Thinking Outer Space: Philosophy, Astroculture and the Histories of Planetarity

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Thinking Outer Space: Philosophy, Astroculture and the Histories of Planetarity

Veranstalter
Alexander C.T. Geppert (NYU); Rory Rowan (Trinity College Dublin)
Veranstaltungsort
NYU Berlin
PLZ
10435
Ort
Berlin
Land
Deutschland
Findet statt
In Präsenz
Vom - Bis
19.07.2023 - 21.07.2023
Website
https://www.thinking-outer-space.com
Von
Alexander C.T. Geppert

"Thinking Outer Space: Philosophy, Astroculture and the Histories of Planetarity" is a conference convened by Alexander Geppert and Rory Rown to be held at NYU Berlin from 19 through 21 July 2023.

Thinking Outer Space: Philosophy, Astroculture and the Histories of Planetarity

In the past decade, scholars in the humanities and social sciences have begun to realize that the exploration of outer space was much more than a technoscientific and geopolitical enterprise. Rather, it was also an endeavour prepared and accompanied, deliberated and critiqued by a wide array of intellectuals ranging from Hannah Arendt, Hans Blumenberg and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to Carl Schmitt, Marshall McLuhan and Jean-François Lyotard. Weighing postwar world orders, environmental consciousness, cosmic solitude and human futures from an extra-terrestrial perspective, these philosophers contributed to the planetization of earth through the thinking of space.

Held at NYU Berlin, the three-day conference 'Thinking Outer Space' focuses on twentieth-century philosophy, astroculture and space thought. At the same time, it recognizes that contemporary understandings of outer space have also been shaped by legal agreements, state institutions and popular science. Aiming to globalize the study of astroculture, the conference transcends the intellectual boundaries of the major space-faring nations. As such, it seeks to engage with the rich and heterogenous cosmologies found in non-western and indigenous contexts.

At present, successive waves of geopolitical competition and commercial speculation are putting outer space back at the center of worldwide attention. State and corporate plans for returning to the Moon and colonizing Mars are capturing the public imagination and budgets alike, while the threat of military confrontation and environmental destruction beyond earth is ever-expanding. How philosophers and public intellectuals from a variety of disciplinary, political and cultural backgrounds conceptualized and communicated outer space is crucial to comprehending what some have been quick to label the rise of a ‘new’ or ‘second’ Space Age.

Examining the intellectual and ethical foundations of present-day planetarity, 'Thinking Outer Space' brings together historians, geographers, anthropologists, ethnographers, literary scholars, political scientists, scholars of religion and sociologists. Over the course of three days and across nine chronologically and thematically arranged panels, thirty participants from a dozen countries will debate topics ranging from the so-called planetary turn, nineteenth-century protoplanetarianism and cosmic philosophies to the making of space law, narratives and poetics of planetization, and planetary ethnographies.

Advance registration is required. Ironic as it sounds, space is limited and participation can, alas, not be guaranteed. Accepted participants will be informed by email ahead of time.

Programm

Wednesday, 19 July 2023

14:00–15:00
Welcome and Introduction
Alexander Geppert (New York/Shanghai) and Rory Rowan (Dublin): Outer Space and the Thinking of a Planet

15:15–16:15
Panel I: A Planetary Turn?
Chair: Bronislaw Szerszynski (Lancaster)

Stefan Pedersen (Sussex): The Earth System, Cosmology and Planetary Politics

Alexander Geppert (New York/Shanghai) and Brad Tabas (Brest): Planetization: Five Theses

16:45–18:15
Panel II: Proto-Planetarians
Chair: N.N.

Vladimir Brljak (Durham): The Stars and the Angels: The Cosmos of a Nineteenth-Century Clergyman

Oliver Dunnett (Belfast): Alexander von Humboldt and his Influence in Planetary Thinking since 1845

Ian Klinke (Oxford): Panpsychism, Space Colonization and the Origins of Astropolitics

Thursday, 20 July 2023

09:30–10:30
Panel III: Cosmic Philosophies
Chair: Helmuth Trischler (Munich)

Michael Hagemeister (Bochum): Russian Cosmism

Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko (Copenhagen): Spiritual Universalisms and the Invention of the Fragile Planet: Theosophy, the Occult and the Race towards Heaven and Earth

11:00–12:30
Panel IV: The Juridification of Outer Space
Chair: Christoph Conrad (Geneva)

Gabriela Radulescu (Berlin): Metalaw: Regulating Relations between all Beings in the Universe at the Dawn of the Space Age

Stephen Buono (Cambridge, MA): Metalaw: Philosophy and the Birth of a Discipline

François Rulier (Toulouse): Planetizating International Space Law for a Pacifist Space Exploration

14:00–15:00
Panel V: Poetics of Planetization
Chair: Haitian Ma (Amsterdam)

Helen Ahner (Berlin): Feeling Outer Space: Planetariums as Sites of Epistemic Emotions

Thøre Bjørnvig (Copenhagen): The Milky Way Can Wait: Scandinavian Planetization of Earth, 1956–1982

15:30–16:30
Panel VI: Narrating Astroculture
Chair: Michèle Matetschk (Berlin)

Jörg Kreienbrock (Chicago): The Philosophy of Science Fiction: Gotthard Günther in Outer Space

Arthur Z. Wang (Philadelphia): Escape Velocity: Black Scientists and Life Writing in Outer Space

17:00–18:00
Panel VII: Exploring Inner Space
Chair: N.N.

Greg Eghigian (University Park): UFOs and the Inner Space of Outer Space

Ben Van Overmeire (Kunshan): Inner and Outer Space in the Thought of the Buddhist Modernist Alan Watts

Friday, 21 July 2023

10:00–11:00
Panel VIII: Planetarity after the End of History
Chair: Bernd Weisbrod (Göttingen)

Olga Dubrovina (Padua): Gorbachev’s New Thinking in Space: The Universe as a Common Home

James Lowder (Glasgow): Beyond Solar Catastrophe: The Post-Earth Futures of Jean-François Lyotard and Carl Sagan

11:30–12:30
Panel IX: Ethnographies of the Planetary Present
Chair: N.N.

Anna Szolucha (Krakow): Rescuing the Planetary for Ethnographic Research: Philosophical Meanings and Research Application

Julie Patarin-Jossec (London): Thinking Ecological Resilience: Inuit Cosmology and Space Debris Mitigation

14:00–15:00
Concluding Discussion
Chair: Rory Rowan (Dublin)

Alexander Geppert (New York/Shanghai)
Brad Tabas (Brest)

Kontakt

Alexander C.T. Geppert
New York University/NYU Shanghai
E-Mail: alexander.geppert@nyu.edu

Rory Rowan
Trinity College Dublin
E-Mail: rowanro@tcd.ie

https://www.thinking-outer-space.com