Anastasia Klimchynskaya - "From the Earth to the Moon: Annotated for the Spacefaring Age" - Jordan Bimm & Katherine Buse

Anastasia Klimchynskaya will discuss From the Earth to the Moon: Annotated for Our Spacefaring Age, a new edition of the Jules Verne classic. She will be joined in conversation by Jordan Bimm and Katherine Buse. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion. About the book: In an age when the idea of a "planet B" seems tempting, this edition of Jules Verne's classic From the Earth to the Moon (1865) offers a complete and unabridged translation into English alongside extensive annotations and essays from contributors that span disciplines. It uses the prescient novel as a launching pad to consider the past, present, and future of spaceflight from scientific, humanistic, social, legal, and ethical angles. Jules Verne is often considered a founder of the science fiction genre and a technological prophet who anticipated many modern-day technologies — including a moonshot launching from Florida with a trio of astronauts almost exactly a century before it happened. Verne didn't just dream up cool gadgets: He innovatively combined the scientific and the literary to write his scientific romances. He also thought deeply about the relationship between the technoscientific and the human at a time when the former was transforming human life on an unprecedented scale. Following in his footsteps, this annotated new edition bridges STEM and the humanities and sheds new light on this underappreciated classic by an iconic author. About the editor: Anastasia Klimchynskaya is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Illinois Wesleyan University. A scholar of nineteenth-century literature and science fiction, she is the author of Science Fiction and the Modern World (2026) and the editor of Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon, Annotated for the Spacefaring Age. About the interlocutors: Jordan Bimm is Assistant Instructional Professor of Science Communication and Public Discourse at the University of Chicago. As a historian of science, his research focuses on space science and exploration, specifically the fields of space medicine and astrobiology. He recently served on NASA's Decadal Astrobiology Research and Exploration Strategy (DARES) Task Force 1, and is a member of the SETI Institute's Science Advisory Board (SAB). Katherine Buse is Assistant Professor of Digital Media in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies, the Committee for the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science and the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization at the University of Chicago. She writes and teaches about media, technoscience, science fiction, and the environment.