Thammasat University students interested in geography, urban design, astronomy, anthropology, ecology, history, public policy, and related subjects may find a new book useful.

Dark Skies: Places, Practices, Communities is an Open Access book available for free download at this link:

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003408444/dark-skies-nick-dunn-tim-edensor

It is edited by Nick Dunn and Tim Edensor.

Professor Nick Dunn teaches urban design at Lancaster University, the United Kingdom (UK).

Professor Tim Edensor teaches social and cultural geography at the Institute of Place Management, Manchester Metropolitan University, the UK.

The Thammasat University Library collection includes several books about different aspects of urban design.

The publisher’s description notes:

Dark Skies addresses a significant gap in knowledge in relation to perspectives from the arts, humanities, and social sciences. In providing a new multi- and interdisciplinary field of inquiry, this book brings together engagements with dark skies from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, empirical studies, and theoretical orientations.

Throughout history, the relationship with dark skies has generated a sense of wonder and awe, as well as providing the basis for important cultural meanings and spiritual beliefs. However, the connection to darks skies is now under threat due to the widespread growth of light pollution and the harmful impacts that this has upon humans, non-humans, and the planet we share. This book, therefore, examines the rich potential of dark skies and their relationships with place, communities, and practices to provide new insights and understandings on their importance for our world in an era of climate emergency and environmental degradation.

This book is intended for a wide audience. It will be of interest to scholars, students, and professionals in geography, design, astronomy, anthropology, ecology, history, and public policy, as well as anyone who has an interest in how we can protect the night sky for the benefit of us all and the future generations to follow.

The book’s introduction states:

Histories of dark skies

A fascination with the night sky is integral to the story of what it is to be human. The history of our relationship with dark skies is diverse and rich, a connection across space and time that has shaped and been shaped by society, culture, and religion, as well as science. Beyond the astronomical, scientific understandings about the universe, the stars, planets, and moon have proved inspiration for artists, poets, and philosophers. As a realm in which we search for meaning, dark skies have been integral to how we commune with our hopes and fears. And while there is no definitive theory as to how or why humans started to relate to dark skies, a growing body of evidence across a range of disciplines suggests that it is plausible that it began at about the same time as recognizably modern humans evolved, around 70,000 years ago. Before the advent of modern science, the relationship between an individual and the night sky was typically immediate and powerful. With no light pollution to obstruct the view, the stars were conspicuous, and cosmic understandings were shaped by common beliefs that the conditions of dark skies revealed what was happening on Earth. In their significant work on exploring Australian Aboriginal meanings and uses of dark skies, Karlie Noon and Krystal De Napoli (2022) investigate cultural interpretations and practices that go back at least 65,000 years. To Western thinking, stories based on astronomical figures may appear mythical; however, they contain much that is practical. Noon and de Napoli demonstrate the highly sophisticated, complex, and diverse ways in which different Indigenous communities have used the star-studded sky to provide a guide for navigation, mark times for hunting, journeying, and collecting, and demarcate seasonal ceremonies and rituals. Across millennia, elements in the night sky have been scripted into the land, generating tales that explain the mythic origins of landforms and trigger the enaction of travel, song cycles, dance, and art. Importantly, these oral traditions avoid the reifications generated by writing down authoritative knowledge, with understandings and practices remaining dynamic, evolving, protean, and multiple. […]

Noon and de Napoli consider that such ancient, intimate knowledge of the cos-mos can inform contemporary approaches to environmental change. These land-sky associations strongly resonate with the emergence of contemporary relational and vitalist thinking across the social sciences. Moreover, they regard preservation of this knowledge as essential, for it constitutes an element of “space heritage” that encompasses a vast cosmological archive of knowledge, stories, and practices. At present, the more intimate areas of knowledge are not disclosed to those outside Indigenous communities but retained by the appropriate knowledge keepers. […]

In considering the numerous myths and legends that focused upon the night sky in ancient times, Patrick McCafferty conceives the sky to be “a tapestry embroidered by human imagination”, containing stars that “might be viewed as bright dots that can be joined to create a skyscape of characters and imaginary objects”. While these patterns have diminished as objects of scientific classification, their mythic potential lingers in popular astrological imagery wherein celestial bodies and their movements influence the individual and mark their place in the universe and Earth through the star signs system. Earlier conceptions identify stars, moon, sun, and planets as potent cosmic forces that delineate

Dark skies5mythic deities and events, some of which might influence earthly occurrences. For instance, the moon for Romans was the two-horned goddess Luna, for the Maya it was a goddess or rabbit, while for Hindus its eclipse was caused by it being peri-odically swallowing by the demigod Rahu. Myths have also congregated around comets, meteors, and fireballs in ancient Greek and Roman cultures, the Bible, the Ramayana, the Norse Ragnarok, and the Persian Shahnameh, typically serving as signs of superhuman and supernatural battles, travels, and chases or as portents foretelling of the advent of war, famine, and plague. In focusing specifically on darkness, ancient Greeks practiced necromancy and Dionysian and sacrificial rituals in the dark that were associated with the wholly lightless conditions of the Underworld, in contradistinction to the variable darkness of earthly night-time. […]

Throughout history, the stars have provided humans with increased understand-ing about the world and the universe within which it sits. This has enabled significant scientific discoveries to be made and contributed toward accurate systems of navigation. Yet the dark skies movement, besides being informed by scientific astronomical explorations and spectacles of the night sky is part of a process of re-enchantment with dark, nocturnal space, as amply demonstrated by the chapters in this book. This is further borne through the recognition that ancient myths can tell us about relating to the dark skies in more sustainable, less rational and enchanted ways, allowing us to rediscover more varied, complex perspectives through which to experience them.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)