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Format: ouvrage collectif

  • E.T. Culture. Anthropology in Outerspaces

    « Anthropologists have long sought to engage and describe foreign or “alien” societies, yet few have considered the fluid communities centered around a shared belief in alien beings and UFO sightings and their effect on popular and expressive culture. Opening up a new frontier for anthropological study, the contributors to E.T. Culture take these communities seriously. They demonstrate that an E.T. orientation toward various forms of visitation—including alien beings, alien technologies, and uncanny visions—engages primary concepts underpinning anthropological research: host and visitor, home and away, subjectivity and objectivity. Taking the point of view of those who commit to sci-fi as sci-fact, contributors to this volume show how discussions and representations of otherworldly beings express concerns about racial and ethnic differences, the anxieties and fascination associated with modern technologies, and alienation from the inner workings of government.

    Drawing on social science, science studies, linguistics, popular and expressive culture, and social and intellectual history, the writers of E.T. Culture unsettle the boundaries of science, magic, and religion as well as those of technological and human agency. They consider the ways that sufferers of “unmarked” diseases such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome come to feel alien to both the “healthy” world and the medical community incapable of treating them; the development of alien languages like Klingon; attempts to formulate a communications technology—such as that created for the spaceship Voyager—that will reach alien beings; the pilgrimage spirit of UFO seekers; the out-of-time experiences of Nobel scientists; the embrace of the alien within Japanese animation and fan culture; and the physical spirituality of the Raëlian religious network. » (Quatrième de couverture)

  • Aliens R Us. The Other in Science Fiction Cinema

    « Aliens R Us explores the global culture of science fiction cinema, and in particular its presentation of contemporary images of the Other. The authors look beyond a purely generic approach to the subject, assessing European and Asian film work, as well as Hollwood blockbusters, discussing their respective and varying representations of the Other, and what this reveals abput popular perceptions of global culture and society. Key themes are examined, ranging from xenophobia, militarism, and displacements of gender and race, to eco-apocalypse in new French sci-fi, Japanese animation and techno-Orientalism, and the assimiliation of Hong Kong science fiction in Western film-making. Films and television series studied include Delicatessen, Independence Day, Space: Above and Beyond, Star Trek: First Contact and Deep Space Nine, The Matrix, and Until the End of the World. » (Quatrième de couverture)

  • Dark thoughts : philosophic reflections on cinematic horror

    «This is a collection of highly engaging and provocative essays by top scholars in the increasingly interrelated fields of Philosophy, Film Studies, and Communication Arts that deal with the epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and genre dynamics of horror cinema past and present, reveals that our fascination with horror cinema, and the pleasure we take in it, is in the end simply a natural extension of a philosopher’s inclination to wonder. Contributors include Curtis Bowman, Noel Carroll, Elizabeth Cowie, Angela Curran, Cynthia Freeland, Michael Grant, Matt Hills, Deborah Knight, George McKnight, Ken Mogg, Aaron Smuts, Robert C. Solomon, and J. Telotte.» [Résumé]

  • Ouvrages sur les radios pirates

    Plusieurs ouvrages s’intéressent au phénomène des radios pirates.

  • Histoire et Littérature (faits vs. fiction)

    Plusieurs ouvrages sur la piraterie cherchent à distinguer les faits historiques des légendes.

  • J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan in and Out of Time: A Children’s Classic at 100

    «Celebrating 100 years of Peter Pan, this fourth volume in the Centennial Studies series explores the cultural contents of Barrie’s creation and the continuing impact of Peter Pan on children’s literature and popular culture today, especially focusing on the fluctuations of time and narrative strategies. This collection of essays on Peter Pan is separated into four parts. The first section is comprised of essays placing Barrie’s in its own time period, and tackles issues such as the relationship between Hook and Peter in terms of child hatred, the similarities between Peter and Oscar Wilde, Peter Pan’s position as an exemplar of the Cult of the Boy Child is challenged, and the influence of pirate lore and fairy lore are also examined. Part two features an essay on Derrida’s concept of the grapheme, and uses it to argue that Barrie is attempting to undermine racial stereotypes. The third section explores Peter Pan’s timelessness and timeliness in essays that examine the binary of print literacy and orality; Peter Pan’s modular structure and how it is ideally suited to video game narratives; the indeterminacy of gender that was common to Victorian audiences, but also threatening and progressive; Philip Pullman and J.K. Rowling, who publicly claim to dislike Peter Pan and the concept of never growing up, but who are nevertheless indebted to Barrie; and a Lacanian reading of Peter Pan arguing that Peter acts as “the maternal phallus” in his pre-Symbolic state. The final section looks at the various roles of the female in Peter Pan, whether against the backdrop of British colonialism or Victorian England. Students and enthusiasts of children’s literature will find their understanding of Peter Pan immensely broadened after reading this volume.» (Résumé)

  • Artificial Lives: The Humanoid Robot in Contemporary Culture

    «The theme of the humanoid robot has been entwined with media, literary and audiovisual imagery ever since the origins of the culture industry. In its various versions, it has shaped visions and more often fears fuelled by modernity and technological progress. The humanoid robot is both a reality that today is taking on material and concrete forms and an imaginary and fantastic construct that embodies meanings and sensibilities established in decades if not centuries of fictional representations. This volume seeks to offer different perspectives of analysis on the cultural discourses related to robots, as they emerge in contemporary representations in film, television, and videogames; to detechnologise this object of study, considering it in its dimension as a cultural construct, between fiction and reality, and rethinking the definition of the fundamental features of the idea of the human and the margins of its configurability.» [Quatrième de couverture]

  • Karel Čapek’s R.U.R. and the vision of artificial life

    «A new translation of Karel Capek’s play R.U.R . — which famously coined the term “robot” — and a collection of essays reflecting on the play’s legacy from scientists and scholars who work in artificial life and robotics. Karel Capek’s “R.U.R.” and the Vision of Artificial Life offers a new, highly faithful translation by Štepǹ Šimek of Czech novelist, playwright, and critic Karel Capek’s play R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots , as well as twenty essays from contemporary writers on the 1920 play. R.U.R. is perhaps best known for first coining the term “robot” (in Czech, robota means serfdom or arduous drudgery). The twenty essays in this new English edition, beautifully edited by Jitka Cejkov,̀ are selected from Robot 100 , an edited collection in Czech with perspectives from 100 contemporary voices that was published in 2020 to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the play. Capek’s robots were autonomous beings, but biological, not mechanical, made of chemically synthesized soft matter resembling living tissue, like the synthetic humans in Blade Runner, Westworld , or Ex Machina . The contributors to the collection — scientists and other scholars — explore the legacy of the play and its connections to the current state of research in artificial life, or ALife. Throughout the book, it is impossible to ignore Capek’s prescience, as his century-old science fiction play raises contemporary questions with respect to robotics, synthetic biology, technology, artificial life, and artificial intelligence, anticipating many of the formidable challenges we face today.» [Quatrième de couverture]

  • L’imaginaire machinique

    Il s’agit de la publication des actes du colloque éponyme qui a eu lieu de 23 à 25 avril à Lille.

  • Robots et intelligence artificielle

    Quelques ouvrages récents inscrivent l’intelligence artificielle dans le sillon de l’histoire du robot et de la créature artificielle.