Planets in Science and Culture: A Conversation with Katherine Buse
Join postdoctoral researcher Katherine Buse to learn more about the impact of history and culture on planetary science.
About the Event
We know that we are in the midst of a planetary ecological crisis, but what is the planetary? What role has culture played in the history of Earth and planetary science? How have different media contributed to seeing worlds, both new ones and our own?
Join us for a conversation with Katherine Buse, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago’s Institute on the Formation of Knowledge, to explore how planets have been shared between science, society, and the arts in the twentieth century.
Who's Speaking
Katherine Buse
Institute on the Formation of Knowledge
Katherine Buse uses methods from science and technology studies, science fiction studies, and the environmental humanities to study how science shapes and is shaped by its cultural milieu. She is working on a book project, titled Speculative Planetology: Science, Culture, and the Building of Model Worlds. It describes planetary world building, or speculative planetology, as a set of shared practices built up between planetary and climate scientists, creators of speculative fiction, engineers, and policymakers since the middle of the 20th century.
Katherine also studies and designs video games, including being on the design team for Foldit: First Contact, a new narrative version of the citizen science video game Foldit. She received her PhD in English with an emphasis in Science and Technology Studies at the University of California, Davis in 2021. As a Marshall Scholar, she received an MA in Science Fiction Studies at the University of Liverpool and an MPhil in Criticism and Culture at Cambridge.