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Of Body Snatchers and Cyberpunks Since its beginnings, science fiction has served as an intellectual playground where pressing issues such as scientific and technological progress, population growth, nuclear power, environmental protection, or genetic engineering have been projected onto different times and spaces in order to warn about inherent dangers, offer solutions, or to simply speculate Sonja Georgi and Kathleen Loock (eds.) about and experiment with the future. In the summer term of 2009, students from the University of Göttingen and the University of Siegen participated in two parallel courses entitled “Of Body Snatchers and Cyberpunks: American Science Fiction Film from the 1950s to the Present” and met for an undergraduate conference in Göttingen where they presented and discussed their research on American science fiction film together with Eric S. Rabkin, professor at the University of Of Body Snatchers and Cyberpunks Michigan (USA) and an international expert in the field. The result of this project is the present volume of twelve student essays that were first presented at the conference, and then selected and revised for publication. Considering science fiction film as an essential element of American popular culture, the essays analyze and discuss the films Invasion of Student Essays on American Science Fiction Film the Body Snatchers (Siegel, 1956), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968), Soylent Green (Fleischer, 1973), The Matrix (Wachowski, 1999), and Minority Report (Spielberg, 2002) against the background of social, political, cultural, and/or ecological developments in their contemporary U.S. societies. The introductory essay outlines the theoretical, methodological, and didactic considerations that informed the planning and teaching processes of the course format Göttinger Schriften zur Englischen Philologie and the conference. The collection also features an autobiographical essay by Eric S. Rabkin in which he reflects on his personal experiences and lifelong fascination with science fiction films. Band 5 2011 Sonja Georgi and Kathleen Loock (eds.) Of Body Snatchers and Cyberpunks and Snatchers Body Of (eds.) Loock Kathleen and Georgi Sonja ISBN: 978-3-941875-91-3 ISSN: 1868-3878 Universitätsdrucke Göttingen Universitätsdrucke Göttingen Sonja Georgi and Kathleen Loock (eds.) Of Body Snatchers and Cyberpunks This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License 3.0 “by-nd”, allowing you to download, distribute and print the document in a few copies for private or educational use, given that the document stays unchanged and the creator is mentioned. You are not allowed to sell copies of the free version. erschienen in der Reihe der Universitätsdrucke im Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2011 Sonja Georgi and Kathleen Loock (eds.) Of Body Snatchers and Cyberpunks Student Essays on American Science Fiction Film Göttinger Schriften zur Englischen Philologie, Band 5 Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2011 Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie; detaillierte bibliographische Daten sind im Internet über <http://dnb.ddb.de> abrufbar. Address of the Editors Kathleen Loock Georg-August-Universität Göttingen Seminar für Englische Philologie Käte-Hamburger-Weg 3 37073 Göttingen E-Mail: [email protected] Dr. des. Sonja Georgi Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz FB 05: Department of English and Linguistics/American Studies Staudinger Weg 9 55128 Mainz E-Mail: [email protected] This work is protected by German Intellectual Property Right Law. It is also available as an Open Access version through the publisher’s homepage and the Online Catalogue of the State and University Library of Goettingen (http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de). Users of the free online version are invited to read, download and distribute it. Users may also print a small number for educational or private use. However they may not sell print versions of the online book. Satz und Layout: Frauke Reitemeier Umschlaggestaltung: Franziska Lorenz Titelabbildung: © iStockphoto.com/benignocom © 2011 Universitätsverlag Göttingen http://univerlag.uni-goettingen.de ISBN: 978-3-941875-91-3 ISSN: 1868-3878 Contents Introduction Of Body Snatchers and Cyberpunks: Teaching American Science Fiction Film (SONJA GEORGI / KATHLEEN LOOCK) ..................................................................13 Part I: The Look and Sound of Science Fiction Film “There was a world once, you punk”: Visual Subversion in Fleischer’s Soylent Green (JÖRN PIONTEK) ...........................................................41 “Like Alice in Wonderland”: Special Effects in The Matrix (DENNIS EDELMANN).............................................................................51 “What are you doing, Dave?”: The Confrontation of Dave Bowman and HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (FABIAN GUMBRECHT)...........63 Part II: Social and Political Commentaries “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” as Social Reflection? The Success of the Sequence Among Young Adults of the Counterculture (NIKLAS FRANZEN) ...75 It Used to Be a Man’s World: Manhood and Masculinity in Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (MANFRED ALEXANDER MÜLLER)....87 “What keeps us safe also keeps us free”: State Control vs. Personal Liberty in Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report and the Present-Day United States (PHILIPP STÜCKRATH)........................................................................99 Religion in Soylent Green (MORITZ EMMELMANN).......................................................111 Part III: Themes and Motifs of Science Fiction Films The Doppelgänger Motif in Science Fiction Film (DENNIS KOGEL / IRIS SCHÄFER).....................................................................................................................125 “Can you see?”: The Importance of Vision and the Eye Motif in Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report (STEFANIE SCHWARZ).................................................143 Becky Driscoll as femme fatale? Elements of film noir in Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (SOLVEIG BURFEIND)................................................151 Part IV: (De)Constructing Bodies and Identities Human Monsters: The Function of the Horror Motif in Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Its Remakes (BENJAMIN RYAN ULONSKA) ....161 Why Does the One Only Exist in Cyberspace? Obsolescence of the Body, Construction of a Virtual Subject and the Question of Control in The Matrix (GINA ZIEBELL) .................................................................................173 Epilogue The Creature from Brooklyn: My Life and Science Fiction Film (ERIC S. RABKIN) ..............................................................................................187 List of Contributors ..........................................................................................................195 „Göttinger Schriften zur Englischen Philologie“: Zum Konzept der Reihe (FRAUKE REITEMEIER) ...........................................................................199 Acknowledgments The editors wish to acknowledge the financial support of the U.S. Consulate Gen- eral Hamburg and the committee for the allocation of tuition fees (Studienkom- mission der Philosophischen Fakultät Göttingen), and the Department of Linguis- tics, Literature and Media Science of the University of Siegen toward the organization of the joint undergraduate conference “Of Body Snatchers and Cy- berpunks: American Science Fiction Films from the 1950s to the Present” with students from both the University of Göttingen and the University of Siegen that took place in Göttingen from July 3 to July 5, 2009. Special thanks go to Daniel Stein and Rebecca Scorah for their help with the conference organization. For their valuable comments and suggestions regarding the introductory essay, we would also like to thank Carola Surkamp and Daniel Stein. We are further indebted to Prof. Eric S. Rabkin. Not only did he come all the way from Ann Arbor, Michigan (USA) to join us in Göttingen as an expert in the field of science fiction studies. He enriched the conference with his wonderful keynote lecture and his great wealth of knowledge. We are delighted that he con- tributed an original essay to the present volume. Needless to say, we thank all the students from Siegen and Göttingen who participated in the conference and made it a successful event. All students who eventually contributed to this volume de- serve our thanks for the enthusiasm and hard work they invested in this project. Introduction Sonja Georgi / Kathleen Loock Of Body Snatchers and Cyberpunks: Teaching American Science Fiction Film I In 2006, the German Association for American Studies (DGfA) held its annual conference at the University of Göttingen. The conference topic, “American Stud- ies as Media Studies,” paid tribute to the different turns that have (re)shaped the field of literary and cultural studies after the linguistic, historical, and cultural turns of the 1970s and 1980s.1 Throughout the past two decades, new theoretical and methodological approaches have emerged that take into account different con- temporary and historical mediations of (trans)national or cultural representations and have led to an expansion of American Studies as a discipline. In accordance with the overall topic, the conference program challenged the traditional hegem- ony of the printed word by including papers that focused on visual, audio-visual, and audio formats as
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