participatory culture]. Shagi/ Steps, 4(3–4), 147–165. (In Russian).
17. Manovich, L. (2012). Tsifrovoe kino i istoriia dvizhushchegosia izobrazheniia [Digital cinema and the history of the moving image]. In K. E. Razlogov (Ed.). Ekrannaia kul’tura: Teoreticheskie problemy (pp. 377–396). Dmitrii Bulanin. (In Russian).
18. Petrov, N. V. (2021). Tsifrovye arkhivy chastnoi pamiati [Digital archives of private memory]. Shagi/ Steps, 7(1), 29–56. (In Russian).
19. Pratten, R. (2015). Getting started with transmedia storytelling: A practical guide for beginners. Createspace Independent Publishing.
20. Rosenstone, R. A. (1995). The historical film as real history. Film-Historia, 5(1), 5–23. Rosenstone, R. A. (2017). History on film / Film on history (3rd ed.). Routledge.
21. Sorlin, P. (1980). The film in history: Restaging the past. Barnes & Noble. Thorne, K. (2014). The science of Interstellar. W. W. Norton & Company.
22. Wattles, J. (2021, July 20). Meet Wally Funk, the 82-year-old pilot who just went to space with Jeff Bezos. CNN Business. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/20/business/wally-funk-jeffbezos-blue-origin-scn/index.html.
23. White, H. (1988). Historiography and historiophoty. The American Historical Review, 93(5), 1193–1199.
Review
For citations:
Lapina-Kratasyuk E.G. The space dimension of alternative history: Popular science, transmedia storytelling, and the contemporary agenda. Shagi / Steps. 2022;8(3):100-118. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2022-8-3-100-118
Views:
54
Email this article 