Abstract

In Person

The context in which new scientific knowledge is produced is fundamentally changing, and crucially, so too are the ways in which it is publicly communicated and understood. The discourses of the planetary sciences in particular are being reframed and transformed, both in public rhetoric and in fictional depictions. As a literature and science scholar, I am interested in examining the ways in which popular science writing as well as fictional writing about planetary sciences is informing and is informed by imaginations of planetary exploration.

Discourses surrounding Mars colonisation, for instance, are becoming reframed not only as desirable, but as inevitable and necessary – a ‘solution’ to an unhabitable Earth. Jens Temmen has recently argued that even the NASA Mars rover missions are framed by a discourse that promotes the liberating and moral quality of technology. The scientific sources of authority on space exploration are also changing, as explorative activity is increasingly performed by the private sector. Here too, the discourses of human transcendence are reiterated. This points to a shift in the rhetoric of knowledge production, as scientific activity becomes entangled in the loaded narratives that are shaping it. I ask what these narratives and poetics might mean for planetary scientists and their scientific activity.

Possible reading:

Sarah Stewart Johnson, The Sirens of Mars

Simon Morden, The Red Planet

Tracy K. Smith, Life on Mars (poetry)

Kate Greene, Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars