After-Effects

The Damned ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 103-108
Author(s):  
Nick Riddle
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Heavy Drinking ◽  
Mental Strain ◽  
After Effects ◽  
Late Night ◽  
The Subject

This chapter discusses the legacy of Joseph Losey's The Damned (1963). Unlike many cult films, The Damned has not become a staple of late-night screenings or the subject of internet memes. But it does strike a spark or two of recognition, when it is not being confused with Village of the Damned (1960) or Children of the Damned (1964). By 1970, Joseph Losey was played out, his health deteriorating after years of heavy drinking and mental strain. Nevertheless, imagery from The Damned sometimes resurfaced in his later work. Meanwhile, Hammer's science fiction output dwindled after The Damned, as its gothic horror productions took over.

Introductory Remarks

Inception ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 7-8
Author(s):  
David Carter
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Film Noir ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Unconscious Mind ◽  
Character Types

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010). Inception blurs the distinctions between various genres. It is considered as science fiction although it does not contain many of the elements associated with the genre. It can also be identified as a kind of heist film, and the first part of the film, the extraction, certainly involves a complex robbery; but then the second part of the film, while having many of the trappings of a heist, involves putting something into a heavily guarded location rather than stealing from it. Moreover, the heist motifs and the film's character types are reminiscent of film noir. Inception can also be described as a psychological thriller and it deals with the subject of time and how dreams are related to the conscious and unconscious mind.

AWS and UFOs

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Heim
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
Recovered Memory ◽  
Story Line ◽  
Late Night ◽  
Familiar Face ◽  
Internal Dialogue ◽  
Thin Thread

Something....-What? —A phenomenon. Something intrusive, something vague but insistent, pushing itself upon us. — Something outside? From afar? Something alien? — Something descending in the night, standing in the shadows at the foot of the bed. —An illusion? Hallucination maybe? A quirky twist of imagination? — No, definitely a presence, something that might be a someone, a someone with wires and electric sensors, probing, penetrating, exploring private parts. Something lifting us off the familiar face of the planet we thought we knew so well, beaming us outside the orbit of our comfortable homes. Definitely something indefinite . . . or someone. —We hear about them only from others who speak about sightings of unidentified objects in the sky, because we do not allow ourselves to be counted among the unstable few who acknowledge the possibility of something outside the circle of our sciences. Those unstable few accept belief in something standing in the shadows at the door. We listen closely to those speaking about incidents of the phenomenon. We do not look. — Something IS out there. We’ve seen and heard it in the night. It’s contacting us. The phenomenon certainly exists in late-night chat like the above. It exists as metaphysical hearsay, as an internal dialogue between what we believe and what we think we are willing to believe. Popular descriptions of “the incident” waver between child-like awe and tongue-in-cheek tabloid humor. Here is where our knowledge, as a culturally defined certainty, becomes most vulnerable. Here we discover the soft edges of knowledge as an established and culturally underwritten form of belief. What a thrill to feel the tug of war on the thin thread of shared belief! A blend of religious archetypes and science-fiction imagery supplies the words for those who tell about the incident. The stories often float up through hypnosis or “recovered memory” hypnotherapy, as in the famous case of Betty and Barney Hill who experienced abduction one September night in New Hampshire in 1961. Researchers have recently plotted consistently recurring patterns in thousands of stories, and the mythic dimension of the story line has not been lost on Hollywood.

In search of possible causes of mass extinctions

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Hallam
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Steven Spielberg ◽  
Geological Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Cretaceous Period ◽  
Land Vertebrates

When the subject of extinctions in the geological past comes up, nearly everyone’s thoughts turn to dinosaurs. It may well be true that these long-extinct beasts mean more to most children than the vast majority of living creatures. One could even go so far as to paraphrase Voltaire and maintain that if dinosaurs had never existed it would have been necessary to invent them, if only as a metaphor for obsolescence. To refer to a particular machine as a dinosaur would certainly do nothing for its market value. The irony is that the metaphor is now itself obsolete. The modern scientific view of dinosaurs differs immensely from the old one of lumbering, inefficient creatures tottering to their final decline. Their success as dominant land vertebrates through 165 million years of the Earth’s history is, indeed, now mainly regarded with wonder and even admiration. If, as is generally thought, the dinosaurs were killed off by an asteroid at the end of the Cretaceous, that is something for which no organism could possibly have been prepared by normal Darwinian natural selection. The final demise of the dinosaurs would then have been the result, not of bad genes, but of bad luck, to use the laconic words of Dave Raup. In contemplating the history of the dinosaurs it is necessary to rectify one widespread misconception. Outside scientific circles the view is widely held that the dinosaurs lived for a huge slice of geological time little disturbed by their environment until the final apocalypse. This is a serious misconception. The dinosaurs suffered quite a high evolutionary turnover rate, and this implies a high rate of extinction throughout their history. Jurassic dinosaurs, dominated by giant sauropods, stegosaurs, and the top carnivore Allosaurus, are quite different from those of the Cretaceous period, which are characterized by diverse hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, and Tyrannosaurus. Michael Crichton’s science-fiction novel Jurassic Park, made famous by the Steven Spielberg movies, features dinosaurs that are mainly from the Cretaceous, probably because velociraptors and Tyrannosaurus could provide more drama.

When did We Start to Change Things?

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas N. Sherratt ◽  
David M. Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Early Summer ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
James Lovelock

As we wrote the first draft of this chapter (during early summer 2007), the potential dangers of ‘global warming’ had moved up the news agenda to a point where most major politicians were starting to take the problem seriously. Our opening quotation comes from a book published in early 2006, which seemed to coincide with the growth of this wider concern with global warming. Lovelock was not alone in trying to raise awareness of the problem; around the same time another book on climate change by the zoologist and palaeontologist Tim Flannery also attracted global attention to this issue, as did the lecture tours (and Oscar-winning film) of Al Gore—the former US presidential candidate and campaigner on the dangers of climate change. Indeed, in his role as a climate campaigner Gore won a share in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. It is possible that future historians will see the period 2005–2007 as the start of a crucial wider engagement with these problems. Things may not be as bad as James Lovelock suggests—in his book he deliberately emphasized the most worrying scenarios coming from computer models, and other evidence, in an attempt to draw attention to the critical nature of the problem. However, all these worst case scenarios were drawn from within the range of results that most climate scientists believed could plausibly happen—not extreme cases with little current evidence to support them. That one of the major environmental scientists of the second half of the twentieth century could write such prose as science—rather than science fiction—is clearly a case for concern about future climate change. It also raises another important question, relating to the history of human influence on our planet: when in our history did we start to have major environmental impacts on Earth as a whole? This is clearly an important issue from a historical perspective, but the answers may also have implications for some of our attempts to rectify the damage. Our discussion of this question comes with various caveats. Many of the arguments we consider in this chapter are still the subject of academic disagreement.

Drugs and Personality

1960 ◽  
Vol 106 (444) ◽  
pp. 852-854 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. J. Eysenck ◽  
J. A. Easterbrook
Keyword(s):  
After Effects ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The Subject

In the previous paper we have given a brief discussion of the reasons why figural after-effects are of interest in the study of personality and why stimulant and depressant drugs would be expected to have certain effects upon them (Eysenck and Easterbrook, 1960a). In this paper we describe an experiment using kinaesthetic figural after-effects rather than visual ones. By and large results with kinaesthetic figural after-effects have been more clear-cut and definite in relating these after-effects to personality; several studies have shown extraverts to have greater figural after-effects than introverts (Eysenck, 1957). Furthermore there is at least one study demonstrating that stimulant and depressant drugs have the predicted results upon kinaesthetic figural aftereffects (Poser, 1958). The reasons for this may be that whereas for visual experiments it is difficult to check on the subject's ability to maintain fixation, nothing comparable is required in experiments on kinaesthetic figural aftereffects. Furthermore any departure from instruction on the part of the subject can easily be checked by the experimenter. For these reasons kinaesthetic tests have very definite advantages over visual ones.

scholarly journals UNSUR ESTETIKA BAHASA DALAM NOVEL-NOVEL PEMENANG SAYEMBARA FIKSYEN SAINS DAN TEKNOLOGI DARI TAHUN 2012 SEHINGGA 2017

2019 ◽  
pp. 189-212
Author(s):  
ROSNANI MD ZAIN ◽  
NIK RAFIDAH NIK MUAHAMAD AFFENDI
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Review Analysis ◽  
Language Style ◽  
Poetic Text ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Language Styles

ABSTRAK Estetika merujuk kepada cabang ilmu yang membahaskan perihal keindahan dalam karya sastera. Unsur estetika memainkan peranan penting dalam penghasilan sesebuah karya kreatif, iaitu dijadikan sebagai medium bahasa dalam menyampaikan mesej yang jelas kepada pembaca. Kajian yang dilakukan ini berdasarkan pengamatan pengkaji tentang pendapat sarjana sastera yang mendakwa novel-novel fiksyen sains yang terhasil daripada Sayembara Fiksyen Sains dan Teknologi tidak memaparkan unsur keindahan bahasa kepada pembaca. Sehubungan dengan itu, untuk merungkai permasalahan ini pengkaji menggunakan lima buah novel pemenang Sayembara Fiksyen Sains dan Teknologi iaitu Bekamorfosis (2012) karya Jali Kenoi, Petaka Bakteria (2012) karya Mohd Kasim Mahmud, Puranakila (2015) karya Saadiah Ibrahim, Ajal (2015) karya Ruhaini Matdarin dan Yang Diselindung Samudera (2017) karya Nor Azida Ishak, Fadli al-Akiti dan Ted Mahsun. Kajian yang dilakukan ini juga mempunyai dua objektif kajian iaitu mengklasifikasi dan menganalisis unsur estetika bahasa iaitu penggunaan gaya bahasa yang terdapat dalam novel-novel kajian. Oleh itu, kajian ini menggunakan kaedah kajian kepustakaan, analisis teks dan penerapan Teori Puitika Sastera Melayu yang diasaskan oleh Muhammad Haji Salleh sebagai sokongan terhadap hujahan pengkaji. Hasil kajian yang dilakukan terhadap novel-novel fiksyen sains tersebut pengkaji mendapati dua jenis gaya bahasa yang diketengahkan oleh pengarang iaitu gaya bahasa perbandingan dan gaya bahasa pengulangan. Gaya bahasa tersebut juga dapat dikaitkan dengan konsep estetika dalam Teori Puitika Sastera Melayu iaitu keindahan dalam mendidik atau mengajar, keindahan dalam pengungkapan kesusahan dan kesedihan serta keindahan dalam rasa seperti yang dinyatakan oleh Muhammad Haji Salleh.   ABSTRACT Aesthetics refers to the branch of knowledge that debates the subject of beauty in literary works. The aesthetic element plays an important role in the production of a creative work, which serves as a language medium in delivering clear messages to the reader. This study is based on the study of literary scholars who claim that science fiction novels from the Science and Technology Fiction Contest do not present the language’s beauty element to readers. To this end, the researcher used the five novels of Science and Technology Fiction Contest winners namely Bekamorfosis (2012) by Jali Kenoi, Petaka Bakteria (2012) by Mohd Kasim Mahmud, Puranakila (2015) by Saadiah Ibrahim, Ajal (2015) by Ruhaini Matdarin and Yang Diselindung Samudera (2017) by Nor Azida Ishak, Ted Mahsun and Fadli Al-Akiti. The study also has two objectives of the study which is to classify and analyze the aesthetics of language which is the use of language style found in the research novels. Therefore, this study uses the method of literature review, analysis and application of the theory of poetic text Malay literature founded by Muhammad Haji Salleh in support of the submissions from researchers. As a result of the study of science fiction novels, researchers have identified two types of language styles that the author promotes: comparative language style and repetition language style. The style of these languages can also be associated with the aesthetic concept in the theory of poetic beauty of Malay literature in educating or teaching, discovery of beauty in distress and sadness and beauty in the sense as described by Muhammad Haji Salleh. 

scholarly journals CONSTRUCTIVE ANALYSIS OF GERMAN AND HUNGARIAN IDIOMS

2021 ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Ilona Lechner
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Cognitive Tools ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Mental Strain ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Figurative Meaning ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
The Subject

The subject of the study is the examination of figurative meaning in Hungarian and German. In the present study, I present the interpretation of figurative meaning within the theoretical framework of cognitive linguistics by analysing idiomatic expressions in Hungarian and German on the example of the concept of ‘time’. In this contrastive research, I primarily look for the answer to how ordinary people use cognitive tools to grasp intangible abstract concepts such as ‘time’ and what connections can be observed between literal and figurative meaning. The examined Hungarian and German idioms are the linguistic manifestations of the conceptual metaphor time is money (valuable resource). The study aims to support the assumption that in any language an abstract meaning can only be expressed with a figurative meaning. Time is an abstract concept that is present in the everyday language use of all people. The expressions time passes, the time is here, my time has come, it takes a lot of time – to mention just a few, have become so conventionalized in our language that we take their meaning literally. Nonetheless, they are based on conventional conceptual metaphors that we use to make the concept of time more tangible to ourselves. The linguistic manifestations of these conceptual metaphors are created and understood without any mental strain. In the first stage of the research, I searched for possible German equivalents of Hungarian expressions, and then I used Internet search engines and idiom and monolingual dictionaries to select the most frequently used equivalent in German. As a next step, I examined 1) the word form, 2) the literal meaning, 3) the figurative meaning, and 4) the conceptual metaphor of idioms in both languages, which were either been identical or different. Because they are different languages, the word forms are inherently different. At the end of the study, I compared the formed patterns from which I drew conclusions, which support that figurative meaning is figurative in another language as well.

scholarly journals Posthumanizm i „syntezoidalny mimetyzm” w komiksie „Vision” Toma Kinga i Gabriela Hernandeza Walty

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 467-479
Author(s):  
Oskar Meller
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Time Work ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One

Cultural texts on the subject of posthuman can be found long before the post-anthropocentric turn in humanistic research. Literary explanations of posthumanism have entered the conventional canon not only in terms of the science-fiction classics. However, a different line follows the tradition of presenting posthumanist existence in the comic book medium. Scott Jeffrey accurately notes that most comic superheroes are post- or trans-human. Therefore, the transgression of human existence into a posthumanoid being is presented. However, in the case of the less culturally recognizable character of Vision, a synthezoid from the Marvel’s Avengers team, combining the body of the android and human consciousness, the vector of transgression is reversed. This article is an attempt to analyze the way the humanization process of this hero is narrative in the Vision series of screenwriter Tom King and cartoonist Gabriel Hernandez Walta. On the one hand, King mimetic reproduces the sociological panorama of American suburbs, showing the process of adaptation of the synthesoid family to the realities of full-time work and neighborly intercourse, on the other, he emphasizes the robotic limits of Vision humanization. Ultimately, the narrative line follows the cracks between these two plans, allowing King to present, with the help of inhuman heroes, one of the most human stories in the Marvel superhero universe.

scholarly journals O-bi, o-ba: Koniec cywilizacji – postpiśmienny świat Piotra Szulkina

1970 ◽  
pp. 273-284
Author(s):  
Maciej Pietrzak
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Written Word ◽  
The Way ◽  
Adam Mickiewicz

Pietrzak Maciej, O-bi, o-ba: Koniec cywilizacji – postpiśmienny świat Piotra Szulkina [O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization – The Postliterate World of Piotr Szulkin]. „Przestrzenie Teorii” nr 32. Poznań 2019, Adam Mickiewicz University Press, pp. 273–284. ISSN 1644-6763. DOI 10.14746/pt.2019.32.14. Piotr Szulkin made his mark in the history of cinema primarily as the author of disturbing visions of the future. His four films made between 1979 and 1985 comprised the science-fiction tetralogy, which is still one of the greatest artistic achievements of this genre in Polish cinema. The subject of the article is the third production of Szulkin’s series – the post-apocalyptic film O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization from 1984. In the film, the director creates a suggestive vision of a world destroyed as a result of nuclear conflict, in which the original functions of literature and the written word are forgotten. The author article analyzes the way in which forsaken literary artifacts are used in the post-literary reality of the film. An important element of his considerations is also the post-apocalyptic reception of the biblical text, on whose elements the mythology of the film’s world is based.

scholarly journals Diversities of choice, choice of diversities: Practical aspects of a diversity-centered exhibit

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 96-115
Author(s):  
Jeremy Brett
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Educational Experience ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
Cultural Institution ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Creation

A cultural institution choosing to mount an exhibit centered on the theme of diversity (or at least to ensure that a reasonable variety of types of objects/creators is presented) faces an inherent contradiction. Namely, while the human experience is infinite, exhibit space is not. Trying to contain the naturally uncontainable obliges an exhibit curator to make choices of materials, manners of display, and item descriptions, which provide a sense of the subject, knowing that inevitably some people and groups will be excluded. Such was our experience at Cushing Memorial Library & Archives with the creation of our 2019 exhibit The Stars Are Ours: Infinite Diversities in Science Fiction and Fantasy. The exhibit is based around the social, ethnic, racial, gender and other diversities of science fiction and fantasy (SF&F) – diversities in creators, in themes, in characters and in plots. Curatorial decisions respected the overarching exhibit theme while also recognizing the physical reality of the space and ensuring an optimal educational experience for patrons. The exhibit is organized thematically rather than by a specific ‘type’ of diversity, because the idea of boxing groups into specifically delineated, ghettoized areas of the exhibit was counterintuitive to the idea of diversity. Most of the exhibit themes were chosen for their broad nature, which allow for a wider range of authors and works to represent them. Items were chosen that we felt could best reflect the diverse nature of the SF&F genres and demonstrate their commonality as documents of the human cultural experience. Exhibit display is also a process involving many factors. In creating exhibit descriptive material, we sought to make subtle rather than overt connections to the overall exhibit theme where possible. The exhibit, in short, is intended as a diversity ‘sampler’ rather than any sort of attempt to try to capture the breadth of the subject. No exhibit with ‘diversity’ as a theme – whether overtly stated or implied – can realistically do more than acknowledge its inability to be a full chronicle. In doing so, exhibit curators actually recognize, in fact, the deep and limitless richness of their chosen subjects.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document