Earthrise +50 : Apollo 8, Mead, Gore and Gaia
Date
02/12/2018Author
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Abstract
This article pivots from the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8, the first manned voyage to the moon, to reflect on the impact of ‘earthrise’ - seeing earth from lunar orbit - and to reflect on the vision’s meanings in an extended cultural history. The emerging anthropology of space considers the ‘overview effect’ of seeing the world and all of humanity all at once, and contemporary disciplinary debates over figuring and responding to ecological crisis similarly operate on a holistic scale. Whereas the Apollo 8 crew first saw the earth emerge sideways from behind a vertical horizon, the vision is conventionally depicted as the earth rising up above the moon’s flat horizon - a rotation indicative of a wider cultural turn in perspective. The article traces the wider impact of ‘earthrise’ through Al Gore’s portrayal of ‘holography’, Margaret Mead’s search for a ‘macroscope’, and a Pacific astronaut’s reminder of the cultural diversity of ways to live in equivalence on earth.
Citation
Crook , T 2018 , ' Earthrise +50 : Apollo 8, Mead, Gore and Gaia ' , Anthropology Today , vol. 34 , no. 6 , pp. 7-10 . https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8322.12471
Publication
Anthropology Today
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0268-540XType
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © RAI 2018. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created accepted version manuscript following peer review and as such may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8322.12471
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