Between the high and the final frontier: The Russian Cosmos meets the American Space in the Cold War popular culture of space travelers (original) (raw)
Related papers
2011
This work is about the American and Russian 20th- and 21st-century perception of the universe, viewed as a purely mental construct. A contrastive analysis is conducted with the primary assumption that what humans sense is not necessarily real, meaning that it does not exist the way we perceive it. This assumption is in line with the theories advanced by Rudolph Rummel and Manoj Thulasidas, regarding the perception of reality and the universe viewed from the perspective of cognitive cultural studies. They imply that most spheres of the outer world, constituting the so-called internal or perceived reality, are mostly unavailable directly to human cognitive sensory apparatus. In particular, the work investigates a set of human cultural activities performed by both countries in the course of the 20th and 21st centuries, embracing i) philosophical systems; ii) scientific thought; iii) technology, specifically space research and exploration; iv) the individual witnesses’ space impressions; v) the official space policy objectives; vi) the concepts of spacescape and space culture and the national space ethos at the beginning of the new millennium. The research, conducted qualitatively, will be pursued with the premise that certain differences in the way humans perceive the world might be rooted in disparate cultural systems of the American and Russian nations. This hypothesis is based on Richard Nisbett’s research on the relation between culture and human perception of reality that has revealed the predominant role of certain areas of culture in shaping human processes of cognition. In this respect, my cross-cultural examination of the American and Russian perception of the universe additionally attempts to demonstrate the extent to which particular aspects of culture affect it. Chapter 1 presents the primary assumptions of the paper, having their roots in the notion of human perception of reality and the role culture plays in it as well as it introduces the main research methods of the paper. Chapter 2 examines how perception of the universe evolved since the beginning of human civilization and discusses the meaning of cosmology in the context of culture. It also traces the cosmological thought in its philosophical and scientific dimension which serves as a theoretical introduction to the next chapter. Chapter 3 attempts to determine the shape of the American and Russian pre-Cold War universe understood as a purely mental construct. In order to complete this task, it discusses both countries’ i) philosophical movements, particularly the Russian cosmism (both religious and scientific strand) and the Whiteheadian process cosmology; ii) scientific thought and achievements, specifically the development of observational cosmology (U.S.) and the beginnings of space research and exploration (U.S. and USSR). The chapter also seeks to answer the question whether it was cosmism and process cosmology or political tension during and after the Second World War that could have fueled the two countries’ first inquiries into space. Chapter 4 investigates the Soviet and American perception of the cosmos during the Cold War rivalry. Here, the cosmonauts and astronauts’ reports, memoirs and interviews, containing space impressions, serve as the main basis for the analysis. The chapter introduces the concept of the “overview effect” coined by Frank White, depicting a multidimensional nature of the experience of space travel. The study deals with both short and long-duration orbital flights, including the U.S. moon missions. It argues that there is a clear distinction between the Russian Cosmos and the American Space functioning as mental constructs in the two nations’ cognitive view of the universe. Lastly, it attempts to demonstrate the extent to which particular aspects of culture affect these perceptions. Chapter 5 discusses the post-Cold War perception of the universe existing in the cultural mentality of the Russian and American nations. In order to establish its form, it focuses on i) the internalization of cosmology; ii) new space policy objectives; iii) the globally emerging concepts of spacescape and space culture; vi) the national space ethos. The chapter argues that, despite today’s considerable resemblances in space endeavours, the nationwide perception of the universe remains, to a large extent disparate, providing the framework of what might be considered the American Space (Final Frontier) and the Russian Cosmos (High Frontier). Finally, it attempts to assess the impact of certain aspects of culture on the final shape of the two countries’ space perceptions. The main outcome is that the American and Russian perception of the universe in the 20th and 21st century is grounded in a set of distinct features generated mainly by the philosophical and scientific heritage of the two nations rather than any other aspects of the national and global culture. It is also concluded that the universe functions, to a large extent merely as human mental construct, having to do more with both culture-specific and global worldview than reality itself.
11th Conference of the European Society for the Study of English, Istanbul, 2012
The paper aims to investigate the popular culture of space travel and extraterrestrial “non-places” (Augé 1995) where I inquire into the American mindset viewed as a cultural construct and compare it with its Russian counterpart. My semiotic and cultural studies analysis is based on varied cosmic impressions contained in selected space representations published in the 20th century mass media, including space art, photography, zero-g space art, astronomical scientific illustrations or popular culture artifacts such as stamps, postcards or magazine covers. Particularly, the genre of a space art, so far hardly explored in more interdisciplinary and scholarly terms, serves as a valuable popular culture text representing an array of encoded meanings. The undertaken research of selected scientists, artists or space travelers, embracing Georgi Kurnin, Aleksei Leonov, Andrei Sokolov, Chesley Bonestell, David Hardy or William Hartman, is aimed to reveal certain cross-cultural differences between the two space age rivals, particularly those considering their cognitive view of the world. The core of my analysis lies in cultural studies, conceptual art, cognition and philosophy of culture whose mutual premise is that culture shapes one’s mindset and that the spiritual, i.e. common patterns of human thought and behaviour, is reflected in the material (see, e.g. Donald 1997). Founded on such an assumption, my study seeks to determine whether a commonly proposed distinction between the American pragmatism and the Russian mysticism exists in the realm of both nations’ popular culture of space representations, functioning here as cultural-cognitive constructs. Also, the paper attempts to establish which national heritage domains certain dissimilarities might have derived from, examining, e.g. the movement of the Russian Cosmism, the Russian Orthodox Church philosophy, the American tradition of frontier experience as well as religious and pragmatic thought, the rise of the U.S. observational cosmology or the global village phenomenon (see, e.g. Gavin-Blakeley 1976).
Space exploration in 20th century American and Soviet literature and art
PhD Dissertation, 2015
The aim of this dissertation is to explore and compare the impact of Russian and American Cosmism on the representation of space exploration in selected 20th century American and Soviet space art works in the context of both nations’ culture and literature of the period. The source material are 200 works of American (100) and Soviet (100) space art (1944-1991) which become subject to visual content analysis whose purpose is to examine the relation between the chief assumptions of Russian and American Cosmism and the image of space exploration constructed by American and Soviet artists. The dissertation consists of four chapters. Chapter 1 attempts to define and present various views on Russian Cosmism, including its impact on the development of Soviet cosmonautics and space age ideology as well as selected aspects of 20th century culture related to or depicting the space programme’s ventures. Chapter 2 presents the core premises of the concept of Harrison's American Cosmism (2013), an extension of Harris's space ethos (1992), and discusses its impact on selected aspects of 20th century U.S. culture surrounding the national space efforts. Chapter 3 outlines the history and the principal generic characteristics of American and Soviet space art in the context of 20th century culture, literature as well as the major trends in space research and exploration pursued by both nations. Chapter 4 presents the primary assumptions of the research methodology utilized in the analysis and the chief research results of the study of American and Russian space art regarding the main thesis of this work.