From California to the Moon: Daniel Rivers and Sally Ashton Explore the Intersections of Art and Science

Sometimes, language can deconstruct history, contextualize big ideas and offer new perspectives. And sometimes, language can take us to the moon.

This fall, two San José State faculty members have published books that grapple with environmental justice. SJSU English Lecturer Emerita Sally Ashton, '01 English, who served as the second Santa Clara County Poet Laureate, published "Going to the Moon," a book of essays that explores lunar conquest and her lifelong relationship with space. Associate Professor of American Studies and Literature Daniel Lanza Rivers' book, "California Futures: Haunted Ecologies, Decolonial Relations," is a critical study exploring environmental colonialism, climate adaptation, and the #landback movement in California.

Though the books cover different landscapes and territories, the authors share a love for science, environmental justice and the written form as a means to make sense of the world - perhaps even the universe. Rivers and Ashton will be in conversation at the Center for Steinbeck Studies at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library on September 17.

"The moon has always been symbolic of both what we can do and maybe what we want to do," says Ashton. "I always think of it as a bit of a mirror - a silvery surface when it's full where humans can project their desires."

Ashton's fascination with space started as a young child, when her father got a job at Lockheed Martin in the Bay Area. She remembers spreading out blankets on the lawn to watch the night sky for satellites. Her fourth and fifth poetry collections, "The Behaviour of Clocks" and "Listening to Mars," included several interplanetary and lunar poems.

Her brush with space became tangible in 2022, when one of her poems was included in a time capsule to be sent to the moon via Astrobotic's 2024 Griffin/VIPER as part of the Lunar Codex project . The Codex, described as "an archive of cultural works from across the globe," contains works from more than 50,000 creative artists from 264 countries and territories, and 160 Indigenous nations, including all 50 US states, and all 13 Canadian provinces and territories, for a total of 250,000+ cultural artifacts archived.

The Codex, a tiny disc embedded with the digital archive, has been launched six times into space, including two successful lunar orbital fly-bys and three successful moon landings. In other words: Ashton's words now live on the moon. She even had the chance to watch the livestream of the lunar lander carrying the Codex as it descended onto the moon. The moment both thrilled and terrified her.

Her words of reverence for the sky are now in the sky, but she argues they could also one day be "space junk," potentially damaging clutter in an already busy universe.

"You can't undo change," she says. "Once the wheel was invented, people made wagons, and then they put engines on them. The bittersweet thing about progress and the human spirit is that we tend to destroy what we touch."

While Ashton's essay collection looks toward the heavens, Rivers' book is grounded more firmly on Earth - specifically, in California. Rivers explores the colonial cultures of grizzly bear eradication and reintroduction; the convergence of drought, industrial agriculture and environmental toxicity in the Central Valley; utopianism in the Klamath Mountains; dam removal and Native climate adaptation on the Klamath watershed; and the policing of unhoused people and the municipal outdoors near Oakland's Lake Merritt.

"I've read a lot of California history that seems to reflect a very specific perspective - championing the state and the work of white men who are thinking about California's destiny," Rivers adds. "The question that really fueled me for the book was, 'What happens when we think about California as an idea, not a place?'"

"California Futures" is an example of environmental humanities - an interdisciplinary mix of literature, science studies, American studies, and environmental studies that challenges readers to contextualize history, not just in terms of who colonized which region, but how the power dynamics of the systems at play have impacted people, animals and landscapes.

"My book explores how so much of what we think about California's nature has been shaped by waves of conquest," says Rivers. "What's possible if we acknowledge that what we think is natural is actually constructed? If we broaden our sense of possibility, how might that equip us to better meet the challenges of climate change? California Native tribes and nations have used eco-cultural traditions that are inherent to their sovereignty to manage this environment for thousands of years."

Perhaps early settlers and colonizers set their sights on California not only for its promised bounty, but for the promise of what Rivers calls its "speculative future."

Ashton might argue that the moon has its own speculative future - one populated by "space bros" intent on having a "backup planet," or perhaps one where astronauts can refuel their spaceships before traveling on to more distant planets. Time will tell. Until then, writers like Ashton and Rivers can serve as literary guides in their prospective fields.

Stop by the Center for Steinbeck Studies at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library at 7 p.m. on Thursday, September 17, to hear Rivers and Ashton in conversation. The event is free and open to the public.