BASS Philosophy and Data Analytics / Course details

As the new space age grows into a one trillion-dollar industry by 2040, its impact on society will grow stronger. Extra-terrestrial anthropology examines how the extra-terrestrial (that which originates, exists or relates to things outside of the Earth and its atmosphere) informs how people make social worlds. Students will examine how the extra-terrestrial informs notions of self, religion, ecology, the body, race, gender, the future, colonisation and more. Examining case studies in scholarship ranging from ethnographies of space agencies and other planets to studies of the role of space in religious practice, shamanism and in our understanding of place, they will gain a good understanding of the field of social studies of outer space. They will develop a critical mindset to help analyse developments in science, technology and narratives of the future. Students will be encouraged to think about how they might construct an anthropological study by thinking through outer space. 
 

Overview:
The course delivers an overview of an emerging field of inquiry, the social studies of outer space. As the new space age grows into a one trillion-dollar industry by 2040, its impact on society will grow ever stronger. The course will consider how thinking through Outer Space has always structured how humans structure their day, social relations and cosmologies. We will examine how space is present in people's everyday actions, from circadian rhythms to religious cosmologies and hunting cycles. We will focus on the tech-utopian space age and ask how human activity in Outer Space has impacted fundamental concepts through which people build social relations. For example, the course will;- ask how notions of territory have been affected by the images of Earth from space;  examine how the human body is re-imagined through the medical research emerging from a microgravity environment; assess how spaceflight has impacted notions of God and broader religious practices and compare the Euro-American context with the USSR/Russian context; look at cultures of space enthusiasm, space start-ups and the working practices of major space agencies.

We will critically examine who ‘Space’ is for, how it is imagined in popular culture and what the socio-political consequences of such imaginings might be for notions of race, gender and ‘humanity’. The course will consider how Outer Space is made familiar through digital technologies, Earth-based analogues and popular media. The course will reflect on key anthropological approaches in both theory and method. It will consider, for example, the very conceptualisation of a universal humanity with a universal future and how this universalism - so prevalent in narratives of human space flight - emerged. The course uses space science to reflect on core concepts in anthropology outlined above. Still, it will ask students to consider how thinking through Outer Space challenges existing fieldwork methodologies. Students will be encouraged to think through how thinking about outer space may reframe the analysis done in an anthropological enquiry on such things as, for example, solar panels, illegal border crossing (which often happen on full moons) or religious cosmologies. The course will also ask how the ethnographic method may be applied to the needs of policy and industry in relation to this fast-growing economic sector.

Aims: 
To understand the emergent field of the social study of outer space with a survey of current work and emerging trends.

To use extra-terrestrial anthropology to reflect critically on the traditional concepts of anthropological inquiry, such as the body, territory or religion, and how they might be rethought through thinking extra-terrestrial.

To develop the ability to apply analytical frames analysed in this course to new areas of study via the extra-terrestrial.

To outline how anthropology can usefully and critically contribute to debates on space and earth futures.

• The course will run 10 x 2-hour lectures supported by one tutorial of 1(UG)/2(PG) hr per week;
• The course will be reading-based. 3xCore readings with around five hours of reading expected per tutorial;
• One of the week's lectures will be replaced by a field trip to a local site of space science. Students will be encouraged to take an ethnographic approach to the site. They will produce a non assessed field report;
• All lectures will be posted on blackboard/canvas;
• The assessment will be a 3000-word essay;

• Understand the various debates and theoretical trends that have shaped the social study of outer space;
• Advance their analysis of key texts and concepts in the social study of outer space;

• Critically discuss the political, social, and ethical issues of the social studies of outer space;
• Connect the social study of outer space with  anthropological analyses;
• Connect the social study of outer space with key issues in the industrial space sector;

• Write well-structured, clearly argued, and analytical essays assessing the social studies of outer space;
• Experience an active ethnographic field site and analyse the site critically analyse an industry sector that dominates news and current affairs;

• Communicate complex ideas clearly to others;
• Take initiative in presenting evaluations of selected critical scholarship;

• Formative assessment - 1000 word essay - development of essay plan for the final essay;
• Summative assessment - 3000 word essay worth 100%;