Lance Gharavi – författare

Why are the planets named after gods? Why did Buzz Aldrin take communion on the lunar surface? And why did Soviet propaganda posters triumphantly declare that cosmonauts found no god in heaven?Cosmic Missions reveals the deep yet unacknowledged relationships between religion and the exploration of outer space. Bringing together cosmologists, historians, theologians, philosophers, the Vatican Astronomer, an Afrofuturist, and an Indigenous geographer, this book uncovers how space exploration has never been the purely technical and scientific enterprise we imagine it to be. As with politics and economics, religion operates within and across every dimension of our cosmic ambitions, shaping the stories that motivate them, the values that direct them, and the ethical questions they raise.The book’s twenty contributors examine these entanglements across numerous national contexts, a wide variety of religious traditions, and the new techno-utopian movements of Silicon Valley. Chapters range from the Cold War space race as rival salvation projects to feminist Islamic ethics of outer space, and from the spiritual history of UFO encounters to Buddhist arguments for and against leaving Earth.As humanity accelerates into what some are calling a “new golden age” of space exploration, Cosmic Missions argues that it is vital to understand which values are steering us toward the stars and whom those values serve.

Why are the planets named after gods? Why did Buzz Aldrin take communion on the lunar surface? And why did Soviet propaganda posters triumphantly declare that cosmonauts found no god in heaven?Cosmic Missions reveals the deep yet unacknowledged relationships between religion and the exploration of outer space. Bringing together cosmologists, historians, theologians, philosophers, the Vatican Astronomer, an Afrofuturist, and an Indigenous geographer, this book uncovers how space exploration has never been the purely technical and scientific enterprise we imagine it to be. As with politics and economics, religion operates within and across every dimension of our cosmic ambitions, shaping the stories that motivate them, the values that direct them, and the ethical questions they raise.The book’s twenty contributors examine these entanglements across numerous national contexts, a wide variety of religious traditions, and the new techno-utopian movements of Silicon Valley. Chapters range from the Cold War space race as rival salvation projects to feminist Islamic ethics of outer space, and from the spiritual history of UFO encounters to Buddhist arguments for and against leaving Earth.As humanity accelerates into what some are calling a “new golden age” of space exploration, Cosmic Missions argues that it is vital to understand which values are steering us toward the stars and whom those values serve.

The intersections of religion, politics, and performance form the loci of many of the most serious issues facing the world today, sites where some of the world’s most pressing and momentous events are contested and played out. That this circumstance warrants continued, thoughtful, and imaginative engagement from those within the fields of theatre and performance is one of the guiding principles of this volume. This collection features a diverse set of perspectives, written by some of the top scholars in the relevant fields, on the many modern intersections of religion with theatre and performance. Contributors argue that religion can no longer be conceived of as a cultural phenomenon that is safely sequestered in the "private sphere." It is instead an explicitly public force that stimulates and complicates public actions, and thus a crucial component of much performance. From mystic theologies of acting to the neuroscience of spirituality in rituals to the performance of secularism, these essays address a broad variety of religious traditions, sharing a common conception of religion as a crucial object of discourse—one that is formed by, and significantly formative of, performance.