Alien Imaginations: Science Fiction and Tales of Transnationalism

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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.

Reviews

When we imagine the alien, the alien imagines us. With theoretical astuteness and admirable lucidity, Alien Imaginations brings together science fiction and narratives of transnational identity, recontextualising each in terms of the other. In a globalised, biopolitical era, such encounters and transformations make for essential reading. * Mark Bould, Reader in Film & Literature, University of the West of England, UK, and co-editor of Science Fiction Film and Television *
Placing science fiction in the context of transnational studies, Alien Imaginations offers a compelling vision of how the genre narrates and interrogates the world of global technoculture. Reflecting on the dialectical interaction between the imaginations and material realities of capitalist flows of migrants and money, the essays gathered here demonstrate that the question who is the foreigner is complex and consequential. This book is an impressive example of the critical power of understanding science fiction as a mode for perceiving the contemporary. * Sherryl Vint, Professor of Science Fiction Media Studies, University of California, Riverside, USA, and editor of Science Fiction Studies *
This volume's thirteen variations of the figure of the alien demonstrate the remarkable resonance and fecundity both of speculative fiction from the 1890s to the present and of the richly varied critical discourses currently being brought to bear upon it. * John Rieder, Professor of English, University of Hawai`i at Manoa, USA *

Author Bio

Ulrike Kchler is Ulrike Kchler is an independent scholar and has taught at Freie Universitt Berlin, Eberhard Karls Universitt, Germany, and Brown University, USA. Her creative practice and research focus on art and artificial life in science fiction and on the evolving relationship between traditional aesthetic categories and new media. Silja Maehl received her PhD from the Department of German Studies at Brown University, USA.. Her research engages with bilingual writing practices, transnationalism, and translation in contemporary literature. Graeme Stout is Senior Lecturer and Film Studies Coordinator at the University of Minnesota. His teaching and research focus on the nature, deployment and transformation of power in the modern age and the relationship of aesthetic form to social consciousness.