Reading into the Stars, 2013

In Reading into the Stars: Cosmopoetics in the Contemporary Novel, Florian Klaeger writes, “Humans, it seems, tend to ‘read into the stars,’ projecting meaning onto astronomical phenomena that give no objective indication of holding such meaning.” For Klaeger, “reading into the stars” is a metaphor that highlights the relationship between the ambiguous, opaque sky which is transformed into a blank canvas on which individual desires, thoughts, and feelings can be projected. An amateur astronomer’s observation is one such reading. A quest for pattern and meaning.

Reading into the Stars explores the deep psychological attachment between the amateur astronomer and the night sky. The vignettes question the idea of the astronomer as a solitary figure and share the poignancy and strangeness of some of these histories. The voices you hear are of three people in whose lives astronomy has played a central role in very different ways. The first is Raj Shekhar, an amateur astronomer; the second is Lorraine Daston, a historian of science and Director emirata of the Max Planck institute for the History of Science; and finally Vishnu Reddy, a scientist at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.