Taken: Constructions of 'race,' 'biology' and colonialism informing the alien abduction narrative in the United States

This study seeks to interrogate, explore and unmask the foundational features of the cultural discursive narrative and product that is popularly called the "alien abduction" in American culture. Alien abduction narratives are understood and will be presented as powerful and dramatic narrative performances that embody, enfold and deploy deeply rooted assumptions held by European/Anglo-American cultures describing race/biology, pain/reason and the status of the embodied human as well as the economic/political institutions that have emerged from these constructions. The present day alien abduction narratives will be historically linked to earlier accounts of alien invasion, contact and possible capture: i.e. Indian captivity accounts, and the literary/cinematic, American performances of Horror and Science Fiction. Accounts taken from both Euro-American and African-American abductees will then be analyzed with an eye to these historical linkages. Finally, a literary analysis of 'aliens,' 'alienation,' and the 'racial other,' will further illuminate and clarify the hegemonic constructions of race, biology and colonialism found in the generic alien abduction narrative in the United States.