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These 17 original essays, written for the sixth Eaton Conference on Fantasy and Science Fiction, explore the uses, origins, and forms of future fiction. The contributors are George E. Slusser, Paul Alkon, Marie-Helene Huet, Howard V. Hendrix, Bradford Lyau, Gregory Benford, Jose Manuel Mota, Frederik Pohl, George Hay, Colin Greenland, John Huntington, Elizabeth Maslen, W. M. S. and Claire Russell, T. A. Shippey, Kenneth V. Bailey, Gary Kern, and Frank McConnell.The essays address the question Do we call up images of future societies in order to prepare for them, or to forestall their ever coming into existence? "
How and when does there come to be an anthropology of the alien? This set of essays, written for the eighth J. Lloyd Eaton Conference on Fantasy and Science Fiction, is concerned with the significance of that question. [Anthropology] is the science that must designate the alien if it is to redefine a place for itself in the universe, according to the Introduction.The idea of the alien is not new. In the Renaissance, Montaigne s purpose in describing an alien encounter was excorporationmankind was the savage because the artificial devices of nature controlled him. Shakespeare s version of the alien encounter was incorporation; his character of Caliban is brought to the artificial, political world of man and incorporated into the body politic The essays in this volume . . . show, in their general orientation, that the tribe ofShakespeare still, in literary studies at least, outnumbers that of Montaigne. These essays show the interrelation of the excorporating possibilities to the internal soundings of the alien encounter within the human mind and form.This book is divided into three parts: Searchings: The Quest for the Alien includes The Aliens in Our Mind, by Larry Niven; Effing the Ineffable, by Gregory Benford; Border Patrols, by Michael Beehler; Alien Aliens, by Pascal Ducommun; and Metamorphoses of the Dragon, by George E. Slusser. Sightings: The Aliens among Us includes Discriminating among Friends, by John Huntington; Sex, Superman, Sociobiology, by Joseph D. Miller; Cowboys and Telepaths, by Eric S. Rabkin; Robots, by Noel Perrin; Aliens in the Supermarket, by George R. Guffey; and Aliens R U.S., by Zoe Sofia. Soundings: Man as the Alien includes H. G. Wells Familiar Aliens, by John R. Reed; Inspiration and Possession, by Clayton Koelb; Cybernauts in Cyberspace, by David Porush; The Human Alien, by Leighton Brett Cooke; From Astarte to Barbie, by Frank McConnell; and An Indication of Monsters; by Colin Greenland."
These thirteen original essays were written specifically for the Third J. Lloyd Eaton Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, held February 2122, 1981, at the University of California, Riverside.Leslie Fiedler sets the tone of this volume by fixing a basic set of coordinatesthat of elitist and popular standards.Those replying to his charge are: Eric S. Rabkin, Professor of English at the University of Michigan and author of "The Fantastic" "in Literature, " The Descent of Fantasy; Gerald Prince, Professor of French at the University of Pennsylvania, How New is New?; Mark Rose, Professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara, author of "Alien Encounters, " Jules Verne: Journey to the Center of Science Fiction; Joseph Lenz, who teaches English Literature at the University of Michigan, Manifest Destiny: Science Fiction Epic and Classical Forms; Michelle Masse, of the English Department at the George Mason University, All you have to do is know what you want: Individual Expectations in "Triton";" "Gary K. Wolfe, who teaches English at Roosevelt University, author of "The Known and the Unknown, " Autoplastic and Alloplastic Adaptations in Science Fiction: Waldo and Desertion; Robert Hunt, an editor with Glencoe Press, Science Fiction for the Age of Inflation: Reading "Atlas Shrugged "in the 1980s; George R. Guffey, Professor of English at UCLA, "Fahrenheit ""451 "and the Cubby-Hole Editors of Ballantine Books; H. Bruce Franklin, Professor of English and American Literature at Rutgers University at Newark, America as Science Fiction: 1939; Sandra M. Gilbert, Professor of English at the University of California at Davis, and coauthor with Susan Gubar of "Madwoman in the Attic, " Rider Haggard s Heart of Darkness; the aforementioned Susan Gubar, Professor of English at Indiana University, "She "in "Her/and: "Feminism as Fantasy; and George R. Slusser, Curator of the Eaton Collection, Death and the Mirror: Existential Fantasy. "