September 1995

Cosmos: any complete and ordered system.

"I was absorbed by something else, something non-corporeal, that is to say the relationship between the speed with which close objects passed by and the far slower displacement of things that were not so close, to say nothing of those in the distance that seemed to be practically motionless. When one travels like this, I reflected, things appear only to disappear again, they are unimportant, and so is the landscape; there is nothing but appearance and disappearance. A tree. A field. Another tree. They passed.

I was absent. Because of our fragmentary, chaotic, casual and superficial contact with our environment we are nearly always absent, I reflected--or at any rate not entirely present"

Witold Gombrowicz, from Cosmos

One of the things that makes particular communities of people "common" is that they share similar intellectual concepts of what they consider to be "reality." However, we cannot assume that all members of a particular community will have decisively identical ideals, but we can imagine that they will be somewhat alike. The science community of the 1990's will largely agree that the earth orbits the sun, and is the third planet away from it. There may be some discrepancies when it comes to agreeing on more abstract ideals: the earth's history, future, function, meaning within the larger universe, etc. It is in this area of discourse that speculative thinking begins; taking "known" facts (or at least, facts that are agreed upon temporally) and extrapolating them to unknowable possibilities. Looking at another community, those that consider themselves Christians, we can see the same behavior; the larger community will most likely agree that "God" created the earth and heavens, but individuals may disagree on what "God" is, how "he" functions as a power, and perhaps even what their relationship with "him" is. So we can see that communities often possess similar macro-concepts, but less often do they share similar micro-concepts, as a whole.

Investigating the genre of SF, a similar pattern may be said to emerge. Certain macro-concepts may be agreed upon (e.g., the notion that humans are not the only intelligent life-force in the universe), however, micro-concepts will be diverse (some speculations will imagine that humans are severely inferior to their alien counterparts, while others will have humans as the eventual lords of the universe). I have manufactured this generalization (the macro vs. micro duality) knowing that it is limited in its ability to explain the genre, but I hope to use this model as a way to approach an investigation therein. One of the aspects that I have found interesting in SF is that it tends to destroy conventional concepts of cosmological "reality," and replaces it with a regenerated version of the cosmos. The macro side of this recurring theme is that many authors, seeing that older concepts of the cosmos are no longer feasible, create new speculative cosmologies. The micro side of this recurring theme is that seldom do these regenerated cosmologies have much in common among the different authors. Therefore, I am interested in investigating a sampling of these regenerated cosmologies, and attempting to discover with what understanding(s) they were created (what is the inferred rationale behind them), what are the ramifications that would/might result under the influences of this regenerated cosmos, how might the reader approach the appropriation of this new concept of his or her world, and how might the reader respond to this reconception. As I go along in this inquiry I may add new ways of approaching this subject, or delete worn out or uninteresting approaches. In essence, I may (and most likely will) do exactly what the authors that I'm studying have done--regenerate my cosmos!!

Perhaps I have not clearly defined what I mean by regenerating cosmologies? Well, as you already know, each individual tends to have his or her own understanding (however confusing and shifting it may be) of what they are. It is my belief that this understanding comes through a complex set of relationships between one's Self and the phenomenal world. In other words, it is through our concept of how we relate to everything that is not ourselves that we create a meaning (an identity, if you will) of ourselves. I am not a tree, because a tree is that other thing made of different material and that stays rooted in the ground for the duration of its life. I am a human because I look like the other things that call themselves humans, I have similar faculties as they do, similar urges, similar needs, even similar thoughts (even though I can never be entirely sure that what other "people" tell me about themselves is definitely true.) So, it is my relationship to what I am not, and to what I have striking similarities with that I create my own identity. This same process is at work when individuals create other concepts as well, such as, cosmologies. Each individual, through relationships, creates his or her understanding of the universe (what I shall term the "big cosmos" for the interests of this project). Often, this concept of the universe is one that has its roots in a religious explanation of creation and existence, such as the book of Genesis is for Christians. Others might find more scientific explanations appealing (e.g., the popular "big bang" theory of creation). Whatever understanding one has, it is constructed upon relationships that somehow include oneself within the cosmos. So, when I discuss the regeneration of order, I mean that individuals create new cosmologies, wherin they have new roles and relationships within it.

I intend to look at Pamela Zoline's short story, "The Heat Death of the Universe," and Italo Calvino's short story cycle, Cosmicomics, within the context of (re)generating the cosmos through narrative. My focus will be on attempting to sort out how these narratives function as theoretical and psychological models of personal cosmologies (the cosmologies of the characters). How does Sarah Boyle's seemingly mundane existence as a housewife take on cosmological significance, and why? How does Qwfwq's familiarity and nonchalant attitude towards cosmological events make the universe appear everyday and common? These are the kinds of questions that I hope to offer some framework of understanding into.

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