Narrative cinemas genres of science fiction and horror have persistently imagined or foreshadowed dystopian visions of the future. As importantly, these immensely popular and commercially successful films have coded contemporary fears and fascinations about racial, gendered and social difference into outer space aliens, robots, cyborgs, vampires, zombies and other diverse monsters. Ed Guerrero, professor of Cinema and of Africana Studies at New York University, considers how, when our cinematic imaginations merge with the real time 6 oclock news, we face an increasingly darkening event horizon, where science is no longer a tool predicting and celebrating our endless material progress, but more a diagnostic instrument forecasting our eminent, planetary foreclosure. From the sci-fi movies of the 50s, like The Day the Earth Stood Still, to contemporary films like Blade Runner, Fight Club, and I Am Legend; dystopian worlds and the creatures of difference that inhabit them, have much to say about our future, and perhaps, how we can fix it.
Ed Guerrero
Horror, Difference and Dystopia
February 19, 2008
Dana Commons, second floor lounge, Clark University
RT: 114 minutes
Sponsored by:
Higgins School of Humanities
