Academic literature on the topic 'Human-alien encounters'
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Journal articles on the topic "Human-alien encounters"
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Bökös, Borbála. "Human-Alien Encounters in Science Fiction: A Postcolonial Perspective." Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies 16, no. 1 (August 1, 2019): 189–203. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2019-0010.
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Abstract An (un)conventional encounter between humans and alien beings has long been one of the main thematic preoccupations of the genre of science fiction. Such stories would thus include typical invasion narratives, as in the case of the three science fiction films I will discuss in the present paper: the Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956; Philip Kaufman, 1978; Abel Ferrara, 1993), The Host (Andrew Niccol, 2013), and Avatar (James Cameron, 2009). I will examine the films in relation to postcolonial theories, while attempting to look at the ways of revisiting one’s history and culture (both alien and human) in the films’ worlds that takes place in order to uncover and heal the violent effects of colonization. In my reading of the films I will shed light on the specific processes of identity formation (of an individual or a group), and the possibilities of individual and communal recuperation through memories, rites of passages, as well as hybridization. I will argue that the colonized human or alien body can serve either as a mediator between the two cultures, or as an agent which fundamentally distances two separate civilizations, thus irrevocably bringing about the loss of identity, as well as the lack of comprehension of cultural differences.
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Dunér, David. "The cultural semiotics of African encounters: Eighteenth-Century images of the Other." Semiotica 2020, no. 232 (February 25, 2020): 103–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/sem-2019-0030.
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AbstractThis a contribution to the cultural semiotics of African cultural encounters seen through the eyes of Swedish naturalists at the end of the eighteenth century. European travellers faced severe problems in understanding the alien African cultures they encountered; they even had difficulty understanding the other culture as a culture. They were not just other cultures that they could relate to, but often something completely different, belonging to the natural history of the human species. The Khoikhoi and other groups were believed by Europeans to be, from their perspective, the most distant culture. The Linnaean disciple Anders Sparrman and others, however, tried to transcend this cultural gap, and used their cognitive resources, such as empathy and intersubjectivity, in order to understand the alien culture they encountered.The aim of this paper is to unearth the cultural semiosis of African encounters and the intersubjective challenges that human interactions provoke. These encounters not only changed the view the travellers had of the Other, but also changed themselves and their self-perception. The encounter between the Ego and the Other is, however, not static, something predestined by the differences in their cultures, but dynamic, changing according to individual encounters and the actual intersubjective interplay that transform and change the perception of the Other. There are in particular four meaning-making processes and challenges within cultural encounters that are in focus: recognizing cultural complexity; invoking intersubjectivity; determining similarities and dissimilarities; and identifying the Other as a mirror of oneself.The triad of cultures – Ego, Alter, and Alius – can be understood as gradual and changing aspects depending on the actual situation of the encounter and the personal perspectives, interpretations, and behaviour of the thinking subjects involved. Using concrete examples from Southern and Western Africa in the 1770s and 1780s, this study aims to explore this dynamic semiosis. One of the conclusions is that the relation between the Ego and the Alter/Alius is not something only predetermined by the cultures involved and their ideologies, but also depends on the individual thinking subjects and how they use their specific cognitive and semiotic resources, not least their intersubjective abilities, within specific temporal and spatial contexts.
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Medina, Nicolás, and Miklós Kiss. "The Role of Experimenting with the Human Voice in Film Music in the Representation of the Human/Alien Divide: the Case of Arrival (2016)." Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies 20, no. 1 (November 1, 2021): 1–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2021-0011.
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Abstract This article focuses on the musical dimension of experimentation in the creative space of science fiction film, concerning its uncanny, new and fantastic places, and otherworldly encounters within fictional, but possible worlds. The aim is to consider the function and potential of the audible – to examine how sound is used in the filmic exploration of the boundaries between the human and the alien (the unknown). More particularly, we are interested in the role that human voice-like and human vocal sounds can play in this divide, as we believe manipulations with such audible qualities contribute greatly to the emotional dimension of cinematic stories of otherworldly encounters. For that purpose, we concentrate on Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016) and its soundtrack composed by Jóhann Jóhannsson, who resorts to different singing practices and vocal techniques to accompany a story charting the territories between the human and the alien.
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Zeller, Benjamin E. "Extraterrestrial Biblical Hermeneutics and the Making of Heaven's Gate." Nova Religio 14, no. 2 (November 1, 2010): 34–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2010.14.2.34.
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The new religious movement popularly called Heaven's Gate emerged in the mid-1970s. This article argues that its two co-founders, Marshall Herff Applewhite (1932––1997) and Bonnie Lu Nettles (1928––1985), employed what I call extraterrestrial biblical hermeneutics in constructing the theological worldview of Heaven's Gate. This hermeneutics developed out of the New Age movement and its broader interest in ufology, extraterrestrial life, and alien visitation, and postulates a series of close encounters and alien visitations. Borrowing from its New Age and ufological origins, the hermeneutics assumes an extraterrestrial interest in assisting human beings to self-develop, as well as a technological materialism antithetical to supernaturalist readings of the Bible. As I argue here, this extraterrestrial biblical hermeneutics led Applewhite and Nettles to read the Bible as supporting a message of alien visitation, self-transformation, and ultimately extraterrestrial technological rapture.
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Soto, Stephany. "Intellectual property in the bio-sector research:." Revista Peruana de Biología 27, no. 1 (March 4, 2020): 103–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.15381/rpb.v27i1.17587.
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Intellectual Property is a powerful legal and economic instrument. In our “knowledge economy”, patents are the preferred IP tool with special emphasis in the pharma – agro biotech industry. However, the growth of patents in the bio sector such as the pharma and agro fields, encounters many challenges. Life itself has not been defined yet. So, how can it be determined exactly when a living being, or a biological entity has been modified by itself or by human intervention, and thus address issues of patentability? Therefore, a researcher in the bio field cannot be alien to Intellectual Property, being the main actor in the revolution of the bio-pharma-agro sectors.
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Dridi, Yosr. "Representing the Unrepresentable." Film International 21, no. 1 (March 1, 2023): 7–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/fint_00201_1.
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This article discusses the representations of alienhood in a selection of first contact science-fiction films. It performs a cinematographic reading of human encounters with and attitudes towards alienhood. By examining the visual stylistic choices, the representation of outer-space (other)worlds and alienhood will be problematized beyond the binarism of vilification and celebration. Instead, contact with alienhood will offer deeper insight into the cultural, intellectual and psychological facets of human identity and urge further introspection about the human position in a universe that no longer obeys an anthropocentric logic. Ultimately, first contact science-fiction cinema will be shown to relativize the reassuring conception of selfhood and to suggest the obsolescence of universalist-humanist assumptions about alienhood. This is achieved by opting for a representational one-way route which leads towards acceptance, not of the alien per se, but of the potential and limits of the human self when faced with the unknowability and the unrepresentability of alienhood.
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Virginás, Andrea. "Embodied Genetics in Science-Fiction, Big-Budget to Low-Budget: from Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection (1997) to Piccinini’s Workshop (2011)." Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies 8, no. 1 (September 1, 2014): 149–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2014-0031.
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Abstract The article uses and revises to some extent Vivian Sobchack’s categorization of (basically) American science-fiction output as “optimistic big-budget,” “wondrous middle-ground” and “pessimistic low-budget” seen as such in relation to what Sobchack calls the “double view” of alien beings in filmic diegesis (Screening Space, 2001). The argument is advanced that based on how diegetic encounters are constructed between “genetically classical” human agents and beings only partially “genetically classical” and/or human (due to genetic diseases, mutations, splicing, and cloning), we may differentiate between various methods of visualization (nicknamed “the museum,” “the lookalike,” and “incest”) that are correlated to Sobchack’s mentioned categories, while also displaying changes in tone. Possibilities of revision appear thanks to the later timeframe (the late 1990s/2000s) and the different national-canonical belongings (American, Icelandic-German- Danish, Hungarian-German, Canadian-French-American, and Australian) that characterize filmic and artistic examples chosen for analysis as compared to Sobchack’s work in Screening Space.1
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Biswas, Apurba. "The Unintended Repercussions of Technological Breakthrough in Satyajit Ray’s The Diary of a Space Traveller and its Implication on the Status Quo of Artificial Intelligence: A Case Study Through the Lens of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle." New Literaria 04, no. 02 (2023): 10–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.48189/nl.2023.v04i2.002.
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The paper explains the application of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to Professor Shonku’s The Diary of a Space Traveller (2004) to analyze the implications of the principle on the behaviour of the characters and the plot and deploy that theoretical framework to address the current situation of burgeoning AI models and provide suggestions on how to mitigate its unintended consequences. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle states that it is impossible to simultaneously determine the position and momentum of a particle with complete precision. The Diary of a Space Traveller tells the story of Professor Shonku, a brilliant scientist who builds a spacecraft capable of travelling through space to discover unknown planets, encountering manifold and diverse alien species, and a highly sophisticated artificial intelligence-induced robot who irregularly exhibits unprecedented behaviour. The application of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to The Diary of a Space Traveller can be seen in the following ways: Professor Shonku’s scientific incapability to predict the unintended ramifications of his scientific inventions, his interaction with the alien species he encounters with expectations opposite to reality, the inability of other characters to make sense of unprecedented events, and the necessity of controlling the possibility of the unintended repercussions under voluntary human control. The results of this study will add to the larger conversation on responsible innovation and ways to mitigate the possibility of the adverse effects of uni
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Armand, Fabio. "Aufhocker : Quand l’identité Alien d’un de nos corps-fantômes se porte sur le dos." Caietele Echinox 41 (December 1, 2021): 85–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.24193/cechinox.2021.41.07.
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"Within the framework of the most recent advances in the BRAINCUBUS model of neurocognitive anthropology, we will analyze the transcultural narrative motif of the Aufhocker (F472. Huckauf. A goblin which jumps on one’s back). From the Alps to the Himalayas, we will track down experiential encounters with numerous supernatural beings who jump on the backs of humans and are carried away with all their crushing heaviness. We recognize these supernatural beings as neurally real phantom-body connectomes, generated by the activation of the Temporo-Parietal Junction in the left hemisphere of the human brain."
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Sayfulloh, Agus, Melya Riniarti, and Trio Santoso. "Invasive Alien Species Plants in Sukaraja Atas Resort, Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park." Jurnal Sylva Lestari 8, no. 1 (January 27, 2020): 109. http://dx.doi.org/10.23960/jsl18109-120.
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One of the problems encountered by the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park (TNBBS) is the presence of invasive alien species. Invasive alien species are plants that grow outside their natural distribution and have the ability to cover the area; hence it could suppress the growth of the other plants. The presence of invasive alien species in the national park has been widely reported to cause negative impacts on the ecosystem, local biodiversity, socio-economic, and human health in the vicinity. This study was carried out in the rehabilitation zone of the Sukaraja Atas Resort of TNBBS that had shifted into open land. This study aimed to determine the species and dominance of invasive alien species that exist. The sampling method was used by laying plots consisted of the combination of the line and multiple plot methods with a total plot of 25 plots. Data analysis was performed by selecting invasive alien species observed based related-literature, while the dominance of invasive alien species was calculated by the importance value index (IVI). The results identified 121 species, of which 29 species or 35% of them were classified as invasive alien, which originating from 19 families. Three invasive alien species become the most dominating, namely: Clidemia hirta with an IVI of 22.61, Imperata cylindrica with an IVI of 18.03, and Calliandra calothyrsus with an IVI 17.96. The environmental conditions and species characteristics supported the three invasive alien species domination; hence it inhibited the growth of native species. Keywords: Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, invasive alien species, rehabilitation zone
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Human-alien encounters"
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Cavedo, Keith. "Alien Encounters and the Alien/Human Dichotomy in Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Andrei Tarkovsky‘s Solaris." Scholar Commons, 2010. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/1593.
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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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Hills, Paul R. "Neural narratives and natives: cognitive attention schema theory and empathy in Avatar." Diss., 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/26659.
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Text in EnglishThis 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)
Books on the topic "Human-alien encounters"
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Vallee, Jacques. Revelations: Alien contact and human deception. San Antonio, Tex: Anomalist Books, 2008.
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Redfern, Nicholas. Contactees: A history of alien-human interaction. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page Books, 2010.
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Redfern, Nicholas. Contactees: A history of alien-human interaction. Franklin Lakes, N.J: New Page Books, 2010.
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Sutherly, Curt. Strange encounters: UFOs, aliens, & monsters among us. St. Paul, Minn., U.S.A: Llewellyn Publications, 1996.
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Paul, Christopher. Alien intervention: The spiritual mission of UFOs. Lafayette, La: Huntington House Publishers, 1998.
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Turner, Karla. Taken: Inside the alien-human abduction agenda. Roland, Ark: Kelt Works, 1994.
Find full textBook chapters on the topic "Human-alien encounters"
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Gomel, Elana. "Human Skins, Alien Masks: Allegories of Postcolonial Guilt." In Science Fiction, Alien Encounters, and the Ethics of Posthumanism, 117–46. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137367631_5.
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Lykke, Nina. "More-than-Human Ethics and Poetics." In Feminist Reconfigurings of Alien Encounters, 75–91. London: Routledge, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003373766-8.
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Gomel, Elana. "The Human Trinity: What Makes Us Other?" In Science Fiction, Alien Encounters, and the Ethics of Posthumanism, 149–86. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137367631_6.
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Westfahl, Gary. "Alien Encounters." In Arthur C. Clarke, 93–116. University of Illinois Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.5622/illinois/9780252041938.003.0007.
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While fascinated by aliens, this chapter explains, Clarke only occasionally depicts alien encounters, which are unlikely due to the universe’s size and age. Instead, science fiction stories involve humans discovering evidence of ancient aliens or signs of emerging alien intelligences. Clarke avoids engaging in world building, preferring planets investigated by scientists as settings, and his aliens typically are genuinely alien in both their physiology and psychology. In Clarke’s major novels about aliens they remain unseen. In 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and its sequels, aliens made of energy initially seem omnipotent, though sequels increasingly emphasize their flaws and limitations. The aliens of Rendezvous with Rama (1973) are even more mysterious and defy human efforts to understand their enormous space habitat and the purpose for its visit.
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Wible, Zoé N. "“What the Hell Is That?”." In Alien Legacies, 123—C7N47. Oxford University PressNew York, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197556023.003.0007.
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Abstract Over the course of forty years, Alien (Scott, 1979) has expanded into various media, including novels, comic books, and video games. Nonetheless, the nature of the titular alien appears eminently fluid, sometimes even contradictory, as exemplified by the discrepancy between its origin story as presented in the films Alien vs Predator (2004) and Prometheus (2012). In different texts, the alien is presented as either solitary, pack-oriented, or part of a hive-mind, and it resembles an insect, a reptile, or even a biomechanical creation. Its lifecycle, diet, hunting strategies, and mating habits are also diversely explored, mobilizing knowledge of popular science regarding biology and zoology. Using cognitive media studies, this paper will show how categories and schemas are mobilized by the creators in order to encourage a classification of the alien that furthers the narrative and aesthetic purposes of a specific work, favoring different strategies for affective impact depending on the genre and medium. The figure of the alien remains radically malleable and shifting, presenting an “alternative species logic” (Hurley 1995; Littau 2011). In particular, the type, number, and length of encounters between the alien(s) and the human characters (and, by proxy, the audience) vary greatly from text to text, revealing different aesthetic goals, and impacting our understanding of the alien as a creature.
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DeFalco, Amelia. "Feral Touch." In Curious Kin in Fictions of Posthuman Care, 61—C2P72. Oxford University PressOxford, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192886125.003.0003.
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Abstract This chapter explores the haptic dimensions of posthuman care via an examination of imagined feral and alien relations. It explores the neuroanatomy, ethics, and politics of touch alongside fictions of posthuman haptic care at the margins of human “civilized” society, care in ruins and dumps, remote jungles, and razed forests, in dilapidated houses and desolate highlands. In Eva Hornung’s novel Dog Boy, Bhanu Kapil’s Humanimal: A Project for Future Children, and the film Under the Skin, narratives of feral children and alien encounters exaggerate and amplify the mundane, everyday posthuman tactile encounters that form the fabric of embodied life, demonstrating how the relationality and open-endedness of touch creates affirmative possibilities for becoming alongside risks of violence, aggression, and domination.
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Towlson, Jon. "Close Encounters: Genre and Context." In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 17–24. Liverpool University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.3828/liverpool/9781911325079.003.0002.
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This chapter discusses the genre and context of Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). It begins by tracing the emergence of science fiction in literature and in cinema. The chapter then looks at how film serials popularised pulp science-fiction cinema in the form of rocketships, ray guns, alien invaders, evil intergalactic emperors, and damsels in distress. One can see them as the inspiration for the likes of Star Wars and the myriad superhero blockbuster movies that continue to dominate Hollywood today. In 1968, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey returned science fiction to its origins in Greek mythology. It is perhaps the first example of ‘transcendent’ science-fiction cinema, exploring the human need to place trust in a force larger than ourselves. In the early 1970s, science-fiction films were more overtly concerned with identity and environment, and how both were increasingly shaped or misshapen by technology. Meanwhile, post-9/11 has seen a move towards intelligent science fiction as a bankable commodity within Hollywood. Part of the genre's continuing appeal is, of course, the showcasing of state-of-the-art cinema technology within the sci-fi narrative. Special-effects technology has evolved in line with cinema's own development.
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Warwick, Kevin. "Alien Encounters." In Views into the Chinese Room, 308–18. Oxford University PressOxford, 2002. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198250579.003.0016.
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Abstract A species-related viewpoint in how humans think generally about the world, whether through philosophy, science, or the arts is difficult to avoid. The human perspective is based on who we are, how we got to be so, and how we exist at present. As an example, for a parent it might be difficult to imagine that your own child could do any terrible wrong to any other person or thing. Indeed, even what is conceived as being right or wrong is very much a view dependent on a standpoint within an individual culture. Wars are fought over problems when both sides concerned are certain that they are completely right and their foe is completely wrong.
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Eghigian, Greg. "Apparitions, Airships, and Aliens." In After the Flying Saucers Came, 23–48. Oxford University PressNew York, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190869878.003.0003.
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Abstract Since ancient times, astonishing, mysterious things were reported being seen in the skies. These were widely assumed to be divine signs. But even in the modern secular era, products of human invention fueled wonder and speculation. The creation of piloted balloons in the late eighteenth century helped kindle visions of powered airships made by ingenious entrepreneurs. Soon enough, the skies began to fill with billboards, lit signs, dirigibles, and, finally, airplanes. To many, this only confirmed they were living in an age of unbridled progress, though some feared that such inventions would ultimately have lethal military applications. Then came science fiction in the nineteenth century, which began portraying encounters with beings from outer space. Observers had long believed that alien civilizations existed in the universe, and some considered ways of communicating with them. But it was science fiction that explored the possibility that extraterrestrials might be intent on coming to earth.
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Robinson, Douglas. "Translating Across the Human/ Nonhuman Divide: Towards a Sustainable Theory of Translation, or a Translational Theory of Sustainability." In Dimensionen der Humantranslation / Dimensions of Human Translation, 227–62. Zeta Books, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/zeta-humantranslation202211.
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As an inroad into translating sustainability and sustaining translation, the article takes a close look at the translational interactions between humans and aliens in Ted Chiang’s novella “Story of Your Life” (1998) and the 2016 film adaptation, Arrival. The close reading covers two aspects of the story: (1) alienation from the familiar, so that the alien experience, which is so disconcerting at first, comes to feel ordinary, with metaphorical extensions of the human‑alien encounter to colonizers and the colonized and parents and children; and (2) coming unstuck in time, perceiving time from what is apparently the fourth dimension, so that temporal sequence is denarrativized. In two conclusions, the implications for “sustaining translation” (section 4) and “translating sustainability” (section 5) are considered, the latter in terms of both cultural sustainability and the sustainability of the natural environment on Earth.