Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #853487 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 242 pages

Synopsis
Aliens have invaded the United States. No longer confined to science fiction and tabloids, aliens appear in the "New York Times", "Washington Post" and "Wall Street Journal", at sweet counters (in chocolate-covered flying saucers and Martian melon-flavoured lollipops) and on Internet web sites. Aliens are at the centre of a faculty battle at Harvard. They have been used to market AT&T, cellular phones, Milky Way chocolate bars, Kodak film, Diet Coke, skateboard accessories and abduction insurance. A Gallup poll reports that 27 percent of Americans believe space aliens have visited Earth. A "Time"/CNN poll finds 80 percent of its respondents believe the US government is covering up knowledge of the existence of aliens. In a provocative analysis of public culture and popular concerns, Jodi Dean examines how serious UFO-logists and their pop-culture counterparts tap into fears, phobias and conspiracy theories with a deep past and a vivid present in American society. What does the widespread American belief in extraterrestrials say about the public sphere? How common are our assumptions about what is real? Is there any such thing as "common" sense?

Aliens, the author asserts, provide cultural icons through which to access the new conditions of democratic politics at the millennium. Because of the technological complexity of our age, political choices and decisions have become virtually meaningless, practically impossible. How do we judge what is real, believable, trustworthy or authoritative? When the truth is out there, but we can trust no-one, Dean argues, paranoia is indeed the most sensible response.

From the Publisher
For release: April 1998

"Do words like 'truth' and 'authority' mean anything when no one agrees how, much less whom, to believe? Dean compellingly traces our national loss of faith in formerly attractive notions like outer space and the 'Final Frontier...' No reader will leave this intriguing book without pondering the unavoidable question(s) she raises..."
-- Publishers Weekly

Aliens have invaded the United States. No longer confined to science fiction and tabloids, aliens appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, at candy counters (in chocolate-covered flying saucers and Martian melon-flavored lollipops), and on Internet web sites. Aliens are at the center of a faculty battle at Harvard. They have been used to market AT&T cellular phones, Milky Way candy bars, Kodak film, Diet Coke, Stove-Top Stuffing, skateboard accessories, and abduction insurance. A Gallup poll reports that 27 percent of Americans believe space aliens have visited Earth. A Time/CNN poll finds 80 percent of its respondents believe the US government is covering up knowledge of the existence of aliens.

In ALIENS IN AMERICA: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace (Cornell University Press; April 1998), a provocative analysis of public culture and popular concerns, Jodi Dean examines how serious UFO-logists and their pop-culture counterparts tap into fears, phobias, and conspiracy theories that have a deep past and a vivid present in American society. What does the widespread American belief in extraterrestrials say about the public sphere? How common are our assumptions about what is real? Is there any such thing as "common" sense?

Aliens, Dean shows, provide cultural icons through which to access the new conditions of democratic politics at the millennium. The technological complexity of our age has created a situation in which political choices and decisions have become virtually meaningless, practically impossible. How do we judge what is real, believable, trustworthy, or authoritative? When the truth is out there, but we can trust no one, Dean argues, paranoia is indeed a sensible response.

JODI DEAN is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She is author of Solidarity of Strangers: Feminism after Identity Politics.

Customer Reviews

Possibly the worst book I've read
Filled with bizarre generalizations, and the most pretentious phraseology I've seen in years, this book has the dubious honor of spotlighting all that has gone wrong in academic research in this country in the last 20 years. Jodi Dean shows an appalling lack of understanding of the workings of culture, history, politics, or even writing style. It seems she should have spent more time with Turabian's Manual for Writers, than surfing the web or watching Sienfeld.

a scam?
This book purports to study the relation betwen epistemology and technology, but only manages to stutter a few inanities about postmodern skepticism and the information age. Neither well researched nor well written, Aliens in America fails to illustrate the phenomena in question in ways that are accessible to many readers. Students will doubtless find this book impenetrable. Some academics who were fooled by Sokal's famous hoax in the journal Social Text will probably be fooled again here.

Is this secretly a satire on modern American scholarship????
Was this book written on April Fool's Day? I mean, it is such a perfect example of bad scholarship, it can't have been done seriously.

Its dubious achievements include:

..Prose more pretentious than Talcott Parsons'. ..Page after page of footnotes in a book that was largely produced by watching TV and hanging around the internet. ..An almost 200 page discussion of a scientific and social phenomenon in which the author never bothers to take a stand on whether said phenomenon even exists.

It is especially this last point which proves that this work is to scholarship what the gooney bird is to avifauna. The gooney, you will recall, is the mythical bird that flies in smaller and smaller circles until it disappears up its own . . . Well, you get the idea.

In short, if you are one of those Americans who love to argue endlessly about subjects without any factual information whatsoever, you will love this book. If, however, you worry about this neo-dark age we seem to have entered wherein cults flourish to the death, people demonize their own elected government, angels and satan are omni-present and your neighbors insist that the grocery clerk is surely an alien, this work won't make you rest any easier.

Ah, but maybe, just maybe, this book was written tongue in cheek, if so, boy is it a hoot! In that light, some parts are even persuasive, like that bit about John Tesh being an alien . . .