This presentation brings together research on the ways in which the science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke conceptualised outer space over two distinct phases of his life. Firstly, Clarke’s early period of science-fiction writing will be examined alongside his prominent role in the British Interplanetary Society during the 1950s. Second, Clarke’s combination of tropical and cosmological perspectives will be considered in the middle section of his career, through the conceptual frameworks of post-colonialism and scientific masculinity. Throughout the presentation, concepts of place and space are considered to be central to the ways in which outer space can be understood culturally and politically.

Dr. Oliver Dunnett is a senior lecturer in human geography at Queen’s University Belfast, specialising in cultural, historical and political geography. His research focuses on the ways in which the cultures and politics of outer space, science and technology are connected to questions of place, landscape and identity in a variety of local, regional and (inter-)national contexts. He is the author of Earth, Cosmos and Culture: Geographies of Outer Space in Britain, 1900-2020 (Routledge, 2021), and has also published on topics such as the moral geographies of light pollution, the ethics of space exploration, and the history of outer space in geography. He has further research interests in literary geographies, critical geopolitics and the geographies of popular culture.