Wyoming Letters to An Extraterrestrial Audience
Jeff Lockwood is a Wyoming Professor of Natural Sciences and Humanities, holding the positions of Affiliate Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor of Natural Sciences at the University of Wyoming, focusing on the interface “between” Natural Sciences and the Humanities. In other words, he explores relationships between nature and humanity through the interplay of science with the arts, humanities, and social sciences. His book, “Grasshopper Dreaming: Reflections on Killing and Loving” refer to the fact this is not a traditional Wyoming instructor, with his scholarly concerns slightly broader than most.
With this sort of background, it should come to no surprise that this individual would teach a creative writer’s workshop at the University of Wyoming-Laramie, with the intended audience a planet circling a distant star. By examining each writer’s motives for writing, an understanding developed from the students about which aspects of the human condition is the most important to convey through their work. With this came a struggle to make someone different from themselves understand what they had to say, and how they were saying it.
Within a weekly three-hour session held on the University titled “English 5560: Writing for an Extraterrestrial Audience”, the students were asked by Professor Lockwood what they would say as a team—responsible for sending to another world’s intelligent life. This was compounded by a request that each individual work should stand alone for reading and appreciation by a terrestrial audience, with many forms of communication developing from each student—some basic, some philosophical while others are spiritual–”We need food, air, water, and think we’re the most intelligent” from Meagan Ciesla’s summary.
Professor Jeff Lockwood in late September of 2008 will join leading scientists in SETI’s “Searching for Life Signatures” conference in Paris at the UNESCO Headquarters. His paper, “Historical, Philosophical and Sociological Aspects of SETI”, is part of the SETI session which suggests that the SETI scientists can learn lessons in interstellar message composition by examining his students’ works.
This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Public Relations, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
