Magic lantern travelogues captivated late nineteenth and early twentieth-century audiences, transporting viewers to distant, unfamiliar lands. These visual narratives, however, evidently reflected their creators' biases, shaping public perceptions and knowledge of the world. One traveller who contributed to this genre was Olive Murray Chapman (1892-1977), a widow who journeyed independently through regions like Cyprus, the British Raj (India), Lapland, and Iceland. Her lantern performances in the 1930s, centred on Iceland, were especially popular and took her on tours across England, Scotland, and Ireland. Alongside spoken accounts, she projected personal photographs and watercolours. These performances did more than document landscapes—they constructed an imaginary world.

This presentation explores Chapman's Iceland lectures, highlighting how she framed the voices of the Icelandic people within her narratives. Chapman believed that women's sensitivity and relational skills gave them a unique advantage as explorers. This enabled them to gain the trust of local populations, especially women and children, and access their inner lives. With traditional exploration opportunities dwindling, she argued that a more nuanced, human-centred approach was emerging—one in which women were especially well-suited to excel.

By incorporating self-produced imagery of Iceland’s landscapes and local voices, Chapman’s lantern travelogues did not just offer visual tours; they also filled unknown spaces with meaning, bridging distant places with her audience's imaginations. This analysis contributes to discussions on gender, exploration, and knowledge circulation within the history of science and travel, highlighting how local voices were framed in global exchanges.

From the late 19th century, the optical lantern became a pivotal medium for projecting images to large audiences. It was widely applied in education, politics, and entertainment in Belgium and beyond. This paper examines its central role in colonial preparation courses (1912–1940s), focusing on its use by the Tropical Institute in Antwerp and the Belgian Colonial Union. These courses aimed to equip prospective colonial agents for service in Belgian Congo and the mandate territory of Ruanda-Urundi, blending practical medical training with ideological narratives that reinforced moral superiority, nationalism, and Eurocentric representations of Central Africa.
Drawing on archival records and projection slides, this study explores how optical lantern lectures functioned as tools of “place-making,” constructing an imagined Central Africa. The perceived objectivity of these images reinforced their authority, embedding ideological narratives within visual and performative practices. These localized uses of the lantern were deeply connected to broader transnational networks. Colonial congresses and touring ‘experts’ with magic lantern lectures facilitated the exchange of medical knowledge, visual technologies, and administrative strategies, fostering a shared colonial discourse among Western European colonial elites.
By analyzing the courses at the Tropical Institute and the Belgian Colonial Union, this contribution situates Belgian colonial education within a global framework of circulation and mediation. It highlights the interplay of local actors, institutions, and transnational exchanges in shaping colonial knowledge systems, emphasizing how such technologies and performances legitimized imperialism.

The academic discipline of History of Science has grown significantly as its own distinct research field over the past century. Leading scholars, such as Thomas Kuhn (1962), have highlighted the value of History of Science in education (Kuhn 2014). At the university level in Canada, there are nine History of Science programs (as discovered in this research thesis). However, there is very limited research on the quality of History of Science education at the undergraduate level (Crew 1920). This research thesis uses course outlines to evaluate trends across History of Science courses. Qualitative methods will be used to conduct an analysis of all undergraduate courses offered over the past two years at a mid-sized Ontario university. The researcher is consulting with their university's Indigenous Council for the data analysis. The research will examine whether there is a tendency to focus on certain geographical areas and the inclusive language used in course outlines. The results of the study will be discussed at the conference. This research is essential for highlighting any potential Eurocentric trends in History of Science courses. It will also provide instructors with a diagnostic tool to evaluate the inclusivity of their courses. The intention of this research is to examine the current History of Science educational curricula and look for strategies to increase accessibility and inclusivity of undergraduate History of Science courses.


References
Crew, Henry. 1920. https://www.jstor.org/stable/6921.
Kuhn, Thomas. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Kuhn, Thomas. 2014. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203802458-9.