%0 Journal Article
%T Objects of the Mind: using film to explore the entangled histories of media and mental health
%A Tim Snelson
%A Toni Booth
%A William Macauley
%A Annie Jamieson
%A Natasha McEnroe
%A Selina Hurley
%A Katie Dabin
%D 2024
%V 
%N Spring 2024
%K child psychology
%K cinema
%K electroencephalography
%K film
%K film studies
%K History of Medicine
%K Margaret Lowenfeld
%K media studies
%K medical humanities
%K psychiatry
%K straitjacket
%X This article presents the findings of an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) project, Objects of the Mind: engaging publics in the material cultures of media and mental health (AH/W002140/1), which was co-investigated by academics at the University of East Anglia and the University of Manchester and curators from across the Science Museum Group (SMG). Through this co-investigation we sought to tap into public interest in the SMG object collections and the accessibility of popular films (supplied by partners StudioCanal) to engage new audiences for our research on the interactions of psychiatry and cinema. From the museum perspective, we sought to use this research to ask new questions and tell new stories about the SMG objects, and to foster cross-collection dialogue between medicine (Science Museum) and media (National Science and Media Museum) collections. We discuss a range of events, activities and outputs we delivered towards these aims, but focus particularly on three new films we produced that (re)combined museum objects, feature film clips and expert interviews to tell new, enhanced or entangled stories about and across the collections. We will use these three short films to demonstrate three dialogues the project fostered: between museum collections; between histories; and between academic disciplines.
%Z Kitchener, M, 1949, ‘No Place for Jennifer, BBFC Report’, 2 February. BFI National Archives, Berkhamsted. For more on this post-war cycle of child psychology films, see Geraghty, ‘Reconstituting the Family’ (2000) Fink, ‘They Don’t Really Care What Happens to Me’ (2013), and Gillett, ‘Think of the Kids’ (2017). 
%Z Lee-Thompson, J, 1949, ‘Final shooting script, January 1949’, BFI National Archives, Berkhamsted 
%Z The advert ran from 1947–1949 in American trade magazines including Motion Picture Daily, Showmen’s Trade Review, American Cinematographer, The Exhibitor and The International Projectionist. 
%Z Letter from Stephen Grimes to John Huston, 8 June 1962, John Huston papers, Margaret Herrick Library, Beverly Hills, CA 
%Z The Brain Machine pressbook, 1955, BFI National Archives, Berkhamsted
%Z An earlier 1943 article highlighted how EEG evidence supplied by Hill had been the basis for a controversial ruling to find a murderer ‘insane’ even though he knew what he was doing (but could not control his impulses) at the time. In the mid-1940s, this was seen as a landmark case in overruling the 100-year McNaughton rule (Daily Telegraph, 18 March 1943, p 5). Ken Barrett (2023) recently excavated an even earlier case of the controversial use of EEG evidence in a UK court in 1939. The EEG evidence in this murder case, in which a young William Gary Water gave testimony, was used to prove a diagnosis of epilepsy rather than to identify potential psychopathic traits. 
%Z The digital newspaper archives used for this research were Gale Primary Sources (Times, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Illustrated London News), ProQuest Historical Newspapers (Guardian, Observer) and British Newspaper Archive (Daily Mirror, Daily Herald, assorted local and regional newspapers). 
%I The Science Museum Group
%@ 2054-5770
%B eng
%U https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/objects-of-the-mind-using-film-to-explore-the-entangled-histories-of-media-and-mental-health/
%J Science Museum Group Journal