scholarly journals Afraid of the Dark and the Light: Visceralizing Ecocide in The Road and Hell

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-56
Author(s):  
Alexa Weik von Mossner
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Pulitzer Prize ◽  
The Road ◽  
Ecological Changes ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
The One ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
The Relationship

The essay is concerned with the ways in which contemporary science fiction films explore the future subjectivities and societies that may result from radical ecological changes, looking at two pertinent examples from two different national traditions: John Hillcoat’s 2009 film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-win­ning novel The Road (2006), and one of the very few German-Swiss science fiction films with an environmental theme, Tim Fehlbaum’s Hell (2011). It is particularly interested in the relationship between the films’ imagined ecological spaces and the actions of the protagonists of each film on the one hand, and in the relationship between these futuristic diegetic spaces and the contemporary real-life ecological spaces that “play” them on the other hand. Together with the performances of the human actors and the tension and suspense built by the narratives, it argues, the spectacle and insinuated agency of these ecological spaces are centrally responsible for the films’ emotional force and for their ability to engage viewers in stories of global ecocide and human survival.   Resumen               El ensayo analiza cómo las películas de ciencia ficción exploran las sociedades y subjetividades futuras que pueden surgir de cambios ecológicos radicales, atendiendo a dos ejemplos relevantes de dos tradiciones nacionales diferentes: la adaptación cinematográfica de 2009 de la novela de Cormac McCarthy The Road (2006), ganadora del premio Pulitzer, dirigida por John Hillcoat; y una de las muy escasas películas de ciencia ficción germano-suizas de  temática medioambiental, Hell (2011) de Tim Fehlbaum. Se presta especial interés a dos aspectos: por un lado,  la relación entre los espacios ecológicos imaginados en las películas y las acciones de los protagonistas de cada película; y por otro lado,  la relación entre estos espacios diegéticos futuristas y los espacios ecológicos reales que los representan. Junto con la interpretación de los actores humanos y la tensión y el suspense que construyen las narraciones, el espectáculo y la agencia insinuada de estos espacios ecológicos son en gran medida responsables de la fuerza emocional de las películas y de su habilidad  para implicar a la audiencia en historias de ecocidio global y supervivencia humana.

scholarly journals China Whispers: The Symbolic, Economic, and Political Presence of China in Contemporary American Science Fiction Film

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-161
Author(s):  
Kenneth Longden
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Western Science ◽  
The West ◽  
Yellow Peril ◽  
American Science ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
Contemporary Film ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract China has long been present in Western science fiction, but largely through notions of Orientalism and depictions as the 'Yellow Peril'. However, with China's new ascendancy and modernization over the last 15 years, along with its investment and collaboration with Hollywood in particular, contemporary film in general, and contemporary science fiction in particular, has embraced this new China in ways hitherto unseen before. This essay examines three contemporary western/American science fiction films which each represent and construct China in slightly different ways, and in ways which reveal the West, and Hollywood's reappraisal of the relationship with China and its emerging 'Soft Power.'.

scholarly journals The Other in Science Fiction as a Problem for Social Theory

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 61-81
Author(s):  
Vladimir Kamnev ◽  
◽  
Vladimir Bystrov
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Indigenous Population ◽  
A Priori ◽  
The Other ◽  
Frontier Myth ◽  
Unknown Reason ◽  
Concept Of Truth ◽  
Other World ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

The paper discusses science fiction literature in its relation to some aspects of the socio-anthropological problem, such as the representation of the Other. Given the diversity of sci-fi genres, a researcher always deals either with the direct representation of the Other (a creature different from an existing human being), or with its indirect, mediated form when the Other, in the original sense of this term, is revealed to the reader or viewer through the optics of some Other World. The article describes two modes of representing the Other by sci-fi literature, conventionally designated as scientist and anti-anthropic. The scientist rep-resentation constructs exclusively-rational premises for the relationship with the Other. Edmund Hus-serl’s concept of truth, which is the same for humans, non-humans, angels, and gods, can be considered as its historical and philosophical correlate. The anti-anthropic representation, which is more attractive to sci-fi authors, has its origins in the experience of the “disenchantment” of the world characteristic of mod-ern man, especially in the tragic feeling of incommensurability of a finite human existence and the infinity of the cosmic abysses. The historical and philosophical correlate of this anti-anthropic representation can be found in Kant’s teaching of a priori cognition forms, which may be different for other thinking beings. The model of an attitude to the Other therefore cannot be based on rational foundations. As a literary ex-ample where these two ways of representing the Other are found, we propose the analysis of The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, which, on the one hand, offers the fictional extrapolation of the colonization of North America and the inevitable contacts with its indigenous population. On the other hand, The Martian Chronicles depicts a powerful and technologically advanced Martian civilization, which disap-pears for some unknown reason, or ceases to contact the settlers. The combination of these two ways of representing the Other allows Bradbury to effectively romanticize and mystify the unique historical experience of colonization, thus modifying the Frontier myth.

scholarly journals Dirbtinis intelektas moterišku kūnu filmuose Ex Machina ir Ji

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 69-90
Author(s):  
Justina Žiūraitė-Pupelė
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Female Body ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
Science Fiction Films

The article explores how artificial intelligence is constructed in a female body and showcases the boundaries between human and technological traits, as well as the relationship between human beings and technology. The article defines the notion of artificial intelligence and discusses how artificial intelligence is portrayed in science fiction films. The article does not attempt to provide new theoretical insights into artificial intelligence but, instead, to show how artificial intelligence is characterised in the context of modern science fiction films. Two contemporary science fiction films, which focus on the artificial intelligence in the female body, are analysed: Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2014) and Spike Jonze’s Her (2013). The analysis of the films showcases the blurred lines between being a human and being a robot: AI in the female body is portrayed as having adequate cognitive abilities and an ability to experience or to realistically imitate various mental states. The AI embodiment found in the films explores different narratives: the anthropomorphic body (Ex Machina) motivates to get to know the world and thus expands one’s experience, while the partial embodiment (Her) “programs” intellectual actions and development beyond the human body. Ex Machina highlights the anti-humanity of the female robot: another (human) life is devalued in order to pursue a goal. On the contrary, Her highlights the hyper-humanity of the operating system: continuous improvements exceed the boundaries of communication with other people.

scholarly journals Finding Faith between the Sciences: The Cases of ‘The Outer Worlds’ and ‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-161
Author(s):  
Frank G. Bosman
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Mass Effect ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
The Relationship

Science fiction, as a genre, has always been a place for religion, either as an inspirational source or as a part of the fictional universe. Religious themes in science fiction narratives, however, also invoke the question of the relationship, or the absence thereof, between religion and science. When the themes of religion and science are addressed in contemporary science fiction, they are regularly set in opposition, functioning in a larger discussion on the (in)comparability of religion and science in science fiction novels, games, and films. In the games The Outer Worlds and Mass Effect Andromeda, this discussion is raised positively. Involving terminology and notions related to deism, pantheism, and esoterism, both games claim that science and religion can co-exist with one another. Since digital games imbue the intra-textual readers (gamer) to take on the role as one of the characters of the game they are reading (avatar), the discussion shifts from a descriptive discourse to a normative one in which the player cannot but contribute to.

scholarly journals Decir la «persona» según Duns Escoto

2007 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Isidoro MANZANO
Keyword(s):  
Professor Emeritus ◽  
Considerable Effort ◽  
Positive Real ◽  
Rational Nature ◽  
The Road ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

In Scotus the person is treated in an intelectual atmosphere in which has already been enhanced a considerable effort intelectual in views to an understanding and clarification of what is the person. The author of this work on Scotus, professor emeritus of Antonianum of Rome, intends to make understand the originality of the grief escotista on the person. For it, it is about creating the place in which makes sense speak of person, as Escoto. This place is not other but that in the one that the ontological language is overcome. The person, indeed, indicates and she says something that surpasses and she is added the intellectual constituted individual or the individual of rational nature. In consequence, Prof. Manzano pursues and it indicates the roads from Scotus to this original reality that is the one of being person. These roads are, in short, the road toward the person’s understanding like «an absolute event that happens», the road of the person’s understanding like «absolute independence» and the road of the person’s understanding like «incommunicable existence». At the end, the author treats the scotish dialectic on the question of if the person is carácter of being something positive real, although not ontological, or she is merely somethig relational. In this lasta case, it will be abolut a «relationship» extremely original and diverse of the nature of the relationship as predicament.

scholarly journals ON XENOPHOBIA IN SCIENCE FICTION

2019 ◽  
pp. 52-55
Author(s):  
S. E. Kuzeev
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
The One

The article deals with how the notion of xenophobia is re-iterated in contemporary science fiction. First, the author provides a brief analysis of xenophobia as a cognitive phenomenon that is, on the one hand, built into the mass culture as an archetypal attitude and, on the other hand, symbolically disguised following the two prototypic scenarios-those of alienation and of appropriation. One of the central arguments of the article is that the quintessential sci-fi “alien” is based on the reinvented image of a Jew in the Western culture, while the narrative of “androids” draws on the historical and emotional experience of black slavery.

CATALEPTON 9 AND HELLENISTIC POETRY

2016 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris Kayachev
Keyword(s):  
Opposite Direction ◽  
Real Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Early Date ◽  
The Family ◽  
Hellenistic Poetry ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Historical References

The dating of Catalepton 9 has been the central issue of scholarship on that poem. The more particular questions of the poem's authorship, the identity of the addressee, and its chronological relation to other texts, both depend on and contribute to ascertaining the date of composition. The clearest exposition of the problem remains that by Richmond. Evidence provided by Catalepton 9 falls into two categories: literary and historical. Literary evidence encompasses two kinds of data: various formal features of the text and intertextual links with other poetry. While the poem's metre, language and style suggest a relatively early date of composition (before the Eclogues), the close textual parallels with the Eclogues, interpreted as borrowings from rather than sources of Virgil's poetry, point in the opposite direction. Historical indications are likewise ambivalent. On the one hand, it seems likely that the addressee is M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus (cos. 31 b.c.) and, further, that the occasion of composition is his (only) triumph in 27 b.c. (Catalepton 9.3 uictor adest, magni magnum decus ecce triumphi). On the other hand, the allusions to his military achievements (4–5, 41–54) are both too vague and exaggerated, and, if taken literally, do not fit well our Messalla at any particular point of his career (nor any other known member of the family). Richmond, following Birt and followed by Schoonhoven, believed that at least some of the historical references are ‘intended to be prophetic’. More recently, Peirano has attempted to explain this lack of precision by arguing that Catalepton 9 is not a real-life panegyric but a later biographical fiction, the real focus of which ‘is to be found […] in the relationship that the poem constructs between Virgil and his patron’.

The Measure of a Woman

AI Narratives ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 357-381
Author(s):  
Kate Devlin ◽  
Olivia Belton
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Life Expectation ◽  
Sex Robots ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
Fictional Representations ◽  
Selection Of

While the production of real-life sex robots is currently only at prototype stage, sexualized female artificial intelligences have long been a trope in popular media. By critically analysing a selection of science fiction films and television programmes, we explore the narrative of fictional representations of eroticized female robots and the ways in which their reception feeds real-life expectation. While these media representations are, at times, surprisingly nuanced, they persist in giving their female AIs stable gender identities, even when the AIs are disembodied. Fictional and factual fembots each reflect the same regressive male fantasies: sexual outlets and the promise of emotional validation and companionship. Underpinning this are masculine anxieties regarding powerful women, as well as the fear of technology exceeding our capacities and escaping our control.

Nuclear Weapons, Dystopian Deserts, and Science Fiction Cinema

Vulcan ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Womack
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Commercial Success ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
Nuclear Warfare ◽  
The Relationship

The article explores the relationship between science fiction cinema and nuclear weapons. It argues that the genre’s commercial success directly resulted from its appropriation of nuclear warfare themes and imagery, such as desert landscapes and nuclear blasts. The influence of nuclear weapons eventually permeated the genre as a whole, leading to the widespread appearance of such imagery in science fiction films that do not purport to deal with nuclear weapons or nuclear themes.

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