Alien Imaginations

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

Get Book

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

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 Küchler
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1628921161
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Get Book

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.

Angels and Aliens

Angels and Aliens PDF Author: Keith Thompson
Publisher: Fawcett
ISBN: 9780449908372
Category : Unidentified flying objects
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
It was Carl Jung who first spoke of the UFO phenomenon as "a modern myth in the making," and Joseph Campbell who insisted that the first function of myths is "opening mind and heart to the utter wonder of all being." Now Keith Thompson makes it possible for us to share that sense of wonder as he explores the UFO against the timeless backdrop of visionary experience: angelic vision, near-death experiences, shamanic journeys, religious miracles, and folkloric encounters with fairies. In a brilliant stroke, Keith Thompson takes a subject usually confined to sensationalistic expose and reveals its surprising literary richness, intellectual energy, and symbolic depths. By offering a new, open-ended perspective which avoids the dogmatism of true believers and debunkers alike, Angels and Aliens invites readers to enter a fascinating world with profound implications for our understanding of the human spirit.

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 : 232

Get Book

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.

Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Human Imagination

Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Human Imagination PDF Author: John Traphagan
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319105515
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 110

Get Book

Book Description
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) represents one of the most significant crossroads at which the assumptions and methods of scientific inquiry come into direct contact with—and in many cases conflict with—those of religion. Indeed, at the core of SETI is the same question that motivates many interested in religion: What is the place of humanity in the universe? Both scientists involved with SETI (and in other areas) and those interested in and dedicated to some religious traditions are engaged in contemplating these types of questions, even if their respective approaches and answers differ significantly. This book explores this intersection with a focus on three core points: 1) the relationship between science and religion as it is expressed within the framework of SETI research, 2) the underlying assumptions, many of which are tacitly based upon cultural values common in American society, that have shaped the ways in which SETI researchers have conceptualized the nature of their endeavor and represented ideas about the potential influence contact might have on human civilization, and 3) what sort of empirical evidence we might be able to access as a way of thinking about the social impact that contact with alien intelligence might have for humanity, from both religious and cultural perspectives. The book developed as a result of a course the author teaches at the University of Texas at Austin: Religion, Science, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

I Wish I Was An Alien

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

Get Book

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.

The Science Fiction of Poetics and the Avant-Garde Imagination

The Science Fiction of Poetics and the Avant-Garde Imagination PDF Author: Michael Golston
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817361006
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book

Book Description
How the tropes of science fiction infuse and inform avant-garde poetics and many other kindred arts This insightful, playful monograph from Golston does exactly what it advertises: modeling poetics based on how poetry (and some parallel artistic endeavors) has filtered through a century-plus of science fiction. This is not a book about science fiction in and of itself, but it is a book about the resonances of science-fiction tropes and ideas in poetic language. The germ of Golston's project is a throwaway line in Robert Smithson's Entropy and the New Monuments about how cinema supplanted nature as inspiration for many of his fellow artists: "The movies give a ritual pattern to the lives of many artists, and this induces a kind of 'low budget' mysticism, which keeps them in a perpetual trance." Golston charts how the demotic appeal of sci-fi, much like that of the B-movie, cross-pollinated into poetry and other branches of the avant garde. Golston creates what he calls a "regular Rube Goldberg machine" of a critical apparatus, drawing on Walter Benjamin, Roman Jakobson, and Gilles Deleuze. He starts by acknowledging that, per the important work of Darko Suvin to situate science fiction critically, the genre is premised on cognitive estrangement. But he is not interested in the specific nuts and bolts of science fiction as it exists but rather how science fiction has created a model not only for other poets but also for musicians and landscape artists. Golston's critical lens moves around quite a bit, but he begins with familiar enough subjects: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Mina Loy, William S. Burroughs. From there he moves into more "alien" terrain: Ed Dorn's long poem Gunslinger, the discombobulated work of Clark Coolidge. Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, and Jimi Hendrix all come under consideration. The result of Golston's restless, rich scholarship is the first substantial monograph on science fiction and avant-garde poetics, using Russian Formalism, Frankfurt School dialectics, and Deleuzian theory to show how the avant-garde inherently follows the parameters of sci fi, in both theme and form.

Extraterrestrials in the Catholic Imagination

Extraterrestrials in the Catholic Imagination PDF Author: Jennifer Rosato
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527566005
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 291

Get Book

Book Description
What do scientists know about the possibility of life outside our solar system? How does Catholic science fiction imagine such worlds? What are the implications for Catholic thought? This collection brings together leading scientists, philosophers, theologians, and science fiction authors in the Catholic tradition to examine these issues. In the first section, Christian scientists detail the latest scientific findings regarding the possibility of life on exoplanets. The second part brings together leading Catholic science fiction authors who describe how “alien” life forms have been prevalent in the Catholic imagination from the Middle Ages right up to the present day. In the final section, Catholic philosophers and theologians examine the implications of discovering intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Rather than worrying that the discovery of intelligent extraterrestrials might threaten the dignity of humans or their existence, the contributors here maintain that such creatures should be welcomed as fellow creatures of God and potential subjects of divine salvation.

SCIENCE FICTION THE WONDER OF HUMAN IMAGINATION

SCIENCE FICTION THE WONDER OF HUMAN IMAGINATION PDF Author: Andreas Sofroniou
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0244934096
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 117

Get Book

Book Description
Science Fiction explores the probable consequences of some improbable or impossible transformation of the basic conditions of human (or intelligent non-human) existence. This transformation need not be a technological invention, but may be some mutation of known biological or physical reality: artificial or extraterrestrial life-forms and travel through time are favourite subjects. Science Fiction stories may involve Utopian political speculation, or satire, but most rely on the marvellous appeal of fantasy. The term Science Fiction was first given general currency by Hugo Gernsback, editor of the popular Amazing Stories magazine from 1926. Once uniformly dismissed as pulp trash, SF gained greater respect from the 1950s, as writers like Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and John Wyndham expanded its range; themes of alien invasion and brain-washing became especially popular at the height of the Cold War.

Reading the Fantastic Imagination

Reading the Fantastic Imagination PDF Author: Dana Percec
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443862975
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book

Book Description
The purpose of Reading the Fantastic Imagination: The Avatars of a Literary Genre is the observation of the very hybridity of the fantastic genre, as a typical postmodern form. The volume continues an older project of the editor and a large number of the contributors, that of investigating the current status of several popular genres, from historical fiction to romance. The scrutiny continues in this third volume, dedicated to the fantastic imagination and the plethora of themes, moods, media, and formats deriving from it. FanLit is surely trendy, even if it is not highbrow, despite its noble ancestry. This apparent paradox characterizes many of the literary genres en vogue today, from historical fiction to romance. This very contradiction forms part of the basis for this book. After the success of the previous book in the series dedicated to a “borderline” literary genre – Romance: The History of a Genre was declared by Cambridge Scholars Publishing as the Critics’ Choice Book of the Month in January 2013 – this collection of studies about the fantastic imagination takes a further step into completing a larger research project which seeks to investigate the varieties of popular fiction. Although all contributors in the series teach canonical literary texts, they did not hesitate to plunge into the opposite area of fictional work and, moreover, continued doing so even though such a project caused the “raise of a few (high)brows,” (Percec 2012, 232) as argued in the Endnote of Romance: The History of a Genre.