July 26, 2015

Slice of PIE: Immigrant Alien, Emigrant Monster


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Using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in London this past August, I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. The link is provided below…

Crossing Boundaries: Histories of International SF/F for Children: Is there a ‘shared’ understanding of the fantastic across cultures? How have F&SF narratives for young readers evolved in different countries and storytelling traditions? What kinds of stories succeed or fail in crossing national borders and why? How are these transnational stories from ‘Other’ places received and read in their new contexts? What are some affinities and tensions between these different ‘imagined communities’?...international traditions of F&SF for young readers and the relationship between the local, the national and the global in the world of children’s literature. Drawing upon the range of the panelists’ national and transnational experiences, we will explore issues around the intersections between regional, national and international literatures and the representation of diversity, identity and the Other in fantastic texts for young people.”

I think it would be a good idea to start with three definitions, based in part on the LonCon blurb and my essay title.

Immigrant: a person who comes to live...

Emigrant: a person who leaves a country...

Culture: something new, and useful that does not exist as a physical object, and is expressed in the behavior of a group of people...

So – aliens who come to live on Earth (or invade it, or get something from a culture); monsters who go to live in different cultures (or eat them, drink their blood, or terrorize a different culture) all will be considered here. As well, I’ll poke around at monsters who immigrate to new cultures and aliens who come to live.

As I don’t know any other cultures, I can only comment about this one we live in.

Let’s start with monsters: “there’s a whole world of spine tingling tales out there, stories of ghouls and ghosts from all corners of the Earth, which’ll blow the Mary Celeste out of the water and make the Enfield poltergeist look like a mere public nuisance.” Swedish ghost trains, Maori dead chiefs in boats, Japanese samurai bewitched by a dead girl, horned ghosts of a British forest, haunted North Dakota libraries, ghostly German hitchhikers, Polish ghost soldiers, Brazilian weeping ghost woman, and a Korean ghost woman with a horrible face...add to this, of course, Egyptian mummies, evil Arabian genies, Phantoms of the opera, Nepali abominable snow monsters, Transylvanian vampires, Irish and Xhosa sea monsters, along with Godzilla  immigrating from Tokyo to Los Angeles, and I think the answer is pretty clear: yes, scary things have no trouble immigrating across cultures. The fact that all Humans die and that (it appears) most Human believe that there is more to a Human than meat that simply stops being a Human eventually contributes to this concept and monster and ghost stories for children abound.

Aliens? Recorded in the ancient writings of Hebrew culture for example, Ezekiel 1:4 “As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud, with brightness around it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were gleaming metal. And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures,” as well as the meticulously researched and eminent work of skilled scientists like Erich von Däniken and his aliens who were the basis of not only all Judeo-Christian God stories, but also the various and sundry gods of Inca, Aztec, Mayan, Hopi, and quite literally all Deity stories Humans have ever told or written down. Whew! And here I thought God was a spirit! Silly me! China is building a new radio antennae to search for alien life as well...

So – do aliens and monsters appear to be cross-cultural phenomenon? I think the answer is clearly, “Yes!”

What do you think?



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