The research group Critical Inquiry hosts 'Green Screens: Xenoecologies', a series of screenings and discussions on ecology, environment and cinema, taking a closer look at imaginaries of ecologies from beyond Earth’s ecosystems. For this first screening in the Xenoecologies series on Tuesday 25th April, we will be watching Starship Trooper (1997), directed by Paul Verhoeven.

Organised by Callum Copley, this programme of three screenings will explore the encounter between humans and alien Others and attempt to understand how cinematic depictions of these events betray deeper Western anxieties of “reverse colonisation”, contamination and replacement, to name a few. How have we perceived aliens and what imagined threat they pose? What fears about humanity’s own actions and the current state of Earth do we project onto these external, speculative lifeforms? During the series, we will view the selected films and, after, for those who wish to stick around, discuss their explicit ecological themes and subtexts.

For this first screening in the Xenoecologies series on Tuesday 25th April, we will be watching Starship Trooper (1997), directed by Paul Verhoeven. This science fiction cult classic (often overlooked as just another 90's Hollywood action movie) actually offers some interesting perspective with which to explore Western anxieties of reverse colonisation, through both its explicit satirical segments and a deeper reading of the movie as a text. So please, come along, watch a film and for those who feel like it — stick around for a beer and a and a chat afterwards.