#otherness — Public Fediverse posts

A Trip to the Moon

History, Artemis, and Humanity’s Space Junk

There is something almost innocent, at first glance, about Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon. The painted sets, the theatrical gestures, the famous image of the capsule lodged in the eye of the moon — all of it feels whimsical, handmade, full of wonder. It bears the marks of ingenuity in their freshest form. Cinema is still young. Imagination is learning what machinery can do. Human beings are discovering that they can build not only devices, but dreams.

And yet, to watch the film closely is to feel a disturbance beneath the delight.

The voyage is not simply a journey. It is an invasion. The moon is not approached with humility or reverence, but penetrated, subdued, and turned into a stage for conquest. The lunar beings are encountered not as neighbors in wonder but as hostile “natives,” there to be struck, shattered, and overcome. The travelers return not merely with experience, but with a captive and a triumphal procession. What looks at first like fantasy reveals itself as a little parable of empire.

That is why the film still matters. It is not only an early science-fiction spectacle. It is an early warning.

Read the full essay at PeaceGrooves.

A Trip to the Moon

History, Artemis, and Humanity’s Space Junk

There is something almost innocent, at first glance, about Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon. The painted sets, the theatrical gestures, the famous image of the capsule lodged in the eye of the moon — all of it feels whimsical, handmade, full of wonder. It bears the marks of ingenuity in their freshest form. Cinema is still young. Imagination is learning what machinery can do. Human beings are discovering that they can build not only devices, but dreams.

And yet, to watch the film closely is to feel a disturbance beneath the delight.

The voyage is not simply a journey. It is an invasion. The moon is not approached with humility or reverence, but penetrated, subdued, and turned into a stage for conquest. The lunar beings are encountered not as neighbors in wonder but as hostile “natives,” there to be struck, shattered, and overcome. The travelers return not merely with experience, but with a captive and a triumphal procession. What looks at first like fantasy reveals itself as a little parable of empire.

That is why the film still matters. It is not only an early science-fiction spectacle. It is an early warning.

Read the full essay at PeaceGrooves.

Response to the alien: Corporeal experience between selfhood and otherness

"The topographical enquiries that Waldenfels presents assume that the Other not only has its own times, but its own locations as well."

A Topography of the Other, Studies for a Phenomenology of the Other 1, Bernhard Waldenfels >>
https://www.suhrkamp.de/rights/book/bernhard-waldenfels-a-topography-of-the-other-fr-9783518289204

Phenomenology of the Alien, Basic Concepts, by Bernhard Waldenfels >>
https://nupress.northwestern.edu/9780810127579/phenomenology-of-the-alien/
#interculturality #otherness #modernity #violence #experience #IntersubjectiveNormatively #alien #monolingualism #nationalism #foreigners #EthnoNationalism #phenomenology #EpistemicInjustice #dehumanisation #book

'What distinguishes Wittig's theoretical, political and literary project, and makes it an unavoidable pole of intellectual attraction today, is its radical anti-essentialism. It's the radical anti-essentialism that Wittig applies to the most credible of beliefs, because of the strength of its naturalization: the idea that men and women are naturally complementary "natural groups".'

Sara Garbagnoli explained in 2023: https://www.moniquewittig.com/wp-content/uploads/Sara-in-AOC-english.pdf 🧶

#revolution #reciprocity #radicality #reversibility #materialistFeminism #materialism #beliefs #subjugation #naturalism #essentialism #sexism #heteroSexism #heteroNormativity #feminisms #MoniqueWittig #Wittig #literature #homosexuality #lesbianism #feminism #internationalism #patriarchy #minorityStudies #queer #nonBinary #culturalHistory #lesbians #otherness #linguistics

@StvNo I’ve felt like an #imposter in one way or another most of my life. I’m slowly trying to silence that voice in my head, that nagging feeling. It never completely goes away.

For me, the power of #community is learning from each others #insecurities. Learning that we can share our vulnerabilities, Discover that we are more genuine that we realize, when we’re among our kind(s) and can put aside voices decrying our #otherness or #pathology. #ActuallyAutistc @devxvda