Friday, February 26, 2016
Xenophobia And Alien Planets?
As you viewed the Alien Planet Projects created by your peers, what did
you notice? How do these projects help us delve into the concept of
xenophobia? Please comment, share, argue, and critique the trends or
ideas that you noticed. Please complete this blog response by Monday, February 29th at 2:30p.m..
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I noticed that a lot of the animals that were drawn or created resembled animals that we already knew. I think that many humans do this without knowing it. This is a form of xenophobia because we are scared to think of things outside our comfort zone. I really liked one of the projects that had labels for the levels of danger each animal was. They had labeled each animal on their planet either Mild, Neutral, Dangerous or Avoid. This I thought was helpful and gave a wide variety to their planet.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was looking at all of the different projects I noticed many unique alien life forms. There was also a lot of good back lore and history about the planets, how they came to be and how the life forms came to be. This ties into xenophobia because people came up with some really crazy things, but I'm sure none of them would actually hope that they existed. Nobody wants to live near a crazy wild alien beast.
ReplyDeleteAs I walked around the classroom I noticed that most of my peers ideas were planets without an atmosphere that could support humans, nor were there any ideas of humans settling on those planets. This relates to xenophobia in a sense that humans are maybe resented in the universe or of course maybe not even known.
ReplyDeleteI noticed how different some of the aliens looked. Some looked tall and others had the ability to live in water. The other thing I noticed was that some of the planets had a very warm atmosphere. They also had very different names, some of which had numbers in them. Others looked like they were in a different language.
ReplyDeleteI noticed many people had human-like creatures, and most of the stars revolved around different stars. This connects with the theme of xenophobia, because many of the cultures on these planets were very violent, and many creatures ate each other. My peers had some creatures who were scared of others, which exhibited how some creatures feel about other creatures. I also noticed many people had planets similar to Earth in temperature and atmosphere, but had completely different average temperatures and density. I thought all of these projects displayed xenophobia because they used that xenophobia theme to guid them in creating the culture and creatures.
ReplyDeleteIn these projects I noticed that many of the planets resembled earth and had many earth like creatures on them. I think this illustrates xenophobia because we can imagine something we have never seen and I bet if we ever saw anything like that we would be terrified of it.
ReplyDeleteI noticed a lot of the planets were Earth-like while there were some that were very different and wouldn't be able to sustain human life. The creatures that people created were very different and strange. I think these projects represent some form of xenophobia in the way the aliens are portrayed. My first reaction to a lot of them was not always positive. I think this shows that even with first glances at a different creature we create judgments without knowing more about them. Something that is different from us usually means danger. We fear the unknown and I think these projects add a greater meaning to this by providing examples of alien life forms that may not be common or excepted by us.
ReplyDeleteIn these projects I noticed that many of the planets resembled earth and had many earth like creatures on them. I think this illustrates xenophobia because we can imagine something we have never seen and I bet if we ever saw anything like that we would be terrified of it.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of creative ways my peers created their planets, and some have stars they orbit around, others have supernovas, or no orbit at all. Another interesting thing I noticed was not only are the creatures on these planets so vastly different, but most get along just fine with one another. They seem to accept each other just fine, and don't have many--if any at all--prejudices against one another. On-planet they have no problems with their vast differences, so I'd be interested to find out how they react to creatures from different planets or galaxies.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLooking at everybody's planets, I realized that a lot of people's creatures were crazy, amazing creatures that nobody could ever perceive of in real life. These creatures sound fun in our imaginations, but in actuality people would be horrified of creatures such as the ones people came up with, and this relates to xenophobia because people think that the unknown is cool but in actuality nobody would want to see crazy, alien life forms.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Alien Planet Projects that I viewed I noticed some common themes. One of these was that in all of the planets, human were welcomed by the aliens, and the humans were welcoming of them. This is very much so non-xenophobic, and also might show the views of the authors of the projects as well. However, I think this to be somewhat unrealistic in nature. Some projects discussed hostile aliens, predators, and warring races. Many of these do not seem like they would be very welcoming of humans. Also, I believe humans to be, to some degree, xenophobic, and also a race that would likely set sights on conquering any planet they encounter, and likely not peacefully. Nonetheless, all of the projects I viewed were creative and highly intriguing.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I liked when I was looking at the projects was that there was a lot of creativity going into it and it was interesting to look at and read about. I also noticed that there were many life forms that were scary looking, and I think it demonstrates just how much we humans are afraid of by creating these things that are scary and foreign to us. Xenophobia is constantly in human thoughts even if we don't know it, and it shows in these projects with the danger level to humans and the terrifying appearances.
ReplyDeleteMany of the different alien cultures were often similar to our own and emphasized the aliens more while others more emphasized the planet and solar system. The presentations I saw were mostly didn't involve xenophobia but instead an idea of pacifism.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find interesting (I do understand you told us not too) is that none of the planets seemed like a fun place to live. Every planet I looked at had a being that wanted to kill us. Also we based many of the animals we made on things/animals that are on planet earth.
ReplyDeleteOne of the slides I like the most was Olivia Francis'. It was interesting it was like she made a story unlike mine where I just had information on a slide show. I also noticed some who had no info on some animals. Also while reading other the idea cam to my head to just do earth but from a aliens perspective. That would be interesting and kinda funny. The xenophobia I saw in this project was that the intelligent species on other planets would always attack us. What made my classmates deiced that the intelligent species kill outsiders? I think it was because us humans are xenophobic, and we naturally put that into the intelligent species in our own projects.
All the presentations had creatures that either resembled a species on Earth or was a combination of multiple species. Also, all the planets looked very interesting from space. All the presentations were organized, but I especially liked the one that was an astronaut's journal. This project helps us understand xenophobia because all the species were foreign and strange and each one was labelled as either friendly or dangerous. If I saw any of these species in real life, I would run.
ReplyDeleteMany of the presentations in class had creatures that resembled much of animals from Earth of a mix between animals here on Earth. Each Planet did have some kinda of creature that resented us and wanted to kill "humans." This project connects with xenophobia because the plants, creatures and planets are all foreign and if your visited by someone from other planet or on your home planet. Its how well you can accept different kinds of people without letting the fear of the unknown bother you.
ReplyDeleteI was not there to view my other classmates' projects, but I do know that our creation of aliens were not supposed to be friendly. Our aliens were supposed to be scary to use its features as self defense and/or to hunt. If our creatures were to land on planet earth people would fear them and run for their lives.
ReplyDeleteI saw in one project that the animals and other life forms resembled too much of the animals and other life forms on earth. In a sense it was creative but in my opinion it resembled too much to life forms on earth. Another one that I saw was actually pretty creative. One life form goes beyond a physical form and had some interesting/creative names. I liked this one because it went outside the physical realm and was creative in the sense that the person decided to go outside the physical realm instead of staying inside the small realm of what we can see.
ReplyDeleteThis project was a good reflection on how the human mind works. Some projects were very close to home, while others resembled distant worlds with strange creatures. Even when people were viewing these imagined world, their reaction to some of the creatures was biased. That was just a picture, what would have happened if that had been an intelligent creature, things would be very different. The project summarized the human mind, being different, and yet almost being the same.
ReplyDeleteSince I was absent that day, I didn't get a chance to look at anyone's project but, from reading through the comments, I can concur that there were a lot of projects with an amazing back story and creative like-animals. I also notice that a lot of projects had similar like-things from Earth. I think what this says about xenophobia is that since the class created a new planet, maybe that is what they are afraid of. A lot of the planets couldn't support human life and I think that contributes to xenophobia.
ReplyDeleteI was not there on Friday to view the other projects but on the other days I was there i saw other people creating their planets and I saw some aliens that had multiple limbs and eyes and they were more of friendly looking creatures then frightening. Their was also a lot of earth-like planets.
ReplyDeleteUpon reflection of the alien planet activity, I have found that the majority of the creatures my classmates and I created are very similar to earthling creatures. I think that this is an interesting commentary on our inherent xenophobia. I think that even when we stretch ourselves to try, we have trouble conceiving of anything that is unlike an earthly being.
ReplyDelete"Science fiction is what you find on the shelves in the library marked science fiction." This is the quote that I agree with most because I'm not big onto reading into things. Im dont really like to look at the deeper meaning of things because i think that there can be an important meaning right on the surface. A lot of time if you try to look at the "deeper meaning" you will miss the idea thats right in front of you.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is cool that the planets are not all the same and they all have there special features. and also that they are all different in there animals and the plants , because i wish there was a world that we could go somewhere new and only see new things.
ReplyDelete