Alien Identities: Exploring Difference in Film and Fiction

A lively and stimulating look at representations, mutations and adaptations of 'the alien' in literature, film and television. Using notions of the alien and alienation in a broadly defined sense, the contributors cover early science fiction, from the gothic aliens of Dracula and H.G. Wells, to the classic fifties Cold War sci-fi movies, such as War of the Worlds, twentieth-century reworkings of various 'alien' metaphors, such as the Fly movies and the Alien series, and comic variations on the theme such as Mars Attacks. Moving beyond the conventional genre boundaries of the alien, particular essays look, too, at 'race' as an alien condition, and at the use of illness and disease as a metaphor for alienation in modern film and fiction. Alien Identities is a timely, carefully themed and much-needed study of an increasingly popular subject.

Deborah Cartmell is a Principal Lecturer in English at De Montfort University; I.Q. Hunter is a Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at De Montfort; Imelda Whelehan is a Principal Lecturer in English and Women’s Studies at De Montfort; and Heidi Kaye is a former Senior Lecturer in English and Women’s Studies at De Montfort. All four are editors of the previous titles in the Film/Fiction series.