Alien Imaginations

Alien Imaginations PDF Author: Ulrike K�chler
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501319973
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
"The figure of the alien is at the heart of science fiction and has helped us to understand and explore interactions with other cultures and the possibilities of life beyond both the modern configuration of the nation-state and the natural order of life on earth. Alien Imaginations brings together canonical and contemporary works in the cinema and literature of science fiction, transnationalism, and globalization in order to examine the role of the alien as well as the realities of migration, labor, and life in the twenty-first century. The essays in this collection discuss films such as District 9, Avatar, and Code 46, as well as novels by H.G. Wells, Philip K. Dick, or Ray Bradbury. As we continue down the road to a global economy and culture, Alien Imaginations offers a critical reflection upon our 'imagined realities' while also turning to speculative fiction and cinema to provide us with examples of resistance, if not a utopian horizon"--

Alien Imaginations

Alien Imaginations PDF Author: Ulrike K�chler
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501319973
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Get Book Here

Book Description
"The figure of the alien is at the heart of science fiction and has helped us to understand and explore interactions with other cultures and the possibilities of life beyond both the modern configuration of the nation-state and the natural order of life on earth. Alien Imaginations brings together canonical and contemporary works in the cinema and literature of science fiction, transnationalism, and globalization in order to examine the role of the alien as well as the realities of migration, labor, and life in the twenty-first century. The essays in this collection discuss films such as District 9, Avatar, and Code 46, as well as novels by H.G. Wells, Philip K. Dick, or Ray Bradbury. As we continue down the road to a global economy and culture, Alien Imaginations offers a critical reflection upon our 'imagined realities' while also turning to speculative fiction and cinema to provide us with examples of resistance, if not a utopian horizon"--

I Wish I Was An Alien

I Wish I Was An Alien PDF Author: L W Abela
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 30

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Book Description
I Wish I Was An Alien This is the second instalment from the book series "I Wish I Was". This time we have a young child who loves aliens and wishes he could be an alien even if just for the day, to go on all the wonderful and exciting adventures he can go on. He has an exciting imagination and his one wish is to become an alien so that he can do all the cool things that aliens do like fly up to mars and hoover in the sun. This is the second children's book written by L.W. Abela with endearing text and bold, beautiful expressive illustrations. Children will love looking at the vibrant colours in this book. This is the perfect bedtime story. I Wish I Was An Alien: A funny yet touching tale reminding us how incredible and pure a child's imagination can be. Perfect for kids Aged 3-5.

Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life

Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life PDF Author: Jörg Matthias Determann
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0755601300
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
The Muslim world is not commonly associated with science fiction. Religion and repression have often been blamed for a perceived lack of creativity, imagination and future-oriented thought. However, even the most authoritarian Muslim-majority countries have produced highly imaginative accounts on one of the frontiers of knowledge: astrobiology, or the study of life in the universe. This book argues that the Islamic tradition has been generally supportive of conceptions of extra-terrestrial life, and in this engaging account, Jörg Matthias Determann provides a survey of Arabic, Bengali, Malay, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu texts and films, to show how scientists and artists in and from Muslim-majority countries have been at the forefront of the exciting search. Determann takes us to little-known dimensions of Muslim culture and religion, such as wildly popular adaptations of Star Wars and mysterious movements centred on UFOs. Repression is shown to have helped science fiction more than hurt it, with censorship encouraging authors to disguise criticism of contemporary politics by setting plots in future times and on distant planets. The book will be insightful for anyone looking to explore the science, culture and politics of the Muslim world and asks what the discovery of extra-terrestrial life would mean for one of the greatest faiths.

The Alien Jew in the British Imagination, 1881–1905

The Alien Jew in the British Imagination, 1881–1905 PDF Author: Hannah Ewence
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030259765
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This book explores how fin de siècle Britain and Britons displaced spatially-charged apprehensions about imperial decline, urban decay and unpoliced borders onto Jews from Eastern Europe migrating westwards. The myriad of representations of the ‘alien Jew’ that emerged were the product of, but also a catalyst for, a decisive moment in Britain’s legal history: the fight for the 1905 Aliens Act. Drawing upon a richly diverse collection of social and political commentary, including fiction, political testimony, ethnography, travel writing, journalism and cartography, this volume traces the shifting rhetoric around alien Jews as they journeyed from the Russian Pale of Settlement to London’s East End. By employing a unique and innovative reading of both the aliens debate and racialized discourse concerned with ‘the Jew’, Hannah Ewence demonstrates that ideas about ‘space’ and 'place’ critically informed how migrants were viewed; an argument which remains valid in today’s world.

Making Strangers: Outsiders, Aliens and Foreigners

Making Strangers: Outsiders, Aliens and Foreigners PDF Author: Abbes Maazaoui
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1622735196
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
Studies on foreignness have increased substantially over the last two decades in response to what has been dubbed the migration/refugee crisis. Yet, they have focused on specific areas such as regions, periods, ethnic groups, and authors. Predicated on the belief that this so-called “twenty-first century problem” is in fact as old as humanity itself, this book analyzes cases based on both long-term historical perspectives and current occurrences from around the world. Bringing together an international group of scholars from Australia, Asia, Europe, and North America, it examines a variety of examples and strategies, mostly from world literatures, ranging from Spain’s failed experience with consolidation as a nation-state-type entity during the Golden Age of Castile, to Shakespeare’s rhetorical subversion of the language of fear and hate, to Mario Rigoni Stern’s random status at the unpredictable Italian-Austrian borders, to Lawrence Durrell’s ambivalent approach to noticing the physically visible other, to the French government’s ongoing criminalization of hospitality, to Sandra Cisneros’s attempt at straddling two countries and cultures while belonging to neither one, to the illusive legal limbo of the DREAMers in the United States. We are not born foreigners; we are made. The purpose of the book is to assert, as denoted by the title, this fundamental premise, that is, the making of strangers is the result of a deliberate and purposeful act that has social, political, and linguistic implications. The ultimate expression of this phenomenon is the compulsive labeling of people along artificial categories such as race, gender, religion, birthplace, or nationality. A corollary purpose of the book is to help shed light worldwide on one of the most pressing issues facing the world today: the place of “the other” amid fear-mongering and unabashedly contemptuous acts and rhetoric toward immigrants, refugees and all those excluded within because of race, gender, national origin, religion and ethnicity. As illustrated by the examples examined in this book, humans have certainly evolved in many areas; dealing with the “other” might not have been one of those. It is hoped that the book encourages reflection on how the arts, and especially world literatures, can help us navigate and think through the ever-present crisis: the place of the “stranger” among us.

Aliens

Aliens PDF Author: George Edgar Slusser
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 9780809313754
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
How and when does there come to be an "an­thropology of the alien?” This set of essays, written for the eighth J. Lloyd Eaton Confer­ence on Fantasy and Science Fiction, is con­cerned with the significance of that question. "[Anthropology] is the science that must desig­nate the alien if it is to redefine a place for itself in the universe,” according to the Introduction. The idea of the alien is not new. In the Re­naissance, Montaigne’s purpose in describing an alien encounter was excorporation--man­kind was the "savage” because the artificial devices of nature controlled him. Shake­speare’s version of the alien encounter was in­corporation; his character of Caliban is brought to the artificial, political world of man and incor­porated into the body politic "The essays in this volume . . . show, in their general orientation, that the tribe of Shakespeare still, in literary studies at least, outnumbers that of Montaigne.” These essays show the interrelation of the excorporating pos­sibilities to the internal soundings of the alien encounter within the human mind and form. This book is divided into three parts: "Searchings: The Quest for the Alien” includes "The Aliens in Our Mind,” by Larry Niven; "Effing the Ineffable,” by Gregory Benford; "Border Patrols,” by Michael Beehler; "Alien Aliens,” by Pascal Ducommun; and "Metamorphoses of the Dragon,” by George E. Slusser. "Sightings: The Aliens among Us” includes "Discriminating among Friends,” by John Huntington; "Sex, Superman, Sociobiology,” by Joseph D. Miller; "Cowboys and Telepaths,” by Eric S. Rabkin; "Robots,” by Noel Perrin; "Aliens in the Supermarket,” by George R. Guffey; and "Aliens 'R’ U.S.,” by Zoe Sofia. "Soundings: Man as the Alien” includes "H. G. Wells’ Familiar Aliens,” by John R. Reed; "Inspiration and Possession,” by Clayton Koelb; "Cybernauts in Cyberspace,” by David Porush; "The Human Alien,” by Leighton Brett Cooke; "From Astarte to Barbie,” by Frank McConnell; and "An Indication of Monsters;” by Colin Greenland.

ALIEN Thinking

ALIEN Thinking PDF Author: Cyril Bouquet
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1541750926
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
How do people come up with truly original ideas? The answer is to think outside the box—way outside. For the past decade, Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade, professors of innovation and strategy at IMD Business School, have studied inventors, scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs, and artists. These people, or “aliens,” as the authors call them, are able to make leaps of creativity, and use five patterns of thinking that distinguish them from the rest of us. These five patterns—Attention, Levitation, Imagination, Experimentation, and Navigation—lead to a fresh and flexible approach to problem-solving. Alien thinkers know how to free the imagination so it can detect hard-to-observe patterns. They practice deliberate ways to retreat from the world in order to see the big picture underlying a problem. And they approach ideas in systematic ways that reflect the constraints of reality. Through surprising and compelling stories, the authors show how readers can use this method to develop out-of-this-world ideas. ALIEN Thinking can help any of us find innovative solutions to the most difficult problems.

Alien Imaginations

Alien Imaginations PDF Author: Ulrike Küchler
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1628921161
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
As both an extra-terrestrial and a terrestrial migrant, the alien provides a critical framework to help us understand the interactions between cultures and to explore the transgressive force of travel over geographical, cultural or linguistic borders. Offering a perspective on the alien that connects to scholarship on immigration and globalization, Alien Imaginations brings together canonical and contemporary works in the literature and cinema of science fiction and transnationalism. By examining the role of the alien through the themes of language, anxiety and identity, the essays in this collection engage with authors such as H.G. Wells, Eleanor Arnason, Philip K. Dick and Yoko Tawada as well as directors such as Neill Blomkamp, James Cameron and Michael Winterbottom. Focusing on works that are European and North American in origin, the readings in this volume explore their critical intent and their potential to undermine many of the central notions of Western hegemonic discourses. Alien Imaginations reflects upon contemporary cultural imaginaries as well as the realities of migration, labor and life, suggesting models of resistance, if not utopian horizons.

On Christopher Street

On Christopher Street PDF Author: Michael Denneny
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226824632
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
"As a founder and editor of the wildly influential magazine Christopher Street and then as the first openly gay editor at a mainstream publishing house, Michael Denneny critically shaped publishing around gay subjects and themes in the 1970s and 1980s. Authors whom he helped bring into the spotlight include Paul Monette, Randy Shilts, Ethan Mordden, Edmund White, Larry Kramer, and John Preston. Here he presents not a conventional memoir, but an assemblage of writings from the 1970s and 1980s (many previously unpublished) that illuminate the twists and turns of a period of great cultural and political ferment. Denneny's time machine of a book both preserves and brings back to life a vibrant period in American cultural history"--

The Black Imagination, Science Fiction and the Speculative

The Black Imagination, Science Fiction and the Speculative PDF Author: Sandra Jackson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317982150
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This book expands the discourse as well as the nature of critical commentary on science fiction, speculative fiction and futurism – literary and cinematic by Black writers. The range of topics include the following: black superheroes; issues and themes in selected works by Octavia Butler; selected work of Nalo Hopkinson; the utopian and dystopian impulse in the work of W.E. B. Du Bois and George Schuyler; Derrick Bell’s Space Traders; the Star Trek Franchise; female protagonists through the lens of race and gender in the Alien and Predator film franchises; science fiction in the Caribbean Diaspora; commentary on select African films regarding near-future narratives; as well as a science fiction/speculative literature writer’s discussion of why she writes and how. This book was published as a special issue of African Identities: An International Journal.