Invasion Narratives and their Counter-Narrative Forms

This project focuses on the transformative fictionalization of the phenomenon of invasion in realworld cultural and political history.  Invasion narratives encompass a variety of realist (future-war, colonial and postcolonial narratives) and fantastic invasion stories (depictions of invasions by extraterrestrials, vampires, animals, androids and zombies). The invasion narrative commences in the late nineteenth century, gradually diversifying into many different forms by the 1950s/early postmodernism. Of these many forms, the science-fiction invasion narrative in particular reflects and enacts processes of settlement, colonization, imperialism, and the struggles for territory, influence and Lebensraum that have been and still are key motivating forces in the shaping of the history of this planet. In addition, they reflect significant shifts in the conceptualization of human interactions with the environment, particularly multiple anxieties which reflect the human domination of the planet as apex predator. Moreover, as from the 1950s, anticipating postcolonial ideas, science fiction produced a variety of important counter-narrative forms which subversively questioned and undermined the processes of othering and stereotyping depicted in 'traditional' invasion narratives.

Publications:

• Hilary Duffield. "The Diachronic Analysis of the Anglophone Invasion Narrative and its Counter-Narrative Forms in Fiction and Film." Narrative: Special Issue on Diachronic Narratology. Eds. Monika Fludernik & Irma Taavitsainen. (In print).
• Hilary Duffield. "From Lost Worlds to Triffids: Fantastic Invasions and Interspecies Conflict in British Narrative Fiction, 1871 - 1952." Das Leben und die Seltsamen Abenteuer des Elmar Schenkel, aus Soest, Professor. Nicht von Ihm Selbst Verfasst. 1. Edition. Eds. Maria Fleischhack, Jürgen Ronthaler and Stefan Welz. Leipzig: Edition Hamouda, 2019. 239-245.
• Hilary Duffield. “Invasion Narratives and the Cold War in the 1950s American Science-Fiction Film.” Between Fear and Freedom: Cultural Representations of the Cold War. Ed. Kathleen Starck. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. 39-52.
• Hilary Dannenberg. “Invasion Narratives and the Cold War in the 1950s American Science-Fiction Film.” Between Fear and Freedom: Cultural Representations of the Cold War. Ed. Kathleen Starck. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. 39-52
• Hilary Dannenberg. “Interpreting the Aliens: Representations of American Society in Science-Fiction Movies of the 1950s.” Rebels without a Cause? Renegotiating the American 1950s. Eds. Ann Marie Fallon and Gerd Hurm. New York: Lang, 2007.