Evan Moritz (Author)
Laine, Eero (Advisor)
The current discourse surrounding interplanetary exploration is plagued by decidedly colonial visions for the humanization of the solar system. This ideology emerges from, and is reinforced by, the desire to expand capitalist markets, futurist imaginings of interplanetary utopia, and the positioning of inhospitable landscapes as new frontiers. I argue that the conversations and methodologies employed in the field of performance studies are well-suited to develop alternative, and possibly more revolutionary, epistemes regarding our potential interplanetary future. Performance studies has long concerned itself, and particularly in the work of Joseph Roach and Diana Taylor, with how the figures and actions visible in colonialism and the circum-Atlantic slave trade reemerge and restore themselves, and recent work in the field by Scott Magelssen, Felipe Cervera, and Jon McKenzie provide useful strategies for connecting performance studies to the sciences of astronomy and physics. I explore how these connections between performance and imperialism as well as performance and science relate to the colonization of Mars. I consider the ways performance may offer anti-colonialist epistemes through the current scientific interactions with the Mars Rovers, a historical look at Soviet cosmism in the work of Alexander Bogdanov, and in the contemporary work of afrofuturist performer D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem.
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Thesis
Vertesi, Janet Amelia;
(2009)
“Seeing Like a Rover”: Images in Interaction on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission
(/isis/citation/CBB001561212/)
Book
Conway, Erik M.;
(2015)
Exploration and Engineering: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Quest for Mars
(/isis/citation/CBB001422612/)
Book
Vertesi, Janet Amelia;
(2015)
Seeing Like a Rover: How Robots, Teams, and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars
(/isis/citation/CBB001510006/)
Book
Lisa Messeri;
(2016)
Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds
(/isis/citation/CBB151926948/)
Article
Richard Tutton;
(May 2018)
Multiplanetary Imaginaries and Utopia: The Case of Mars One
(/isis/citation/CBB783094574/)
Article
Volland, Nicolai;
(2014)
Comment on “Let's Go to the Moon”
(/isis/citation/CBB001214667/)
Book
McMillen, Kelly R.;
(2000)
The Case for Mars VI: Making Mars an Affordable Destination
(/isis/citation/CBB000112079/)
Article
Bell, Jim;
(2003)
Once and Future Mars
(/isis/citation/CBB000300381/)
Book
Lambright, W. Henry;
(2014)
Why Mars: NASA and the Politics of Space Exploration
(/isis/citation/CBB001550039/)
Book
Hubbard, Scott;
(2011)
Exploring Mars: Chronicles from a Decade of Discovery
(/isis/citation/CBB001251289/)
Book
Zara Mirmalek;
(2020)
Making Time on Mars
(/isis/citation/CBB714285733/)
Article
Russo, Arturo;
(2011)
Europe's Path To Mars: The European Space Agency's Mars Express Mission
(/isis/citation/CBB001220818/)
Thesis
Mirmalek, Zara Lenora;
(2008)
Solar Discrepancies: Mars Exploration and the Curious Problem of Inter-Planetary Time
(/isis/citation/CBB001561225/)
Article
Vertesi, Janet;
(2012)
Seeing Like a Rover: Visualization, Embodiment, and Interaction on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission
(/isis/citation/CBB001250747/)
Article
Launius, Roger;
(2010)
Astronaut Envy? The U.S. Military's Quest for a Human Mission in Space
(/isis/citation/CBB001221391/)
Book
Kärin Nickelsen;
David P. D. Munns;
(2021)
Far Beyond the Moon: A History of Life Support Systems in the Space Age
(/isis/citation/CBB776604668/)
Book
Harvey, Brian;
(2004)
China's Space Program: From Conception to Manned Spaceflight
(/isis/citation/CBB001032654/)
Article
A. Nishida;
(2019)
Plasmapause, Convection, and Reconnection
(/isis/citation/CBB506686027/)
Book
Colin Burgess;
Don Thomas;
(2019)
Shattered Dreams: The Lost and Canceled Space Missions
(/isis/citation/CBB446727681/)
Book
Bizony, Piers;
(2011)
The Space Shuttle: Celebrating Thirty Years of NASA's First Space Plane
(/isis/citation/CBB001213775/)
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