Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Alien abduction in fiction'

Language is a central concern of science fiction. From first contact to interstellar warfare, stories about aliens inevitably raise questions of communication. But how do we conceive of alien languages within the constraints of human language? And what do depictions of alien languages reveal about our own language use? Several studies have established the significance and magnitude of the theme of language in (predominantly twentieth century western) science fiction. Building on these studies, I combine macro-analysis with close reading to argue that these alien languages fall on a spectrum of alterity. Within this spectrum, I organise these languages into three distinct gradations of alterity: they help to define their speakers as alien people, creatures or inscrutable beings. The languages of alien 'people’ are structurally similar to our own, and explore the socio-political relationship between language and culture. Those of ‘creatures’ are radically, physically unlike human languages and explore the boundary between humans, animals and aliens. Finally, the languages of ‘beings’ are incomprehensible and prone to spiritualisation. They bring to light the aspects of experience we deem beyond language. This typology provides a framework through which to explore the major themes and questions regarding language, humanity and alterity in science fiction. By presenting these categories in increasing degrees of alterity, I aim to demonstrate that language, like the figure of the alien, is a fundamentally anthropocentric concept. Each category identifies different facets of our language use that simultaneously alienate and define us.

Some UFO researchers (ufologists) claim that being abducted by aliens can be compared with shamanic initiation experiences in traditional societies in that both types of experience may be similarly transformative, leading to a more spiritual or animistic world-view, a deep concern for the environment and the development of paranormal abilities such as healing. This qualitative study is designed to investigate the validity of such claims. The research aim is to see whether the experiences and subsequent world-view of eleven alien abductees (eight women and three men) from a local abduction support group are similar to those of the typical shaman and, if so, what those similarities are. To do this, material gathered from in-depth interviews with the abductees is compared with the anthropological literature on shamanism, especially shamanic initiation experiences, from all parts of the world.

This is a practice-led project consisting of a historical novel Abduction and related exegesis. The novel is a third person intimate narrative set in the mid-nineteenth century and is based on actual events and persons caught up in, or furthering, the mass dispossession of small farmers in Scotland known as the ‘Clearances’. The narrative focuses on the situation in the Outer Hebrides and northern Scotland. It is based on documented facts leading up to a controversial trial in 1850 that arose because a twenty year old woman of the period (the central protagonist, Jess Mackenzie) eloped with a young farmer to escape her parent’s pressure to marry a rival suitor, himself a powerful lawyer and ‘factor’ at the centre of many of the Clearances. The young woman’s independent ideas were ahead of her time, and the decisions she made under great pressure were crucial in some dramatic events that unfolded in Scotland and later in the colony of Victoria, to which she and her new husband emigrated soon after the trial. The exegesis is composed of two unequal parts. It briefly considers the development of the literary historical fiction genre in the nineteenth century with Walter Scott in particular, a genre found useful in representing women’s issues of the Victorian era by Victorian and contemporary authors. The exegesis also briefly considers the appropriateness of the fiction genre (as opposed to creative nonfiction) in creating the lived experience in a fact-based work. The major part of the exegesis is a detailed, reflective analysis of the problem-solving process involved in writing the novel, structured by reference to Kate Grenville’s Searching for the Secret River – a work of metawriting that explains her creative process in researching and writing historical fiction based on fact.

This thesis brings together eighteenth-century attitudes to the abduction of women portrayed by the law, by newspapers, and in fiction. I focus attention on the interest these different forms of narrative share in scrutinizing women’s behaviour and argue that the abduction plot is more important than its status as a stock literary convention would imply. Rather, it is a pliant, complex, and nuanced motif that allows writers the space to explore the difficult and contradictory position of women and attitudes to sexual relations. This thesis is divided into two parts. The first part comprises two chapters that look at abduction from an historical perspective. The first chapter examines the legal context of abduction as a criminal act and the second chapter examines the social context of ‘abduction’ as a euphemism for a sexual adventure. This part includes preliminary analysis of abduction plots in Charlotte Smith’s Emmeline, the Orphan of the Castle (1788) and Ann Radcliffe’s The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne: A Highland Story (1789). The second part comprises three chapters in which I read a range of novels for their abduction plots and scenes. Chapter three focusses on reviewing and on lesser known novels that are not widely read today. It examines the uneasy dialogue between novels and the way they were conveyed to readers. I argue that reviewing presents a discourse of aggression towards women. Chapter four considers abduction plots in domestic fiction focussing on a short story from Eliza Haywood’s The Female Spectator (1744-46), Samuel Richardson’s The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753-54), and Sarah Fielding’s The History of Ophelia (1760). Chapter five considers the gothic abduction plot in Frances Burney’s Camilla, or a Picture of Youth (1796), Charlotte Smith’s The Young Philosopher (1798) and Ann Radcliffe’s The Romance of the Forest (1791). I take an historicist approach and underpin my analysis of fictional abduction plots with newspaper research that suggests ‘abduction’ had a meaning in social and cultural discourse that associated it with gossip and innuendo. This research demonstrates that newspapers played an important role in establishing the ambiguity of ‘abduction’ in the public consciousness. I argue that this journalistic discourse contributed to the suppression of abduction as a violent crime that endangered women. I suggest that the introduction of comprehensive reviewing created the space for a discourse of aggression to flourish. Many reviews are short, pithy comments criticising a novel as derivative, badly written, and immoral. I argue that a series of reviews appearing on a single page gives the impression that violence towards women is a normal everyday occurrence and abduction is a familiar hazard on the road to domestic felicity. I conclude that ‘abduction’ is a porous term in which disparate ideas – sexual aggression, violent crime, and euphemistic social commentary – are held in tension with each other. This tension enables a complex interpretation of what at first appears to be a simple narrative of violent male aggression and female culpability. The ambiguity this tension creates reveals the abduction plot as a versatile motif that challenges the social hierarchy and posits an alternative narrative for women.

The alien encounter has long been a defining and popular subject of science fiction cinema. However, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972) are interrogative, complex, and distinct artistic accomplishments that stand apart from and above the conventional science fiction film. 2001 and Solaris not only represent but complicate the alien/human dichotomy; in the end, they destabilize the dichotomy and even suggest a radical synthesis of the dichotomous elements. 2001 and Solaris further emphasize epistemological and specifically anthropocentric limitations when it comes to understanding the alien or attempting to make sense of the alien encounter. Chapter 1 introduces the alien/human dichotomy in two representative science fiction films of the period, This Island Earth (1955) and Planet of Storms (1962). Chapter 1 provides some contextual and contrapuntal basis for the originality of 2001 and Solaris. Chapter 2 reviews critical literature directly and indirectly addressing alien and human identity, interpretations of symbolic forms such as the monolith in 2001 and "guests" in Solaris, and both films' ambiguous, multivalent endings. Chapter 3 (on 2001) and Chapter 4 (on Solaris) examine the alien/human dichotomy in specific scenes where an alien, non-human presence appears to be present or where an alien encounter significantly occurs. The two chapters analyze techniques such as the significance of the establishing shot and other shots or cinematographic effects, settings, point of view, and non-diegetic music. By way of conclusion, Chapter 5 compares 2001 and Solaris and makes the argument for the differences between-and departures from-the two film masterpieces and conventional science fiction films. Chapter 5 ends with further considerations of the argument and a broadening of the context. This dissertation should be of interest not only to science fiction scholarship in general but to film studies in particular. It aims to provide a sophisticated reading of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris supported by recent criticism in an effort to join in the ongoing scholarly discussion and critical legitimatization of science fiction cinema.

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Fundação Araucária
The problematic of this paper is to discuss how the representation of illness can be visualized in movies of the series of Scientific Fiction Series Alien, one of the most popular cinematic saga of all times, and in what way the illness ideia is there presented. The sources used on this research are the four movies of this North American serie: Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979), Aliens (James Cameron, 1986), Alien 3 (David Fincher, 1992) and Alien: Ressurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997). The central question of this term paper is to analyze how, through of the representation of the alien , the ideia of the illness is present in movies of this cinematic saga. During this history, countless illness were in a discursive way receiving dark metaphors. Ideas such as pollution, plague, scourge, Wrath, the evil that comes from outside, grounding were a constant in a description of a stigmatize kind of illness, such as Leprosy and Aids. This paper has an aim to interpret how these metaphors about the illness appeared in these movies, which are showed with monstrosity, no nature an escape of the established knowledge. Through film narrative analyses, we showed how the alien being, protagonist of the saga is exactly presented like these allegories about the illness idea. Equally we also looked for questioning how the body idea is treated in movies, articulating to it the thematic of the human genetic to a new totalitarism of the private initiative that is overlapped in relation to the State power. Although the Hollywood movie can be considered one of the most sophisticated of way of what was stipulated to call cultural industry, we proposed with this research demonstrate that these cinematic productions has its value as historic documents, which the deep analyse can reveal riveting questions about countless thematics, what helps to show how much the cinema is an extremely rich language, since its narratives are part of a component of the social imaginary, and it is lived when the film period that the film piece are performed, certainly it becomes fertile fields in order to make possible to visualize some fears which the current tine demonstrates.
A problemática deste trabalho é discutir como a representação de doença pode ser visualizada nos filmes da série de Ficção Científica Alien, uma das mais populares sagas cinematográficas de todos os tempos, e de que forma a idéia de enfermidade é ali apresentada. As fontes utilizadas nessa pesquisa são os quatro filmes desta série norte-americana: Alien O Oitavo Passageiro (Ridley Scott, 1979), Alien O Resgate (James Cameron, 1986), Alien 3 (David Fincher, 1992) e Alien A Ressurreição (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997). A questão central dessa dissertação é analisar como, através da representação de um alienígena , a idéia de doença se faz presente nos filmes dessa saga cinematográfica. Durante a História, inúmeras enfermidades foram discursivamente ganhando metáforas sombrias. Idéias como poluição , peste , flagelo , Ira de Deus , o mal que vem de fora , castigo foram uma constante na descrição de doenças estigmatizantes, como por exemplo, a Lepra e a Aids. Esse trabalho busca interpretar como essas metáforas sobre a doença aparecem nos filmes escolhidos, que se apresentam como idéias de monstruosidade, não-natureza e fuga ao conhecimento pré-estabelecido. Através das análises das narrativas fílmicas, mostramos como o ser alienígena protagonista da saga se apresenta exatamente como essas alegorias sobre a idéia de enfermidade. Igualmente procuramos também problematizar como a questão do corpo é tratada nos filmes, articulando a isso a temática da genética humana a um novo totalitarismo da iniciativa privada que se sobrepõem a o poder do Estado. Embora o cinema hollywodiano possa ser considerado uma das formas mais sofisticadas do que se convencionou chamar indústria cultural , propomos com essa pesquisa demonstrar que essas produções cinematográficas têm seu valor como documentos históricos, cuja análise mais aprofundada pode nos revelar questões instigantes sobre inúmeras temáticas, o que ajuda a mostrar o quanto o cinema é uma linguagem extremamente rica, pois suas narrativas são partes integrantes de um imaginário social, imaginário este vivenciado no período em que as obras fílmicas são realizadas, tornando-se campos férteis para que possamos visualizar determinados medos que o tempo presente demonstra.

This thesis opens discussion on American alien invasion films of the 90s as a self-critique, a reaction to being an imperial power at the end of the Cold War. The alien menace in these films is not the "other" but rather the U.S. itself being the colonizer or conqueror looking to expand its sphere of influence. Furthermore, it discusses how Presidential rhetoric in the films play a role in this postcolonial reading. Specific works studied are: Independence Day (1996), Mars Attacks! (1996), Babylon 5: In the Beginning (1998), and The Puppet Masters (1994).

This thesis explores the way in which representations of the alien ‘other’ in SF for young adults are used as a tool for exploring the self/other dichotomy in the process of identity formation. It intends to develop a clear view of current, popular forms of representation of the alien other in this area, contribute to the still nascentcriticism of YA SF, and also operate as a constructive tool for creative writers working in this field.The exegesis is a meta-critical commentary on the YA SF field in general and the role of the character of the alien other within it in particular. It elucidates the preoccupation of the YA genre with ideas of identity and subjectivity and links this to developmental psychology, demonstrating the way that the self/other dichotomy in identity formation forms the basis of the character of the alien other and its expression in fiction and explaining the fascination and potential value of these characters to a young adult audience. It further looks at the way these characters are created and read and the limitations and possibilities that exist for authors in their construction, delineating the various archetypical constructions of these characters and exploring the ramifications of various methods of representation.The creative component of the thesis is a young adult fantasy novel, The Path of the Monster that explores the self/other dichotomy, challenging traditional binaries such as ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and questioning assumptions and understandings about identity and otherness. It particularly highlights the question ‘who is the monster?’, confronting expectations about the role of the other and simultaneously exploring the feeling of alienation that is common to the adolescent experience.

O medo é sinônimo da incerteza, da ignorância frente ao desconhecido. E, assim como argumentado por Bauman (2008), a escuridão não é a causa do perigo, mas é o habitat natural da incerteza - e, portanto, do medo. Na sociedade há inseguranças em praticamente todas as instâncias da vida e o sujeito vivencia o medo constante. Como reflexo dessa sociedade globalizada, baseada na privatização e desregulamentação, a cultura da mídia por vezes figurativiza, representa o tema do medo (de desastres naturais, doenças, desemprego, terrorismo) à imagem de monstros fantásticos, ou contrafactuais. São seres que confrontam nossa identidade e ameaçam a estabilidade social. Ao misturar a fantasia a elementos reais (promovidos pela ciência) o gênero da ficção científica utiliza um cenário futuro para levantar questionamentos sobre a sociedade atual e as relações entre o eu e o outro. A partir dessa discussão, neste estudo utilizamos o universo ficcional de dois filmes que fazem sucesso há mais de quatro décadas unindo terror e ficção científica, para, a partir deles, agrupar teorias e referenciais que possibilitem problematizar a alteridade no gênero da ficção científica e compreender como ela reflete os medos e as ansiedades. Os filmes O planeta dos macacos (1968) e Alien - o oitavo passageiro (1979) foram analisados pela perspectiva de autoras e autores dos Estudos Culturais, como Fredric Jameson, Douglas Kellner e Stuart Hall, além da metodologia de análise fílmica e da semiótica greimasiana. Observamos como conclusão que os seres alienígenas têm mais em comum com a espécie humana do que pensamos num primeiro momento; eles são capazes de aflorar os sentimentos mais obscuros, como a ganância e o ódio; geram insegurança e ameaçam a vida e o bem-estar
Fear is synonymous with uncertainty, with the ignorance in the face of the unknown. And, as argued by Bauman (2008), darkness is not the cause of danger, but it is the natural habitat of uncertainty - and therefore, fear. In society, there are insecurities in virtually every instance of life and people experiences constant fear. As a reflection of this globalized society, based on privatization and deregulation, media culture is sometimes figurative, representing the theme of fear (natural disasters, illness, unemployment, terrorism) as fantastic or counterfactual monsters. They are beings who confront our identity and threaten social stability. By blending fantasy with real elements (promoted by science), the genre of science fiction uses a future scenario to raise questions about current society and the relationship between self and other. From this discussion, in this study we used the fictional universe of two films that have been successful for more than four decades, uniting terror and science fiction, and, from them, group theories and references that make it possible to problematize the otherness in the genre of science fiction and to understand as it reflects fears and anxieties. The films The Planet of the Apes (1968) and Alien (1979) were analyzed from the perspective of authors of Cultural Studies, such as Fredric Jameson, Douglas Kellner and Stuart Hall, as well as the methodology of film analysis and Greimasian semiotics. We have observed that the alien creatures in the film have more in common with the human species than we might think at first; they are able to surface the most obscure feelings, such as greed and hatred; they can generate insecurity and threaten life and welfare

This study analyses how Stargate SG-1 perpetuates dominant representations of whiteness, and how whiteness is used as a marker of racial identity in American popular culture. The popular science fiction television show Stargate SG-1 continually uses the nonwhite alien to juxtapose the seeming superiority of the white human, with white Americans acting as trusted gatekeepers for the entire planet. Whiteness becomes almost invisible and normative as the alien “other” requires assistance or containment enacted through SG-1’s adventures “off-world”. I also examine the representation of superior white aliens as an extension of these dominant white discourses. It is through the study of the constructed nature of “race” that whiteness is made visible. As represented in Stargate SG-1 whiteness discourses contribute to and reflect “common sense” constructions of race within U.S. society. This examination of Stargate SG-1 illuminates how negotiations of whiteness are constructed within United States dominant cultural discourses as a means to exclude the “other”.

Worker. Trade Agent. Serf. Etain Ixtii detests the labels others give her, but there are some things she must accept. She was genetically designed to do specific tasks. Her breeding instincts interrupt her life every forty-five days. But workers like Etain are taught not to question so when she returns from training questioning her home world Gno's profit-based caste system, she risks her life. She doesn't want to be an agent and doesn't want to cross through the wormhole to never return. Why does she have to go? Can't someone else? Usurer Serria, the owner of Etain's birth and training debt, quickly tires of her problem worker and launches Etain through a collapsing wormhole so she can collect the insurance payout. Very bad business indeed, but Etain manages to survive the attempt, arriving on the other side plagued by debilitating headaches and hounded by a dangerous insectoid enemy that no one, including Physician Leigheas Sternbow, the Takla royal physician, and Mercine Feney, the Empire's powerful female leader, can make disappear.
https://dc.etsu.edu/alumni_books/1028/thumbnail.jpg

Questa tesi si propone di esaminare la rappresentazione di diversità, xenofobia, razzismo e pratiche di esclusione in due serie TV di fantascienza di recente produzione: Humans (Sam Vincent e Jonathan Brackley, Channel 4 e AMC, UK e USA, 3 stagioni, 24 episodi, 2015-2018) e The Aliens (Fintan Ryan, E4, 1 stagione, 6 episodi, 2016). Entrambe le serie sono ambientate nel Regno Unito, in un presente alternativo in cui oltre agli umani è presente un’altra specie umanoide senziente: androidi nel primo caso, alieni nel secondo. In entrambe le serie, il gruppo di non-umani è costretto ad una posizione sociale subalterna e i protagonisti non-umani subiscono discriminazione e razzismo da parte degli umani: in questo modo, si rappresenta metaforicamente la condizione dei migranti e delle minoranze etniche nel Nord Globale di oggi. Partendo da questa simbologia, il mio scopo è di analizzare Humans e The Aliens attraverso un approccio culturalista, per determinare se queste due serie presentino particolari innovazioni nella rappresentazione della diversità all’interno del genere fantascientifico. Nell’introduzione spiego i motivi che mi hanno portata a scegliere questo argomento di studio e fornisco una cornice metodologica per la mia analisi. Traccio poi un quadro generale dei tropi dell’alieno e dell’androide come metafore di alterità, basandomi sull’attuale stato dell’arte nei principali campi di studio coinvolti: fantascienza, cinema e televisione, studi culturali, studi sulle migrazioni. Evidenzio che nel cinema, in particolare, la rappresentazione di alieni e androidi è stata spesso considerata eccessivamente semplificata e binaria, con personaggi non-umani presentati come univocamente positivi o negativi. Ipotizzo, quindi, che le serie TV contemporanee, che sono spesso lodate per la loro capacità di raccontare storie corali e sfaccettate, possano fornire rappresentazioni della diversità più complesse, in cui si dà spazio a molteplici punti di vista e a una pluralità di prospettive. Nel primo capitolo spiego il motivo per cui ho scelto Humans e The Aliens e analizzo la rappresentazione della diversità nelle due serie, concentrandomi sulla costruzione e imposizione dell’alterità, sullo status sociale dei personaggi non-umani, sulle spazialità dell’abiezione, e su come tutti questi aspetti possano essere letti come metafora della condizione dei migranti nel Nord Globale, in particolare nel Regno Unito e negli Stati Uniti. Nel secondo capitolo analizzo la caratterizzazione di androidi e alieni nelle due serie, dimostrando attraverso quali strategie questi personaggi vengano arricchiti di voce e agency, e come la lunghezza e l’organizzazione temporale della narrazione permettano effettivamente di presentare punti di vista diversi e in contrasto tra loro. Esamino poi la narrazione affettiva in Humans e The Aliens, che ritengo innovativa rispetto a casi precedenti nella fantascienza, e traccio una possibile connessione con la recente rilevanza dell’affetto notata già da tempo da studiosi di molte discipline filosofiche, psicologiche e umanistiche e divenuta sempre più importante in tempi recenti nell’ambito degli studi culturali, dell’analisi del discorso, della comunicazione politica e della teoria dei media. Nelle conclusioni confermo che Humans e The Aliens presentano alcune interessanti innovazioni nella rappresentazione della diversità all’interno del genere fantascientifico; queste innovazioni sono rese possibili dalla specificità del mezzo narrativo utilizzato e sono coerenti con tendenze culturali e comunicative recenti. Infine, suggerisco alcune domande e questioni rimaste da esplorare e propongo possibili sviluppi di ricerca futuri.
This work examines the representation of diversity, xenophobia, racism, and exclusionary practices in two recent science fiction TV series: Humans (Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley, Channel 4 and AMC, UK and USA, 3 seasons, 24 episodes, 2015-2018) and The Aliens (Fintan Ryan, E4, 1 season, 6 episodes, 2016). Both series are set in the United Kingdom and represent an alternative present in which another sentient humanoid species exists alongside humans: androids in one case, aliens in the other. In both series, the group of non-humans is confined to a subaltern position in society, and the main non-human characters face discrimination and racism in their everyday life: this makes them clear symbols for migrants and ethnic minorities in countries of the Global North today. Based on this metaphor, my aim is to analyse the two series using a cultural approach, to determine whether they bring any innovation to the representation of difference within the science fiction genre. In the Introduction, I explain the reasons behind my choice of this research topic and provide the theoretical framework for my analysis. I then provide a general overview of the tropes of the alien and the android as symbols of racial difference, based on the current state of the art in science fiction studies, film and television studies, cultural studies, and migration studies. I highlight how the representation of aliens and androids in science fiction cinema, in particular, has often been considered oversimplified, portraying non-humans univocally as either positive or negative characters. I suggest that contemporary TV series might provide more complex representations of diversity, since TV series in the twenty-first century have been praised for their potential to tell multifaceted and multi-perspectival stories. In the first chapter, I explain why Humans and The Aliens were chosen for my analysis, and I explore the portrayal of difference in the two series, focusing on how the creation and enforcement of otherness, the social status of non-humans, and the rendering of spatialities of abjection mirror social issues related to the current condition of migrants in the Global North, specifically in the United Kingdom and in the United States. In the second chapter, I provide an analysis of the characterisation of non-humans in the two series, examining the representational strategies through which they are given voice and agency, and demonstrating how the length and structure of the narrative do indeed allow for the presence of multiple, often contrasting points of view and the creation of intense bonding with the audience. I hence expand on affective narrative in Humans and The Aliens, arguing that it presents some novelties in the science fiction genre and that these novelties are possibly connected to the ‘affective turn’ noted by philosophers and scholars across the Humanities, which has recently acquired increasing momentum in the fields of cultural studies, political communication, and discourse and media theory. In the Conclusions, I argue that Humans and The Aliens are innovative in their representation of difference within the science fiction genre; this complex and effective representation is allowed by the specificity of the narrative medium and is coherent with recent cultural and communicative trends. Finally, I suggest some questions and issues that might be addressed by future research in this field.

As an author J. G. Ballard used to deal with different genres and topics, producing several short stories and a number of novels. Yet he has always been true to himself. He started as a science fiction writer, which in a sense he was until the end. With some occasional romantic references, over the years Ballard’s fiction ranged from a personal surrealistic mood to novelized autobiography. He also had a keen interest in psychopathology and society, while being somehow haunted by his experience as a civilian prisoner of war in his early teenage years. This study shows how, like a chameleon, he often appeared under different guises, but always stayed undisputedly ‘Ballardian’.

The thesis consists of the novel, Stargate Atlantis: Exogenesis (Whitelaw and Christensen, 2006a) and an accompanying exegesis. The novel is a stand-alone tie-in novel based on the television series Stargate Atlantis (Wright and Glassner), a spin-off series of Stargate SG-1 (Wright and Cooper) derived from the movie Stargate (Devlin and Emmerich, 1994). Set towards the end of the second season, Stargate Atlantis: Exogenesis begins with the discovery of life pods containing the original builders of Atlantis, the Ancients. The mind of one of these Ancients, Ea, escapes the pod and possesses Dr. Carson Beckett. After learning what has transpired in the 10,000 years since her confinement, the traumatised Ea releases an exogenesis machine to destroy Atlantis. Ea dies, leaving Beckett with sufficient of her memories to reveal that a second machine, on the planet Polrusso, could counter the effects of the first device. When the Atlantis team travel to Polrusso, what they discover has staggering implications not only for the future of Atlantis but for all life in the Pegasus Galaxy. The exegesis argues that both science and science fiction narrate the dissolution of ontological structures, resulting in cognitive estrangement. Fallacy writers engage in the same process and use the same themes and tools as science fiction writers to resolve cognitive estrangement: they technologise mythology. Consequently, the distinction between fact and fiction, history and myth, is blurred. The exegesis discusses cognitive estrangement, mythology, the process of technologising mythology and its function as a novum that facilitates the resolution of cognitive estrangement in both fallacy and science fiction narratives. These concepts are then considered in three Stargate tie-in novels, with particular reference to the creative work, Stargate Atlantis: Exogenesis.

The thesis consists of the novel, Stargate Atlantis: Exogenesis (Whitelaw and Christensen, 2006a) and an accompanying exegesis. The novel is a stand-alone tie-in novel based on the television series Stargate Atlantis (Wright and Glassner), a spin-off series of Stargate SG-1 (Wright and Cooper) derived from the movie Stargate (Devlin and Emmerich, 1994). Set towards the end of the second season, Stargate Atlantis: Exogenesis begins with the discovery of life pods containing the original builders of Atlantis, the Ancients. The mind of one of these Ancients, Ea, escapes the pod and possesses Dr. Carson Beckett. After learning what has transpired in the 10,000 years since her confinement, the traumatised Ea releases an exogenesis machine to destroy Atlantis. Ea dies, leaving Beckett with sufficient of her memories to reveal that a second machine, on the planet Polrusso, could counter the effects of the first device. When the Atlantis team travel to Polrusso, what they discover has staggering implications not only for the future of Atlantis but for all life in the Pegasus Galaxy. The exegesis argues that both science and science fiction narrate the dissolution of ontological structures, resulting in cognitive estrangement. Fallacy writers engage in the same process and use the same themes and tools as science fiction writers to resolve cognitive estrangement: they technologise mythology. Consequently, the distinction between fact and fiction, history and myth, is blurred. The exegesis discusses cognitive estrangement, mythology, the process of technologising mythology and its function as a novum that facilitates the resolution of cognitive estrangement in both fallacy and science fiction narratives. These concepts are then considered in three Stargate tie-in novels, with particular reference to the creative work, Stargate Atlantis: Exogenesis.

The alien abduction phenomenon has garnered considerable media attention in the last fifteen years, including many representations in books, film, and television. An overview of significant abduction literature is presented. Contrasts and comparisons are noted between popular written accounts and both the visual representations they engender and reports outside the mainstream, such as those compiled and statistically compared by folklorists. Also considered are comparisons between popular fictionalizations of victims of abduction and the relevant psychological literature on this population. Theories bordering on the psycho-spiritual and New Age are briefly introduced in regards to their connection to UFO phenomena and the popular belief in a changing collective consciousness. Throughout, it is argued that most forms of cultural production featuring themes of alien abduction, being subject to marketplace demand, alter or fictionalize their source content for dramatic purposes. This popularization and commodification of anomalous phenomena negatively impacts serious study by encouraging dismissive attitudes towards evidence, reports, and those individuals involved, informants, victims, and investigators. This commodification thus serves to protect the status quo, in the form of a consensus reality, from challenges by unknown or anomolous phenomena.
Graduation date: 1999

碩士
國立臺北教育大學
數位科技設計學系(含玩具與遊戲設計碩士班)
102
In the quest for amusement in modern life, toys and their function as well as the games they are used for, have become very important to a very wide range of people of all age groups. Toys for game playing and entertainment merchandise now occupy a significant position in the market. The selection of games and gaming devices is huge and diverse, but the pursuit of shooting as an amusement has become a massive segment and toy guns are remarkable in their variety and number. A modern toy gun can be made of many different kinds of material and can be of many different shapes and sizes. The type of game for which it is used and the game rules (Paint Ball, Water Gun, Laser gun for war games with computers, etc) will determine the function and the design. In these examples, a particular series of guns can become quite popular, and the appearance can be very similar to that of real weapons which presents very serious considerations for public security and can be problematical. Then there is the fashion element and the requirement for an impressive appearance which is very important for such toys. In this study, an attempt has been made to create toys that combine “alien sci-fi” elements into toy guns that will give the impression of an alien culture and high tech. These include guns with long barrels or short ones, and other alien looking equipment and even languages that are distinctive and give pleasure to the user, but at the same time do not result in the unwelcome and negative influence of a real gun. This study is based on reference materials which are “alien” elements and are combined with the appropriate toy guns to match a formal design process that allows the rapid development of prototypes. The aim being to combine a referential investigation with a formal design process and rapid prototype development that will be useful for designer’s in the future.

This dissertation deals with how science fiction reflects the shift in cultural paradigms that occurred in the Soviet Union between the 1960s and the 1970s. Interest was displaced from the rational to the irrational, from a scientific-technologically oriented optimism about the future to art, religion, philosophy and metaphysics. Concomitant with this shift in interests was a shift from the future to an elsewhere or, reformulated in exclusively spatial terms, from utopia to heterotopia. The dissertation consists of an analysis of three novels by the Strugatsky brothers (Arkady, 1925-1991 and Boris 1933-2012): Inspector Glebsky’s Puzzle (Otel’ U pogibšego al’pinista, 1970), The Kid (Malyš, 1971) and Roadside Picnic (Piknik na obočine, 1972) and two films Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel (Hukkunud alpinisti hotell/ Otel’ U pogibšego al’pinista, Kromanov, 1979) and Stalker (Tarkovsky, 1980).  The three novels, allegedly treatments of the theme of contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence, were intended to be published in one volume with the title Unexpected Encounters. The films are based on two of the novels. In the novels an earlier Marxist utopia has given way to a considerably more ambiguous heterotopia, largely envisioned as versions of the West. An indication of how the authors here seem to look back towards history rather than forward towards the future is to be found in the persistent strain of literary Gothic that runs through the novels. This particular trait resurfaces in the films as well.  The films reflect how tendencies only discernable in the novels have developed throughout the decade, such as the budding Soviet consumer culture and the religious sensibilities of the artistic community.

Esta dissertação discute as relações de alteridade presentes na literatura de ficção científica. Isto é feito a partir de dois eixos fundamentais para o género: as representações da mulher e do universo feminino, assim como suas relações com a tecnologia e entrelaçamentos com a máquina. Apesar de historicamente excluídas do pensamento científico, considerado um território de domínio masculino, as mulheres desde cedo protagonizaram o imaginário tecnológico – seja no desenvolvimento de uma relação íntima com essas inovações, a partir da industrialização dos lares, seja na criação de obras ficcionais que expressem, imaginativamente, a experiência feminina diante das novas ciências e tecnologias. Neste trabalho, é promovida uma articulação entre esses dois campos – o “real” e o imaginativo – a partir de três narrativas, representativas de períodos distintos na história da ficção científica norte-americana: “No Woman Born” (1944), de C. L. Moore, “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” (1973), de James Tiptree Jr., e “Bloodchild” (1984), de Octavia Butler. As obras têm em comum o facto de serem escritas por mulheres, com temáticas e personagens femininas. Elas possuem, portanto, uma dupla alteridade: ser mulher em um campo tradicionalmente associado ao género masculino, e a introdução de temáticas próprias ao universo feminino em uma grande narrativa – a História (oficial) da Ciência – também tradicionalmente protagonizada pelos homens. Amparada pelas reflexões de Richard Kearney acerca da alteridade, e do diálogo estabelecido com pensadores como Julia Kristeva, Paul Ricoeur e Jacques Derrida, entre outros – assim como por autores ligados aos (Feminist) Science Fiction Studies – a perspectiva fundamental deste trabalho é perceber como essas narrativas podem ser vistas como um retrato sócio-cultural de uma época, assim como refletem os papéis exercidos pelas mulheres na vida dessas sociedades. Dessa forma, considera-se que as obras de ficção científica feminina – e mais tarde feminista – inserem também as mulheres na história e no futuro das ciências e tecnologias.
This dissertation discusses the relations of alterity present in the literature of science fiction. This is done from two fundamental axes for the genre: the representations of the woman and the feminine universe, as well as its relations with the technology and interweaving with the machine. Although historically excluded from scientific thinking, considered a territory of male dominance, women at an early stage played an important role in the technological imaginary – whether in the development of an intimate relationship with these innovations, through the industrialization of homes, or in the creation of fictional works expressing imaginatively the feminine experience in the face of the new sciences and technologies. In this work, an articulation between these two fields – the “real” and the imaginative – is promoted out of three narratives, representative of distinct periods in the history of American science fiction: “No Woman Born” (1944) by CL Moore, “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” (1973) by James Tiptree Jr., and “Bloodchild” (1984) by Octavia Butler. These works have in common the fact that they are written by women, with feminine themes and characters. They have, therefore, a double alterity: to be a woman in a field traditionally associated with the masculine gender, and the introduction of specific feminine themes in a great narrative – the (official) History of Science – also traditionally carried out by men. Supported by Richard Kearney’s reflections on alterity, and the dialogue established with thinkers such as Julia Kristeva, Paul Ricoeur and Jacques Derrida, among others – as well as by authors related to (Feminist) Science Fiction Studies – the fundamental perspective of this work is to perceive how these narratives can be seen as a socio-cultural picture of an era, just as they reflect the roles played by women in these societies. In this way, it is considered that the works of female – and later feminist – science fiction writers also include women in the history and future of science and technology.

Text in English
This study offers a fine-grained analysis of James Cameron’s film, Avatar (2009), on several theoretical fronts to provide a view of the film from a cognitive cultural studies perspective. The insights gained from cognitive theory are used to situate the debate by indicating the value cognitive theories have in cultural criticism. The critical discourse analysis of Avatar that results is a vehicle for the central concern of this study, which is to understand the diverse, often contradictory, meaning-making exhibited by Avatar audiences. A focus on the construction of empathic responses to the film’s messages investigates the success of this polysemy. Ihe central propositions of the study are that meanings and interpretations of the experience of viewing Avatar are made discursively; they are situated in definable traditions, mores and values; and this meaning-making takes place in a cognitive framework which allows for the technical reproduction and reception of the experience while providing powerful, emerging and cognitively plausible narratives. In an attempt to situate the film’s commercial success and its plethora of awards, including an Oscar for best art direction, the analysis takes a critical view of Cameron’s use of cultural stereotypes and the framing of the exotic other, and considers the continuing development of these elements over the whole series and product line or, as Henry Jenkins (2007) defines it, “transmedia”. In drawing the theoretical boundaries of the methodologies used in this study and in arguing for their complementarities, the study contributes to a renewal of Raymond Williams’ (1961) mostly forgotten claim of the cross-disciplinary cognitive dimension of cultural studies and demonstrates an affirmation of this formulation as cognitive cultural studies.
Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology
M.A. (Art History)