Aliens are everywhere in contemporary culture: from sci-fi franchises such as Star Wars to religious cults, conspiracy theories, and SETI deep-space explorations.
But despite a plethora of studies addressing various aspects of this phenomenon, there has never been a Companion that systematically discusses the meaning of aliens through a range of representative texts. Our collection is intended to fill this lack.
We are asking for essays of 2,500 words that frame a theoretical aspect of the aliens’ cultural role by centering on one text, whether literary or cinematic to use as a lens to look at the wider topic. The essays themselves should be accessible but address the big ideas.
The proposed Companion will be divided into several sections. The topics in each section may include but are not limited to the following:
Origins
- H. G. Wells and the Scientific Romance
- War of the Worlds and Victorian Invasion Literature (Chesney’s Battle of Dorking)
- Aliens and other Victorian monsters (Dracula, “the little people” in Arthur Machen, Jekyll/Hyde, etc.)
- Aliens and Darwinism
- Aliens and the Empire (Conrad, Haggard, Wells)
The Golden Age
- Aliens and the frontier/western
- Aliens and the Cold War
- Monstrous imagination in invasion movies
- Alien infestation and the poetics of paranoia (Finney’s Invasion of Body Snatchers)
- Aliens and natives
International Aliens
- Aliens behind the Iron Curtain (Soviet SF; Stanislaw Lem)
- Aliens in China, Japan and South Korea (Cixin Liu, manga/anime)
- Aliens in India and the Middle East
- Aliens and Indigenous Identity
Aliens and the Cultural Imagination
- Aliens and race
- Aliens and gender
- Aliens and theology
- Aliens and the apocalypse
- Queer aliens
- Aliens and the Anthropocene
- Humans as Alien Invaders
Aliens in Different Genres/Media
- Space opera
- Art, dance, performance
- Aliens in music and music videos
- Fandom and cosplay
- Aliens in Gaming and Roleplay
- Aliens in New Media
Please send 300 word abstracts or expressions of interest to both editors Elana Gomel (egomel@tauex.tau.ac.il) and Simon Bacon (baconetti@googlemail.com) by February 28th 2021 for consideration in the collection which will be part of the Peter Lang, Oxford, Genre, Literature and Film Companion Series.
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