Alien Imaginations

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.

Author Biography

Ulrike Küchler is Ulrike Küchler is an independent scholar and has taught at Freie Universität Berlin, Eberhard Karls Universität, 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.