Jun 18, 2026
Moon Rocks in China: Tracing a Galactic Empire in Lunar Anthropocene
- 14:00 to 15:30
- Science Silk Road Seminar Series
- Lise Meitner Research Group (China)
- Feng Schöneweiß
This paper examines the recent acquisition of lunar samples from the near and far sides of the Moon (2020, 2024) after successful missions of China Lunar Exploration Project (CLEP). It traces China’s galactic ambition through political and curatorial manipulation of lunar samples in museums and media, in the history of CLEP as a military-scientific dual mission, and in the upcoming onset of the Lunar Anthropocene with Chinese characteristics. In a comparative perspective of energy study, the paper considers the processual dimension of power density in the Chinese plan for a permanent lunar base. Eventually, the paper aims to situate the trajectory of China’s lunar exploration in the global system of science and the current trends of science policy.
Photo: “The 1:2,500,000-Scale Geologic Map of the Global Moon” by Jinzhu Ji, Dijun Guo, Jianzhong Liu, et al., CC BY 4.0
Contact and Registration
Registration Link: https://eu02web.zoom-x.de/meeting/register/SILKXfwVT2uGb0ccyS2fqQ
About This Series
The Seminar Series is sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation-funded project “China’s Science Silk Road and the New Geopolitics of Knowledge Production,” an international partnership between the Lise Meitner Research Group “China in the Global System of Science,” Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, and the Department of Political Science at Université Laval in Québec. Jointly led by Anna Lisa Ahlers, Han Cheng, and Hang Zhou, the project advances one of the first in-depth analyses of China’s international cooperation on science, technology, and innovation under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).