Lecture & Talk: Comrade Cosmos. Religious origins and capitalist futures of space travel

Religious origins and capitalist futures of space travel.Lectures and a discussion with historian and Slavicist Michael Hagemeister (Bochum) and American studies scholar Alexandra Ganser (Vienna), moderated by Inke Arns (HMKV). Free admission. A cooperation with the büro medienwerk.nrw.

From Russian cosmism to astro-futuristic utopias – two lectures and a discussion shed light on visions ranging from doctrines of salvation to space travel euphoria and colonial dark sides. The two lectures and subsequent discussion focus on two seemingly contradictory worlds of ideas that deal with narratives about space travel and humanity's role in the cosmos. The subsequent discussion will explore the parallels, tensions, and breaks between these two concepts in relation to our lives here on Earth, illuminated by Comrade Sun.    

In the first lecture, “Russian Cosmism—A Holistic Doctrine of Salvation for the Anthropocene,” Michael Hagemeister presents a philosophical movement that was developed in the 1970s and 1980s to provide intellectual support for the Soviet space program. “Russian cosmism” combines a holistic and anthropocentric worldview with a teleological conception of evolution and claims to define humanity's position and role in the universe. Today, it shapes parts of the “Russian idea” and serves as a legitimizing figure for the claimed “spiritual sovereignty” of post-Soviet Russia. The lecture highlights both the fascination of this way of thinking and its totalitarian dimensions. 

In the second lecture, “Astrofuturistic Utopias in the Space Race of the 21st Century,” Alexandra Ganser takes a look at contemporary space travel, which oscillates between promises of salvation, fantasies of expansion, and dystopian undertones. From the vision of interplanetary mobility to the colonization of Mars, the discourse both fuels utopian hopes and perpetuates colonial and extractivist logics. The lecture examines how existing inequalities and racist settlement policies are perpetuated in the narrative of an escape into space.  

  

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Alexandra Ganser holds the chair in North American Studies (literatures and cultures) at the University of Vienna, Austria, where she also headed the research platform and FWF-doc.funds PhD program "Mobile Cultures and Societies: Interdisciplinary Studies on Transnational Formations" and co-directs the Centre for Canadian Studies (ZKS). She has been FWF Elise Richter Fellow and is author of Crisis and Legitimacy in Atlantic American Narratives of Piracy, 1678-1861 (Palgrave Macmillan), as well as co-editor of the book series "Maritime Literature and Culture" with Meg Samuelson and Charne Lavery. A Fulbright alumna and former Daniel Christoph Ebeling fellow at the American Antiquarian Society in Massachusetts, her current research focuses on American astrocultures and astrocolonialism. 

 

Michael Hagemeister is a historian and Slavist. After completing his doctorate with a study on the Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov, he worked at universities in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. His research focuses on Russian philosophy and intellectual history, utopian and apocalyptic thinking in Russia, and the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Most recently, he worked on a research project at the Ruhr University Bochum on anti-Western and anti-modern thinking in Russia. His publications include “Biopolitische Utopien in Russland zu Beginn des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts” (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005) together with Boris Groys; “Konstantin Tsiolkovskii and the Occult Roots of Soviet Space Travel,” in The New Age of Russia. Occult and Esoteric Dimensions (Munich: Sagner, 2012); “Le ‘cosmisme russe,’ 'philosophie de l'avenir?'” in Le cosmisme russe. (Toulouse: Slavica Occitania, 2018).