Mythologies of Outer Space

Artists, writers, and academics imagine and examine outer space in this beautifully illustrated offering from the Calgary Institute for the Humanities.

Every culture and society has read stories in the night sky. From the careful attention of astronomers across all times and all parts of the world to the search for alien life, the stories found in the shapes of constellations to the expansive imaginings of science fiction, there has always been life up there, at the very least, for our imaginations.

Mythologies of Outer Space brings together academics and artists to explore diverse imaginings of outer space. It examines questions that, in a world where outer space is increasingly accessible, are no longer only science fiction. Is outer space terra nullius, open for settlement? What if there is life beyond earth? Will we repeat the mistakes of the colonial age on other planets? Should parts of outer space be protected, like nature reserves? What about resource extraction? Do celestial bodies, like the moon, have rights?

Astronaut Robert Thirsk, Mi’kmaw astronomer Hilding Neilson, digital humanities scholar Chris Pak, and outer space archaeologist Alice Gorman, among others, are joined by artists including David Hoffos and Dianne Bos, literary scholars, art critics, scientists, and a poet to explore how humanity thinks about outer space in this joyful, curious book.

With contributions by: Dianne Bos, Marjan Eggermont, Jim Ellis, Kyle Flemmer, Stefania Forlini, Alice Gorman, Noreen Humble, Marc N. Hutchinson, Philip P. Langill, Hilding Neilson, Chris Pak, Naomi Potter, Keith Sidwell, Robert Thirsk, and Nancy Tousley

Jim Ellis is a professor of English and director of the Calgary Institute for the Humanities at the University of Calgary. He publishes on early modern literature, queer and Black experimental filmmakers, and contemporary art.
Noreen Humble is a professor of Classics and Associate Director of the Calgary Institute for the Humanities at the University of Calgary. Her research centers on ancient Greek authors both in their contemporary settings and in the early modern period.

Introduction: Ideologies of Outer Space
Jim Ellis

How We Let the Moon Die, and Why It Isn’t Dead
Alice Gorman

Imaginary Voyages to the Moon: Lucian and his Legacy
Noreen Humble

Lucian’s Voyage to the Moon
Translated by Keith Sidwell

Space is Part of the Land: Reconsidering the Relationships between Astronomy Research, Outer Space Exploration, and Colonialism
Hilding Neilson

Fifty Years at the Rothney
Philip P. Langill

Life in a Parallel Universe: The Biocene
Marjan Eggermont

“A Kind of Continuous Conceptual Drunkenness”: Terraforming and Analogy in Science Fiction
Chris Pak

Science Fiction That Might Have Been or The Outer Spaces of the Gibson Collection of Speculative Fiction
Stefania Forlini

Stellar Sequence (poems)
Kyle Flemmer

Elyse Longair in conversation with Naomi Potter

Galaxy Series
Dianne Bos

David Hoffos: On Outer and Inner Space
Nancy Tousley

The Book of the Damned
M.N. Hutchinson

Afterword
Robert Thirsk

Appendix: The UN Moon Treaty