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Cosmologists and philosophers contemplate the fine-tuning question: that is, if things had been different at the origins of our universe in even the smallest way, we would live (or not live) in a very different universe, or no universe at all. Yet, one paradox of the universe we do inhabit is that it has given rise to creatures (ourselves at least) who can imagine, and frequently do, the possibility of other worlds and the complicated nature of this one—sometimes so complicated that it seems "otherworldly" indeed. What is it in the nature of things, or the nature of the human mind, that prompts such imaginings? What gives shape to these imaginings, whether in science, religion, the humanities, or arts? How does the form of human imagining sometimes give us entry into a different kind of world? The capacity is so "universal" we can take it for granted, but surely it could do with some scrutiny. Imagining other worlds happens in the writing of history, or anthropology, or ethnography. Music is perhaps a world of its own; languages and cultures propose different versions of the world. Ethics proposes a better way of being in our world; politics a way to get there. Works of literature, art, and film have always imagined utopias or dystopias. Architecture reshapes our everyday space; the poem, painting, movie allow us to be "in" another world. How does memory imagine a world that might (never) have been? How do we imagine the future? How do minds imagine the worlds of other minds? It was with these thoughts in mind that ISHA "imagined" the world of a seminar in 2007-08. Our Fellows were as follows. Sky Arndt-Briggs (German and Scandinavian Studies): Building a Better Future: Urban Utopia and the Working Class in Berlin, 1880-1933. Contact Sky Arndt-Briggs. Polina Barskova (Hampshire College): The "Other" Other World: Vectors of Aesthetic Opposition in Petersburg/Leningrad, 1917-1944. Contact Polina Barskova . N. C. Christopher Couch (Comparative Literature): Future Oceans, Future Minds: Ecology and Intelligence in David Brin's Uplift Universe. Contact Christopher Couch. Jane Degenhardt (English): Staging the Muslim "Other" World: Imagining Christian Conversions to Islam in Early Modern Theater. Contact Jane Degenhardt. Bill Gibson (Economics): Visualizing Alternative Economic Systems: An Agent-Based Modeling Approach. Contact Bill Gibson. Laurie Godfrey (Anthropology): Ghosts of the Past and Orphans of the Future: A Palaeontologist Contemplates Planet Madagascar. Contact Laurie Godfrey. Salman Hameed (Hampshire College): Gods from Outer Space: UFO Religions and Modern Science. Contact Salman Hameed. Don Maddox (French and Italian): Chronosyntonization and the Cosmological Imagination. Contact Don Maddox. Young Min Moon (Art, Architecture and Art History): Out of the Interstitial Realm: Text in Art. Contact Young Min Mooon. Monika Schmitter (Art History): Inner Space and Outer Appearance: The House as Portrait in Renaissance Venice. Contact Monika Schmitter. Martin Wobst (Anthropology): The Evolution of Theory of Mind and False Belief Understanding. Contact Martin Wobst. |