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Re: Crusades on film/medieval movies
oecpc114@sivm.si.edu ("oecpc114@sivm.si.edu)
Tue, 11 Apr 1995 10:41:14 EDT
yes yes meredith! we are having similar discussion on Medieval-L, and here was
my addition
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
To: MEDIEV-L--UKANVM
From: oecpc114@sivm.si.edu (rachel)
Subject: Re: Crusades on film/medieval movies
in response to whether scholars can communicate to the public: One of
the questions on my comps started with a certain aztec image, and the
question was something like: "Eric Von Danakan (sp.?) interprets this as
a man flying a spaceship. Why are so many people willing to accept this
idea?" Although this was the "throw away question" for people who has
become hopelessly muddled (which, amazingly, i had not) , I jumped to
answer it because it spoke to a problem i'd had since i began studying
archaology: it's all very well for archs/anths/hists to get technical
and high falutin' when presenting papers at scholarly symposia, but if
you want people to actually appreciate the incredible informaion we are
uncovering, it has to be presented in SOME format they can deal with! I
was enthralled with "Chariot of the Gods" as a child, mostly because it
*existed*, whereas popular books and tv specials on hard archaological
activity did not. The only other source to feed what became my major
interest and object of study, in a way i could comprehend, was museums.
Now there are quite a few cable shows (i don't know how good, museum
people can't afford cable), many more books on all historical topics for
all age groups, and i think museums are doing better than ever. i'm not
suggesting 'dumbing down' information, just getting it out there. after
all, is research being done for the advancement of world knowledge or
for the advancement of arguement among scholars (never mind, maybe
that's a bad question.....) cheers!
Rachel Bernhardt
Smithsonian
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