Science as Mastery: A Story About Race and Power

“Science as Mastery: A Story About Race and Power” is new provocative short film (30 min) which powerfully engages the difficult history of religion, racism, and eugenics through a lens of science as power, possibility, and control. Created by the AAAS DoSER program, the film traces the history of religious and scientific racism from the 16th-century theology of enslavers to the racist responses to the 21st century Human Genome Project. The film invites the audience to reconsider the true nature and legacy of science, and interrogate how people have and continue to use culture, religion, and politics to control and manipulate science for often dangerous ends. Science as Mastery features scholars Augustin Fuentes, Erik Peterson, Terence Keel, Myrna Sheldon, Joseph Graves, Deidre Cooper Owens, Jada Benn Torres, and Aaron Panofsky. It was produced by John Slattery and Curtis Baxter, and directed by Nathan Clarke of Fourth Line Films.