Neil Badmington: Alien Chic: Posthumanism and the Other Within (2004)

“Alien Chic sets out to provide a cultural history of the alien since the 1950s, asking why our attitudes to aliens have changed from fear to affection, and what this can tell us about how we now see ourselves and others.

The author begins by exploring our relationship with the concept of aliens, primarily through films, including Invaders from Mars, Mars Attacks and Mission to Mars. He then progresses to ideas of humanism and what makes us human, taking in the works of thinkers such as Descartes, Barthes, Freud, and Derrida.

The book then considers the concept of posthumanism in an age in which the lines between what is human and what is non-human are increasingly blurred by advances in science and technology, for example cloning and genetic engineering, and the development of AI and cyborgs. This leads to the question of whether our embracing of all things ‘alien’ stems from a need to reaffirm ourselves as “human.”

Written in a clear and engaging style, Alien Chic is an original and thought-provoking contribution to the study of posthumanism.”

Publisher Routledge, 2004
ISBN 0415310237, 9780415310239
203 pages

Key terms: posthumanism, extraterrestrial, Jacques Derrida, Mars Attacks, Invaders from Mars, Body Snatchers, Starship Troopers, hashish, anthropocentric, Jacques Lacan, Independence Day, Don Siegel, invasion films, Katherine Hayles, Descartes, Mission to Mars, Whitley Strieber, alien abduction, Jean Baudrillard, posthumanist

Publisher

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