Join us on Friday, November 15th for our next Full Moon-th Meetup! Our guest will be Dr. Deana L. Weibel, a cultural anthropologist whose work focuses primarily on religion, especially the topics of pilgrimage, sacred space, the mutual influence of scientific and religious ideas on each other, and religion and space exploration.
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Our tradition of hosting online meetups with our Sacred Space Astronomy members and the Vatican Observatory staff, scholars and friends during the Full Moon in Tucson (or thereabout) continues on Friday November 15th at 12:00 Noon ET (10:00 AM Tucson time). This meetup is a perk for our Sacred Space Astronomy subscribers- you get to chat with each other, and astronomers and scientists from the Vatican Observatory!
We’ll also have the latest astronomy news and an update about the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope1.
Dr. Weibel’s early fieldwork took place in France at pilgrimage sites (sometimes understood by pilgrims as “energy” sites) like Rocamadour and Montségur. She has also conducted research at the pilgrimage center of Chimayó, New Mexico.
More recent work focuses on religion as a motivation for and influence on space travel and outer space-based sciences, with field visits taking place at “space sites” throughout the U.S., including the Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers, the Mojave Air and Spaceport, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the JHU Applied Physics Lab, and Spaceport America.
Dr. Weibel spent a month in 2019 at the Vatican Observatory, studying “the Pope’s Astronomers;” from mid-March to mid-April 2019, she conducted ethnographic research including interviews, attending daily activities and events, and getting to know the astronomers and staff.
She has studied the history of anthropology, particularly the overlap of her own family’s role and the role of anthropology in the exhibition of Philippine Igorot people in fairs and expositions during the early 1900s.
She is the co-founder and co-organizer of Roger That! A Celebration of Space Exploration in Honor of Roger B. Chaffee, a two-day conference that has been an annual Grand Rapids, Michigan event since 2017.
She is currently in the revision stage of a book with the University of California Press – its working title is “The Ultraview Effect: What We Can Learn from Astronauts about Awe, Humility, and Exploring the Unknown.” Some of her experiences with the Vatican Observatory staff will be in the new book; she also wrote a brief article about the Specola for the Space Review.
Follow her on: Facebook, Twitter, and Blueksy.
When? Friday, November 15, 2024: Rain or shine
What time? These meetups will happen around lunch time in North America: in particular, 12:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, which is 10:00 AM Tucson time.
How do you access the Zoom link? Join Sacred Space Astronomy and you’ll get an email with the full link! If you are already a member, log in to the Vatican Observatory site, and you will see the Zoom info at the bottom of this post.
1The Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope consists of the Alice P. Lennon Telescope, and the Thomas J. Bannan Astrophysics Facility.
