Androids, Humanoids, and Other Folklore Monsters: Science and Soul in Science Fiction Films

Per Schelde

ISBN 10: 0814779301 / ISBN 13: 9780814779309

Published by NYU Press, 1993

About this Item

A fine copy in fine dust-wrapper.

Seller Inventory # 000780

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Androids, Humanoids, and Other Folklore Monsters: Science and Soul in Science Fiction Films
• Publisher: NYU Press
• Publication Date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0814779301
• ISBN 13: 9780814779309
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

Unlike science fiction literature, science fiction film has until now been largely neglected as a genre worthy of study and scholarship. This book explores science fiction (sf) films as the modern incarnation of folklore, emblematic of the struggle between nature and culture - but with a new twist. Schelde explains how technology and outer space came to represent the modern wild. The new unknown came alive in the popular imagination with the embodiments of our fears of that unknown: androids, cyborgs, genetics, and artificial intelligence gone awry. Implicit in all of these is fear, an indictment of the power of science to invade our minds and bodies, replacing the individual soul with a mechanical, machine-made one. Focusing on his analysis on 65 popular films, from "Frankenstein" and "Metropolis" to "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", "The Terminator" and "Blade Runner", Shelde brings his command of traditional folklore to this study. He decodes their curious and often terrifying images as expressions of modern man's angst in the face of a rapidly advancing culture he cannot control. This book should be interesting to anyone who is concerned with popular culture, folklore, film studies or science fiction.

Review

"Religion seems to be everywhere and nowhere in contemporary social science theorizing. This collection of essays puts religion back where it has belonged since the beginnings of social theory: at the center of debate and, moreover, a debate grounded in concrete ethnography tempered by cogent reflection on the ethnographic process."-Thomas J. Csordas, President, Society for the Anthropology of Religion and author of "Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self"

"This bold and provocative book of essays pushes ethnography to a new frontier as seasoned social scientists of religion describe how their personal biographies intersect with their research. . . . These essays challenge us to rethink the ethnographic study of religion. Both field researchers and those who teach methods will find this book a gem."-Helen Rose Ebaugh, Former President, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and coeditor of "Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations"

"This is a timely book on the actual "doing" of ethnography, and how doing ethnography of religion demands specific attentiveness, not least to the transformations undergone by the observer herself." -"Journal of Religion",

"This is a rich collection in every sense of the word. It is rich in ideas, in examples, and in approaches. . . . Beautifully written and impeccably edited." -"Journal of Contemporary Religion",

"I would recommend this book to anyone contemplating the study of religion using interviews and/or participant observations."-"Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion",