During an interview discussing histories of mass violence, author W.G. Sebald claimed that "the only way in which one can approach these things, in my view, is obliquely, tangentially, by reference rather than by direct confrontation." Read in the context of his 1995 novel, The Rings of Saturn, this provocative assertion begins to answer the question that lies at the heart of the text: how do we see history? The same question fuels this project, which uses Sebald's model of oblique viewership to develop a method of historiography which addresses the interconnected nature of past violences via visualization. Sebald views history as a tangle of physical landscapes, personal memories, the natural world and material objects––the novel expands from a walking tour of East Anglia to connect the far-flung geographies of Bosnia, the Congo, Poland, the Czech Republic, China, and the Amazon. However, because these networks are easily overlooked, often with dire consequences, seeing history means finding ways to reveal the messy temporal/spatial web of humanity's past, present, and future. To accomplish this, The Rings of Saturn leaves the planet with which it is so concerned. This move is initially puzzling. Why look to the stars in order to look back at earth? The answer is one of perspective. Rather than confront these histories straight-on, Sebald turns to the cosmos––satellites, constellations, comets, planets––to provide a view-point which reveals obscured histories. This construction of the past as that which cannot be directly grasped is strikingly similar to art historians' anamorphic image––an image that appears only when the viewer de-centers her perspective. Using the framework of the anamorphic image, reveals how that which does not belong to the planet––the truly extraterrestrial––becomes precisely the mode that reveals the planet's layered and interconnected histories. Moving beyond Sebald's text, this project asks: how can interdisciplinary scholarship––combining literary theory, astronomy, art history, archaeology––create a new method of historiography which addresses past violences in the hopes of creating a more equitable future?
