46 research outputs found
Ep. #059 - Lisa Messeri
No full textThis recording and transcript form part of a collection of podcasts conducted by the Cultures of Energy at Rice University. Cultures of Energy brings writers, artists and scholars together to talk, think and feel their way into the Anthropocene. We cover serious issues like climate change, species extinction and energy transition. But we also try to confront seemingly huge and insurmountable problems with insight, creativity and laughter.Dominic and Cymene marvel at the rise of transplanetary anthropology on this week’s podcast, as well as outer space films (and sexed up goblins). Then (16:08) we welcome the University of Virginia’s celestial Lisa Messeri to the conversation. A lively chat about her research with exoplanetary scientists follows. Lisa reminds us of the extraterrestrial roots of much climate science and explains why she thinks we now need to “un-earth” the Anthropocene. We talk through the connections between our terran conditions of environmental precarity and our renewed interest in other planets. We compare news coverage of the Standing Rock clearance and the Trappist-1 exoplanets and discuss why the latter seemed to get so much more press. We talk geos vs. bios in the imagination of outer space, Elon Musk and the New Space community, what it means for a planet to be habitable, and how the logic of settler colonialism infiltrates the idea of space frontiers. Lisa shares her hot takes on The Martian, why she thinks we’re seeing so many outer space movies right now, and why the future of humanity obviously depends on Matt Damon. We close on her book, Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds (Duke UP, 2016) and why she thinks place-making is so important in the human engagement with outer space. Why do planets have to be round? Who was the star surprise guest at Lisa’s dissertation defense? Listen on and find out! PS Shouts out to Abby Spinak and the Rice Space Institute for making Lisa’s visit to Rice possible
The Resonance of Earth, Other Worlds, and Exoplanets
No full textHow do planetary scientists understand distant places like Mars or planets orbiting another star? Michael Oman-Reagan and Lisa Messeri discuss “resonance” and the anthropology of space.
Cite As:
Oman-Reagan, Michael P., and Lisa Messeri. 2017. “The Resonance of Earth, Other Worlds, and Exoplanets.” Savage Minds. February 23. https://savageminds.org/2017/02/23/the-resonance-of-earth-other-worlds-and-exoplanets
The Resonance of Earth, Other Worlds, and Exoplanets
No full textHow do planetary scientists understand distant places like Mars or planets orbiting another star? Michael Oman-Reagan and Lisa Messeri discuss “resonance” and the anthropology of space.
Cite As:
Oman-Reagan, Michael P., and Lisa Messeri. 2017. “The Resonance of Earth, Other Worlds, and Exoplanets.” Savage Minds. February 23. https://savageminds.org/2017/02/23/the-resonance-of-earth-other-worlds-and-exoplanets
Placing outer space: an earthly ethnography of other worlds
No full textLisa Messeri traces how planetary scientists-whether working in the Utah desert, a Chilean observatory, or the labs of MIT-transform celestial bodies into places in order to understand the universe as densely inhabited by planets, in turn telling us more about Earth, ourselves, and our place in the cosmos
An anthropology of outer space: planetary imagination and placemaking practices
No full textРец. на кн.: Lisa Messeri. Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds. Durham & London : Duke University Press, 2016. 248 pp
An anthropology of outer space: planetary imagination and placemaking practices
No full textРец. на кн.: Lisa Messeri. Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds. Durham & London : Duke University Press, 2016. 248 pp
Improving the World through Digital Realms: Unreality within Virtual Reality
No full textPrikaz knjige // Messeri, Lisa. In the Land of the Unreal: Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles. Duke UP, 2024. pp. 312
Placing outer space : an earthly ethnography of other worlds
No full textThesis (Ph. D. in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society (HASTS))--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology and Society, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-283).This dissertation concerns the role of place in scientific practice. Ideas of place, I argue, shape and are shaped by science. I specifically look at the community of planetary scientists who, though they cannot step foot on the objects they study, transform planets into places. This is an ethnographic work that draws on 18 months of fieldwork during which time I encountered several different communities of planetary scientists. At MIT, I worked alongside astronomers looking for planets around other stars. These "exoplanet" astronomers transformed numerical counts of photons into complex worlds with atmospheres and weather. Data visualizations characterized the work of a community learning to see unseen planets in specific, place-based ways. I also traveled with an astronomer to a Chilean observatory where she studied the night sky hoping to find a "habitable planet." Many other astronomers share this goal and have designed various ways to detect a planet like Earth. The importance of these projects signifies that exoplanet astronomers are more interested in finding planetary kin - planets that are familiar places - than exotic aliens. To determine how the planetary places created by exoplanet astronomers differ from those in our own Solar System, I spent time at the NASA Ames Research Center with a group of computer scientists who create high resolution and three-dimensional maps of Mars. These maps reflect the kind of place Mars is today: it is available to everyone to explore, it is displayed such that you can imagine standing on the surface, and it is presented as geologically dynamic in ways similar to Earth. Even though these maps help give Mars a sense of place, Martian science is still stymied by the inability to send humans to its surface. Instead, planetary scientists travel to terrestrial sites deemed to be "Mars-like" to approximate performing geologic fieldwork on Mars. I went to one of these locations to see how, during these outings, Mars and Earth become entwined as scientists forge connections between two planetary places. These diverse scientific activities, I conclude, are transforming our view of the cosmos. Outer space is becoming outer place.by Lisa Rebecca Messeri.Ph.D.in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society (HAST
Realities of illusion: tracing an anthropology of the unreal from Torres Strait to virtual reality
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