Alien Chic: Posthumanism and the Other Within

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

Neil Badmington explores our relationship with aliens, inscribed in films such as The War of the Worlds, Mars Attacks!, Mission to Mars and Independence Day; and how thinkers such as Descartes, Barthes, Freud, Lyotard and Derrida have conceptualised what it means to be human (and post-human).

Alien Chic examines the the concept of posthumanism in an age when the lines between what is human and what is non-human are increasingly blurred by advances in science and technology, for example genetic cloning and engineering, and the development of AI and cyborgs.

Questioning whether our current embracing of all things 'alien' - in the form of extraterrestrial gadgets or abduction narratives, for instance - stems from a desire to reaffirm ourselves as 'human', this is an original and thought-provoking contribution to the study of posthumanism.

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Alien Chic: Posthumanism and the Other Within Review

Alien Chic, as a title, is rather `chic' itself, posthumanism and aliens being rather hot topics in the hipster academic (I know, I know, total paradox) circles. In fact, `trashy' pop-culture topics in general, examined through the lens of an often hyper-academic theory, seem to be more prevalent than more traditional academic work. It is far too easy to find hundreds of academic papers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer or X-files, and whatever those shows' merits may be, the excess of critical attention surely hearkens an almost morbid interest in pop artifacts by cultural critics who have finally been given free reign to write about whatever they want. Anyone who thinks that, to borrow a typically overwrought statement of Terry Eagleton's, `Jane Austen is better than Jeffery Archer,' is accused of all sorts of hideous crimes. Good old Marxist that he is, Terry roundly condemns this belief, and, obnoxiously reductive and nostalgic as he may be, Eagleton does have some good points. It does get tiresome reading sundry Lacanian film analyses of beer commercials and episodes of Angel. Even though said essays are not representative of cultural criticism as a discipline, they are hardly in short supply, and enough of them and one almost starts wishing for good old Beowulf and some high-handed cultural imperialism. Almost. In this reviewer's humble opinion, the saving grace of cultural theory is books like this one.

Badmington does indeed examine a great deal of pop-culture, along with Descartes, a wonderful passage from Baudelaire on the joys and travails of hashish use, choice examinations of Althusser, and some of the most wonderfully simple and applicable summaries and uses of Derrida I have ever read. Despite the `chic' title (actually a very insightful reference to Tom Wolfe's concept of `Radical Chic') the difference between this book and a lot of cultural criticism that has flourished recently is that it is not afraid to tackle large issues. It deals with what pop culture means and what that means for us. By framing the discussion around repeated reformulations of Descartes' famous `cogito ergo sum' Badmington makes a powerful case for the relevance of posthumanism. He shows the weaknesses of traditional humanism and its current manifestations in reflexive self-definition: I am not alien therefore I am. Using the vital concept of difference (and differance) he illustrates the very real dangers of reflexive self definition, bringing the argument from the sphere of pop-culture to the sphere of what it means to be human, or posthuman. Relevant, wittily written and thoroughly engaging, this is one of the most thought provoking books of cultural criticism I have read.

Also, it's pretty funny, and that's always a good thing.

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