About the Film

I am always drawn to projects that reveal how history, science and human curiosity come together in unexpected ways. This academic documentary film captures a public event at Durham University exploring the medieval writings of Robert Grosseteste, one of the period’s most remarkable thinkers.

The event was part of the national Being Human Festival and driven by the Ordered Universe Project, a collaboration between humanities scholars and scientists working to unlock Grosseteste’s Latin texts on natural phenomena and bring new insight to both scientific research and the arts.

Robert Grosseteste and the Ordered Universe Project

Robert Grosseteste was much more than a bishop and theologian. Active through the early thirteenth century, he was a scientist, philosopher and political thinker whose curiosity drove him to explain the natural world in ways that still spark interest today. The Ordered Universe Project brings together researchers from history, science and the arts to work through his writings collaboratively, treating a medieval text as a genuinely live subject of enquiry rather than a closed historical document.

A Meeting of Science and the Humanities

The event took place in Prior’s Hall, part of Durham Cathedral’s historic complex, where scholars and the public gathered for commemorative readings of Grosseteste’s texts. What stood out while filming was the genuine exchange of ideas. Scientists and humanities scholars who, in the early days of the project, might have sat on opposite sides of the table, worked closely together, questioning, translating and interpreting Grosseteste’s writings as a shared task rather than two separate jobs.

Translating medieval Latin turned out to be about far more than words. It meant interpreting Grosseteste’s scientific logic, placing it in historical and cultural context, and asking how his ideas might still be relevant now. One speaker was clear that this was not simply the humanities translating and scientists explaining afterwards, but both groups working the material together from the start, building a fuller and more nuanced reading of the text.

Experiments in Medieval Optics

The event featured demonstrations led by physicist Brian Tanner, who drew experimental ideas directly out of Grosseteste’s writings. Using lenses, mirrors, glass blocks and simple props, participants investigated medieval concepts of refraction and parallax. Filming these experiments was genuinely interesting, since removing the assumptions of modern science let everyone, experts and newcomers alike, explore the same ideas on roughly equal footing.

Public Engagement in Action

Audience members were not just observers. They actively contributed ideas and questions that fed back into the scholars’ own research. One question from a member of the public even led to a new footnote in a scholarly edition of Grosseteste’s text, a good example of how collaborative, community-led research can genuinely produce new knowledge rather than simply communicate existing findings.

Filming an Academic Event

A theme kept surfacing throughout the day: humility in the pursuit of knowledge. Grosseteste’s work is a reminder that scientific truths are never quite final, they are our best current interpretation, open to revision as understanding grows. Modern science has moved a long way beyond medieval thought, but the underlying spirit of enquiry and curiosity has not really changed.

Making this academic documentary film reaffirmed something I keep coming back to in this kind of work. My interest is always in the human story underneath the research, how people from very different disciplines collaborate, challenge each other’s assumptions, and open up new ways of understanding something old. This event was a good example of the kind of collaborative academic work I am drawn to documenting, particularly here in the North East.

About Durham University and the Being Human Festival

Durham University hosts a wide range of public humanities events throughout the year, including its contribution to the Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival for the humanities, which brings academic research to public audiences through talks, workshops and events. The Ordered Universe Project itself brings together researchers across several institutions to study Grosseteste’s scientific treatises through genuinely interdisciplinary collaboration.