Book Review - A Phenomenology of the Alien: Encounters with the Weird and Inscrutable Other by Aaron B. Daniels

Daniels, Aaron B., ed. A Phenomenology of the Alien: Encounters with the Weird and Inscrutable Other. Routledge, 2025. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003519102.

Book review by Gabriel Mckee

Emerging from the “Alien Salon” convened as part of the Psychology and the Other conference hosted by Boston College in 2021, A Phenomenology of the Alien is an intriguing, if somewhat perplexing, volume. Nearly half of the book’s page count is dedicated to the editor’s introduction, “The Abcanny: Encounters With the Inscrutably Alien,” which applies China Miéville’s concept of the abcanny—which both borrows and distinguishes itself from Sigmund Freud and Martin Heidegger’s distinct terms uncanny and Julia Kristeva’s abject—to a variety of films and works of literature. In this expansive introduction Daniels, a Teaching Professor in the Psychology Department of Northeastern University with a strong grounding in philosophy and literary theory, offers a lively unpacking of Miéville’s term and its implications in literature, film, and psychology. The chapter does not seek to make an argument as to, in his own words, “describe the qualities of an approach to what is unknown and possibly unknowable” (6). Later he suggests that his goal is to broaden the use of the term, which “has slowly begun to show up in literary criticism but has not yet made its way into philosophical or psychological discourse” (39). Throughout the chapter, Daniels lays out a variety of filmic examples, from Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris through Alex Garland’s Annihilation, and in the writing of Jeff Van Der Meer and Thomas Ligotti.

The remainder of the volume consists of shorter explorations of philosophical, psychological, and literary conceptions of the alien other in specific areas of culture, from theology to ufology to weird fiction. This structure would tend to imply that the shorter chapters constitute specific applications of the theories laid out in depth in the introduction—tendrils, as it were, emerging from the central mass of the convener’s theory. Frustratingly, however, this does not seem to be the case. Miéville’s term “abcanny,” for example, is the core of Daniels’ introductory essay, but it appears only once more in the remainder of the book. Given this, it is less than entirely clear in what sense it is an introduction to what follows, rather than merely a particularly long contribution by the volume’s editor; removing the word “Introduction” would clarify its role in all senses except its disproportionate extent. The second chapter, Emily McAvan’s “The Divinalien: On Divine Alterity,” offers the closest connection with this introduction, paralleling Daniels’ emphasis on Kristeva and Miéville with theological ideas of the alien other drawn from Jacques Derrida and Rudolph Otto and their reflections in science fiction. And Anna Bugajska’s exploration of “smart” technology and its psychological implications does perhaps the best job of embodying the volume's title, providing a true attempt at a phenomenology of nonhuman intelligence. The most solid throughline connecting the book’s seven chapters is a connection between the psychological concept of the other and literature, broadly defined. But as the volume progresses, a sense of disconnect between the individual chapters grows. As with the treatment of Daniels’ contribution as an “introduction,” the scope of the volume might have been clarified by pluralizing its title: rather than a phenomenology of the alien, the volume instead presents multiple phenomenologies of it.

A similar problem afflicts the second-longest chapter in the volume, Scott R. Scribner and Gregory J. Wheeler’s “The Alien Other: Cosmology and Social Transmission of UFO Narratives.” A long series of opening subsections offers potted history of cultural and scientific ideas about the stars, planets, and outer space, which the authors fail to meaningfully connect to the chapter’s core and conclusions concerning narratives concerning unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and alien abduction narratives (AANs) and how these stories circulate in culture. The strongest portion of this chapter is its excellent appendix, which provides a theory of social transmission of narratives about unusual events like UFO sightings. I found myself wishing this appendix had been more thoroughly integrated into the preceding pages.

The remaining chapters focus on the work of particular authors of weird and fantastic fiction: Dorothy Chang on Mervyn Peake, Jason Marc Harris on Thomas Ligotti, and Michael Waldon on Brian Evenson. These brief chapters offer compelling, interdisciplinary approaches to the works analyzed. Waldon’s chapter is particularly unique: a clinical therapist, he reads Evenson’s work in parallel with a patient’s case history, finding common ground via Jean Laplanche’s theory of the other. The others provide potential inroads for either researchers of the authors under discussion, or to spur classroom discussion of the works analyzed.

Despite the conceptual diffusion of its contents, A Phenomenology of the Alien remains an absorbing and provocative collection. The interdisciplinary range of its contents is admirable: the contributors include specialists in literary theory, psychology, religion, and folklore. The individual contributions are strong, and the collection is weakened primarily by the need for greater connective tissue between them. As the culmination of a salon, rather than a more traditional academic conference proper, its nonsystematic approach may be by design. Given this approach, its usefulness will primarily be to the researcher rather than the teacher. Given the range of conceptualizations of the “alien” in different contexts and settings on display in the collection, those studying any area of culture to which that term may be applied are sure to find something of interest within its pages.

Byline:

Gabriel Mckee is a librarian at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World and a member of NEPCA's Executive Council whose research focuses on science fiction and paranormal subcultures. Their most recent book is The Saucerian: UFOs, Men in Black, and the Unbelievable Life of Gray Barker (MIT Press). 

Daniels, Aaron B., ed. A Phenomenology of the Alien: Encounters with the Weird and Inscrutable Other. Routledge, 2025. ISBN 9781032856292 (hardcover), 9781032856278 (paperback), 9781003519102 (ebook). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003519102.