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By utilizing words, photographs, and motion pictures, this multimodal and multisited project traces a rhizomatic genealogy of Russian Cosmism—a nineteenth century political theology promoting a universal human program for overcoming death, resurrecting ancestors, and traveling through the cosmos—amongst post-Soviet techno-utopian projects and imaginaries. I illustrate how Cosmist techno-utopian, futurist, and…

By utilizing words, photographs, and motion pictures, this multimodal and multisited project traces a rhizomatic genealogy of Russian Cosmism—a nineteenth century political theology promoting a universal human program for overcoming death, resurrecting ancestors, and traveling through the cosmos—amongst post-Soviet techno-utopian projects and imaginaries. I illustrate how Cosmist techno-utopian, futurist, and other-than-human discourse exist as Weberian “elective affinities” within diverse ecologies of the imagination, transmitting a variety of philosophies and political programs throughout trans-temporal, yet philosophically bounded, communities. With a particular focus on the United States and Ukraine, and taking an apophatic analytical position, I dissect how different groups of philosophers, technologists, and publics interact(ed) with Cosmism, as well as how seemingly disparate communities (re)shape and deterritorialize Cosmist political theology in an attempt to legitimize their constructed political imaginaries.

ContributorsGenovese, Taylor (Author) / Bennett, Gaymon (Thesis advisor) / Avina, Alexander (Committee member) / Messeri, Lisa (Committee member) / Josephson Storm, Jason Ā (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)

Created2023

Organ recital

Leon Chisholm, organ

Patricia Schrock, organ

Leon Chisholm, organ

The amplified organ: Music with electro-acoustic sounds

Bach and Mendelssohn

Dark Cosmism: Or, the Apophatic Specter of Russo-Soviet Techno-utopianism

Organ recital

Michael Burkhardt, organ

Gary Quamme, organ