Cultivating the cosmos: spaceflight thought in Imperial Germany (original) (raw)

Imagining Outer Space: European Astroculture in the Twentieth Century

2018

Imagining Outer Space makes a captivating advance into the cultural history of outer space and extraterrestrial life in the European imagination. How was outer space conceived and communicated? What promises of interplanetary expansion and cosmic colonization propelled the project of human spaceflight to the forefront of twentieth-century modernity? In what way has West-European astroculture been affected by the continuous exploration of outer space? Tracing the current thriving interest in spatiality to early attempts at exploring imaginary worlds beyond our own, the book analyzes contact points between science and fiction from a transdisciplinary perspective and examines sites and situations where utopian images and futuristic technologies contributed to the omnipresence of fantasmatic thought. Bringing together state-of-the-art work in this emerging field of historical research, Imagining Outer Space breaks new ground in the historicization of the Space Age.

Schubert, Cornelius (2011): In the middle of things. Germany’s ongoing engagement with STS. In: Tecnoscienza, 2 (2): 103-113.

In order to map out the German engagements with STS, this article draws some historical and conceptual connecting lines: first, the technological society, second, the sociology of everyday devices and third, the sociology of innovation. The historical developments of discussing the relation of science, technology and society in Germany will be used as the starting point. The reception of STS in Germany will be depicted in reference to these precursors and some peculiarities of the German debates will be addressed. The article roughly follows the institutionalisation of science and technology studies in Germany and highlights some intersections with STS from the early 1980s until today.

Haupts, The Empty Sky. A Brief history of German Science Fiction Film

Die Beauftragte der Bundesregιeru'g für Kultur und Medien iontents Connie Betz, Rainer Rother, 10 visions of the Future Annika Schaefer science • fiction • film Sherrys vint 20 imperfect Futures and ominous imaginaries postwar american silence fiction film Mark Bould 42 between the sleep and dream 0f reason dystopian science fiction cinema Tobias Haupts 64 the empty sky a brief history of german science fiction film Aidan Power 82 modern indinations locating european science fiction cinema of the ‚seis and 19705 Matthias Schwartz 96 archaeologies of a past Future science fiction films from communist eastern europe 11α appendiH 120 indeH

European Astrofuturism, Cosmic Provincialism: Historicizing the Space Age

Alexander C.T. Geppert (ed.): Imagining Outer Space: European Astroculture in the Twentieth Century, 2012

Ubiquitous, limitless and ever-expanding as it may be, outer space has a history too. Although it is virtually impossible to experience outer space in a direct, unmediated manner, historians can study how it was represented, communicated and perceived. In addition to presenting the core questions that drive the Imagining Outer Space volume this chapter introduces the umbrella concept of ‘astroculture,’ discusses the necessity to ‘Europeanize’ space history and suggests to regard ‘science fiction’ and ‘science fact’ as complementary rather than contradictory. The article also draws attention to two further characteristics of twentieth-century astroculture, that is its futuristic, often explicitly utopian strand as well as a strong transcendental, if not outspokenly religious undercurrent.

Making stars: projection culture in nineteenth-century German astronomy

The British Journal for the History of Science, 2001

The introduction into the laboratory of the magic lantern and the arts of projection marked a change from putatively individual and mechanical to obviously collective and skillful perception in nineteenth-century German sciences. In 1860 Karl Friedrich Zöllner introduced an astro-photometer to astronomers who, by practising with it, became aware of their own tacit and ubiquitous skills. Zöllner was a showman who was aware of the personal skills involved in magic-lantern projection. Like showmen, nineteenth-century astronomers could also control and calibrate their vision with this instrument. Photometrists such as Zöllner were not only aware of subjectivity, but developed techniques to manipulate, control and to employ it in scientific judgements. This view stands in contrast to that of the scientists described by Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, for whom ‘machines offered freedom from will – from the willful interventions that had come to be seen as the most dangerous aspects of ...