Intimate Alien : The Hidden Story of the UFO

David J Halperin

ISBN 10: 1503607089 / ISBN 13: 9781503607088

Edité par Stanford University Press Mär 2020, 2020

A propos de cet article

Neuware - 'UFOs became part of our cultural landscape in 1947, and they've been with us ever since. Debunked innumerable times, they refuse to go away. Made the subject of great expectations by their believers, they invariably disappoint. They've been called a myth, both in disparagement and, more properly, in appreciation of their power and significance. This book argues that they are actually a mythology, as gripping and profound as the great mythologies of antiquity to which they're linked. The question it asks about them is not, 'What are they ' nor 'Where do they come from ' but 'What do they mean ' Halperin begins his exploration with his own longish teenage foray into the UFOs that he began to believe in as his mother lay dying of cancer. Despite the fact that he was only a high school student, Halperin joined and then became the director of 'New Jersey Association on Aerial Phenomena' (NJAAP), an organization of amateur observers with members across the States. He goes on to revisit a range of famous cases of UFO sightings and abductions while introducing his own approach, which is informed by the study of religion, folklore, and Jungian psychology. Ultimately arguing for UFOs as evidence of the inner trauma of individuals as well as entire societies, he posits that the rise of the UFO in post-World War II America coincides with that moment in the nuclear age when we first became capable of imagining our death as a species'--.

N° de réf. du vendeur 9781503607088

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Intimate Alien : The Hidden Story of the UFO
• Éditeur: Stanford University Press Mär 2020
• Date de parution: 2020
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 1503607089
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9781503607088
• Reliure: Buch
• État de l'article: Neu
• Dimensions: 232 L x 158 H x 26 P (en millimètres) 232 millimètres de largeur par 158 millimètres de hauteur par 26 millimètres de profondeur
• Poids: 628 grammes

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

A voyage of exploration to the outer reaches of our inner lives.

UFOs are a myth, says David J. Halperin-but myths are real. The power and fascination of the UFO has nothing to do with space travel or life on other planets. It's about us, our longings and terrors, and especially the greatest terror of all: the end of our existence. This is a book about UFOs that goes beyond believing in them or debunking them and to a fresh understanding of what they tell us about ourselves as individuals, as a culture, and as a species.

In the 1960s, Halperin was a teenage UFOlogist, convinced that flying saucers were real and that it was his life's mission to solve their mystery. He would become a professor of religious studies, with traditions of heavenly journeys his specialty. With Intimate Alien, he looks back to explore what UFOs once meant to him as a boy growing up in a home haunted by death and what they still mean for millions, believers and deniers alike.

From the prehistoric Balkans to the deserts of New Mexico, from the biblical visions of Ezekiel to modern abduction encounters, Intimate Alien traces the hidden story of the UFO. It's a human story from beginning to end, no less mysterious and fantastic for its earthliness. A collective cultural dream, UFOs transport us to the outer limits of that most alien yet intimate frontier, our own inner space.

À propos de l?auteur

David J. Halperin taught Jewish studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, until his retirement in 2000. He has published five nonfiction books on Jewish mysticism and messianism, as well as the coming-of-age novel Journal of a UFO Investigator: A Novel (2011). He blogs about UFOs, religion, and related subjects at www.davidhalperin.net.