We spend the first ten minutes or so of this episode talking about an issue in Maine politics that presents a conundrum that's characteristic of the false choices capitalism and American democracy give us politically: which part of the ecosystem do you want to sacrifice to mitigate the disasters of another part? What's the least bad option? To read more about Question 1 on the Maine ballot, click here or here.  Then we're off and running, talking about narrative and genre, sexliners and surfing, and the heaviness of Earth. Swan encounters a kind of dark postmodernity in her confrontation with the reality of Earth in this chunk of chapters, where it seems impossible to theorize the totality and the world is fundamentally unintepretable. In fact, while thinking the totality may promise to be our salvation, it may be that trying to think the totality--or even thinking that we could think the totality--is kind of what got us here in the first place. Perennial question: What are the barriers to change? What's stopping us from acting? Why are we dithering? Who's this "we"? We talk about revolution, excuses, reasons, ideology, fantasies of settler colonialism, psychology, Bill Gates (give us money!), and Kyrsten Sinema (go away!). We also find some differences between Matt and Hilary's editions of the novel. SPOILER ALERT: Arkady dies in the Mars Trilogy. Thanks for listening to us talk about this thick and chewy novel! Swan and the Inspector – 11:00 Earth, the Planet of Sadness – 19:45 Swan on Earth – 41:55 Lists (10) – 1:25:25 Pluto, Charon, Nix, Hydra – 1:27:45 Pauline on Revolution – 1:32:15 Extracts (11) – 1:44:15 Swan at Home – 1:46:55 Extracts (12) – 1:59:10 Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary

2312 Episode 9: "Swan and the Inspector" to "Extracts (12)": Totalities, Interpretability, and The Sad Planet

This week's episode features coughing, an apology (not for the coughing), and cat-talk. Also we discuss science communication, agency and historical periodization, intentional urban planning, living aesthetically, programming and will, surfing and gravity, noir and detective stories (watch Cutter's Way), and large forces that seem to control our lives (or do they?) and are impossible to understand (or are they??!!). For those of you who want to cut straight to the news about Matt's cats' diets, it's at 1:04:20. Be on the lookout for friend-of-the-show Daniel Aldana Cohen's interview with source-of-the-material-of-the-show-and-listener-to-and-number-one-fan-of-the-show Kim Stanley Robinson on The Dig from Jacobin (@thedigradio)! Thanks for listening! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

2312 Episode 8: "Lists (7)" to "Quantum Walk (1)": Noir, Late Feudalism, and the Long Postmodern

This week’s episode is the second half of our conversation from last week’s episode, and concerns the “Swan and the Inspector” chapter. Genette takes Swan on his investigation of the strange goings-on throughout the solar system, visiting several asteroids including Yggdrasil and Inner Mongolia using the Interplan starship Swift Justice. The possibility of a conspiracy or some kind of concerted plan that potentially links Alex’s death, the destruction of Terminator, the even on Io, and the catastrophe on Yggdrasil, all involving strange qube behavior, starts to materialize for Genette. Matt and Hilary have a long discussion about the nature of conspiracy, its possibilities and limitations as a conceptual apparatus for understanding the operation of power. While conspiracies are useful in illuminating certain aspects of the way power functions, they also contain the temptation for the analyst or investigator to throw up their hands and resign oneself to a kind of existential lack of agency. In this way, conspiratorial thinking can lead one to the conclusion that “the fix is in,” which appears as the flip side of an equally irrational faith that “the system works.” One way or another, the subject is allowed to be content in their powerlessness and merely a spectator of history rather than an active participant. We talk about the nature of “evil,” the servile will, the concept of post-scarcity, and the problem of the concept of “human nature.” We think about Swan and Genette’s interaction with regard to their social roles, i.e., artist and cop (is Genette a cop?), before descending to the uncanny valley and watching Swan in Wonderland beat up three people claiming to be qubes with human bodies. How rude! Thanks for listening! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

2312 Episode 7: "Swan and the Inspector," Swan in Wonderland, Post-Scarcity Conspiracies, and the Nature of Evil

We had to split this episode up into two because we talked so long! The following episode (Episode 7, or maybe 6.2?) will deal with "Swan and the Inspector." Here, we have:  3:20 - Lists (4) 11:35 - Inspector Genette 32:28 - Lists (5) 39:00 - Swan and Mqaret 51:30 - Extracts (7) 1:01:00 - Kiran on Venus 1:08:25 - Lists (6) Lots of discussion of identity, the state, agency, conspiracy (more to come on that), sex/gender, and detecting patterns. Genette is trying to figure out what happened to Terminator, and the solution almost immediately appears before the inspector. It has something to do with the qubes, although we're not sure what. In the next episode Matt and Hilary will talk extensively about the very creepy episode where Swan confronts 3 women claiming to be qubes. For now, please excuse Matt the neanderthal for giving Genette pronouns! No pronouns for Jean! Thanks for listening! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

2312 Episode 6: "Lists (4)" to "Lists (6)": Patterns, Agency, Cops, Detection

This long episode is devoted to the "Wahram and Swan" chapter of 2312, when the two characters attend a Beethoven concert and the tracks on which Terminator runs are mysteriously destroyed. Wahram and Swan, along with three young "sunwalkers", then have to us the utilidor under the surface of Mercury to seek help. This is a major inciting incident for the remainder of the novel. Matt and Hilary discuss a range of issues, including social reproduction (dyads vs. crechés), sameness and repetition, the dense specificities of place, and more. Thanks for listening! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

2312 Episode 5: "Wahram and Swan:" A bird and a toad go for a walk and whistle Beethoven

We talk about the form of the "Extracts" chapters, the importance of Earth in the relationships in the story, the sky, living on the side of a planet, acting vs. being, talking to frogs, sleeping with worms, O. Henry, Danny DeVito, hawala, elephants, degenerates, and "marginal capitalism" (what is it?). Watch out for the Late Heavy Bombardment, because it's coming! Thanks for listening! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

2312 Episode 4: "Extracts (3)" to "Extracts (6)": Rainbows, Frogs, Worms, and Heterogeneous Economies

We continue our conversation from last week, ending right before the chapter "Extracts (3)." Matt and Hilary talk about art, chemistry, repetition, intentionality, power, capital, alliances, suffering, allegory, systems, etc. A big question is whether the spacers constitute something like an interplanetary bourgeoisie (or elite), and where capitalism is still alive in the solar system of 2312. We also talk about the role the figure of AI plays here, and whether it is allegorical to something like what we call "the market" or "capital"--in other words, the concept of a kind of an algorithmic logic that appears to operate behind the backs of the human characters. Is it independent of them? Does it act with intention? How can it be mapped and understood? We're introduced to Zasha and Kiran, and the solar system's balkanization. "Lists (2)" is a litany of practices of conscious embodiment and experiments in experience that are not only individual but that might also be shared, public, or communal in various ways.  Thanks for listening! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

2312 Episode 3: Intentions, Aporia, Freedom

In this episode we talk about chapters from Extracts (1) to Wahram and Swan (yes, only two chapters, how decadent of us!). We talk about the "Ascensions," the asteroids that are hollowed out to create terraria, refugia, and farms, and try to think about the political economy of the solar system in 2312. Wahram and Swan on the Alfred Wegener asteroid lead to a discussion of decadence, habit, and constructing pseudoiteratives to live artfully and be open to finding newness in the everyday. We ask what "being productive" means and how we seize the day in capitalism. Swan and Wahram have very different approaches to the problem of living free of wage labor. Also Hilary insists on talking about the Christian Bale/ Matthew McConaughey vehicle dragon/ tomato movie Reign of Fire (2002). It's her favorite movie, smh. We spoke for 2 hours in this session, so we decided to split it into two episodes. The next one will drop some time next week, and we'll go up to Extracts (3), for those following along. The clip at the end was taken from YouTube user R-Bee Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJelEXaPhJ8&t=31s Thanks for listening! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

2312 Episode 2: "Extracts (1)" to "Wahram and Swan": Decadence, Dragons, Seizing the Day in the Pseudoiterative

In this episode we read from the first chapter after the prologue up to "Swan and Alex." First, Hilary and Matt start by discussing the work of Lauren Berlant, an eminent literary critic and feminist theorist from the University of Chicago who passed away recently. Berlant's work focuses on affect, agency, attachment, the sentimental, literature, politics, human-being, normativity, and innumerable other topics, in ways that help illuminate the questions we discuss so much: how does change happen (or not), and what does literature (or art) have to do with it? Matt and Hilary explore some of the ways Berlant's work might shed light KSR's novels. There are elements in 2312, especially around attachment and habit and gender, that Berlant's ideas may help illuminate. We discuss pieces including Cruel Optimism, "Poor Eliza," and The Queen of America Goes to Washington City. We get started talking about the novel about 37 minutes in (in case you're anxious) and talk about Swan and her relationship to herself, her art, Alex, and Wahram. The role of art in 2312 seems especially important, particularly because the people of Mercury appear to be able to live their lives incredibly artfully, so that science, art, technology, and life-making all seem continuous in ways they may not appear to us in our lived experience. We explore ways this novel plays with narrative and detective fiction, and the ways that agency seems here to extend out beyond figures that we tend to think of as agential. Thanks for listening! We'll be back soon with more! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

2312 Episode One: Attachment, Habit, Gender, and Purloined Letters

We're back to reveal your desires to you! We're starting on our new season, which will focus on 2312. In this episode we talk about far-future science fiction, posthumanism, and some of the broad themes and topics this book focuses on, such as gender and sexuality, habit and ritual, art and performance. We talk a bit about how the book tends to subvert its own narrative, and narrative itself, with its tendency to ties things up in neat little bows. 2312 traffics in many narrative forms and modes, including (interplanetary) romance and the detective novel, but it's also a book about home, where to find it and how to build it. Of course, we're here with our customary digressions and non-sequiturs, including, here, one about fictional universes, authorship, Michael Mann, podcasts, and the decay of higher education. We'll be back in roughly a week to talk about a chunk of the book, duration TBD (probably 50-80 pages, if history is any indication?). We hope you join us and look forward to reading with you! This season goes out to all the messy individuals who love drama and whistling. Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com (especially if you find any pronouns attributed to Inspector Genette or Zasha) Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

2312 Episode Zero: "Prologue," Far-Future Posthumanism, Narrative, Gender, Habit, and Ritual

Matt and Hilary are joined by their boon companion Bill Hutchison to discuss John Carpenter's (identical) films ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) and ESCAPE FROM L.A. (1996). The gang talks about the concept of the prison-island-city film and 1980s science fictions of popular cinema. We get into the western qualities of the films, discuss the logics of settler colonialism and the myth of the law, and we make some breakthroughs on the big question these films pose: What makes Snake tick? At the end we share our picks for where we'd set a third ESCAPE FROM movie. Our movie episodes are very indulgent, and we're going to keep doing them occasionally! For those non-movie-lovers out there, we'll be back in a few weeks with our regularly scheduled programming, discussing KSR's 2012 novel, 2312! Until then, thanks for listening! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

Marooned at the Movies! Escapes From New York and L.A.

Based on Matt’s joke opening, your friendly hosts talk about JFK and JFK for the first ten minutes, so you can probably skip that to get to the good stuff, our discussion of the last chapter of Shaman, “Shaman”! Topics include social connection, the modern divisions between work and leisure, public and private, and art as a rarified form that takes place in a specific place and time. How does art figure in Loon's world? As Loon becomes the shaman, what do his paintings mean for him and his people? We talk about the concept of genius and the role of the shaman as a medium of knowledge, as well as the nature of mediation in contemporary technological society. We talk a lot about art, cultural transformation, newness, and memory, as well as the relationship between intimacy and knowledge (and ignorance). If you're listening to this, congratulations! You're a shaman now! Before starting another Kim Stanley Robinson book we're going to do a couple episodes on movies, including John Carpenter's Escape From L.A. (or New York...or both?). If you have a suggestion for a movie you'd like to hear us gab about, you can contact us via the links below. We're still undecided on the next KSR novel on our list, so if you'd like to weigh in on that, please feel free! We'll get to them all eventually... Thanks for listening! Again! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

Shaman 8: "Shaman," Art-Making, Transmitting Knowledge, Portrait of the Shaman as a Young Man

In this episode we discuss "All the Worlds Meet," in which Loon recuperates after his ordeal, Click haunts Thorn, Thorn dies, Loon builds a new pair of snowshoes, and the Wolf Pack begins to break up. We talk about teaching and the formation and passing on of knowledge in the context of Thorn and Heather's different teaching styles. There appears to be no such thing as intellectual property in this society--what a concept! At the eight eight, we see various people make bird's eye views of the land. Hilary talks about the loving relationship to place that would motivate you to make models of it, and the childlike fun of destroying them. We discuss the status of "home" in KSR's science fiction and the place of mourning and melancholy in building a new world. Matt says "plethora" twice and we conclude with kitty round-up! Thanks for listening! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

Shaman 7: "All the Worlds Meet," Anthropology, Home, Teaching, and the Bird's Eye View

The sixth chapter of Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson, "Hunted," has Thorn, Click, Loon, and Elga fleeing from the northern jende people. It is an absolutely harrowing chapter in which several major taboos are violated--murder, cannibalism, and burial. Matt and Hilary talk about reading and interpreting signs, the state's monopoly on knowledge, and not romanticizing the primitive. Did Thorn kill Click? Spoiler alert: yes, obviously, c'mon. We were honored to be asked by the Seminar Co-op Bookstores to share our recommendations for an Earth Week Reading List. You can find our picks at this link, and you can also buy books for pickup or delivery (either USPS or, if you're local to Chicago, they'll bring your order to your door). Thanks for listening! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

Shaman 6: "Hunted," Butt-Eating, Hermeneutics, and Barack Obama's Almonds

In this episode we discuss "Under the Ice," where Elga is kidnapped, Loon goes to rescue her, he gets captured, and Thorn and Click rescue them. A lot to discuss! Here we're introduced to the northers, or the jende as they call themselves, a northern pack that, contrary to what we might expect, live in relative luxury compared to the Wolf Pack. Though they spend 10 months of the year in winter, they subsist on fish and seals, which are plentiful. As a result they are, as Loon sees it, "rich." They have bags of fat that they use as fuel and food, a very calorie-rich society. In addition, they have domesticated wolves and rely on the labor of captive slaves. It's unclear which came first in this chicken-or-egg scenario, and we talk about that. We also have our most extended (so far) exposure to Click, who, as listener Michael suggests, might be the closest KSR comes to writing about aliens. Click is a Neanderthal with radically different capabilities than Thorn and Loon. It's a thrilling, dudes-rock chapter in this 50% woman podcast! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

Shaman 5: "Under the Ice," Metabolics, Captivity, and Thermal Abundance

A read-along podcast exploring the world(s) of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. Two humanities scholars read and discuss Kim Stanley Robinson's amazing Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, one part at a time. Utopian sci-fi fun and anti-capitalist thinking! Matt and Hilary are humanities professors. Matt has taught cinema and media studies at DePaul University and the University of Chicago. He now lives in Maine. Hilary is the Director of the MA Program in Humanities at the University of Chicago, where she also teaches English and gender studies. Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars-with-matt-and-hilary/support

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Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary

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