Arriving at "Arrival"

Send us a Message

Gillian saw Arrival at Broadway in Nottingham. Support your local independent cinema!

Arrival was adapted from Ted Chiang’s novella, “Story of Your Life," which appeared in his 2002 collection Stories of Your Life and Others (Tor Books). Support your local library or independent bookseller!

For more on runaway film production, see Camille Johnson-Yale’s ”’So-Called Runaway Film Production’: Countering Hollywood's Outsourcing Narrative in the Canadian Press” (paywall)

Some of our favourite pieces on Arrival are:

• Tijana Mamula’s “Denis Villeneuve, Film Theorist; or, Cinema’s Arrival in a Multilingual World” (paywall)
• John Engle’s “Of Hopis and Heptapods: The Return of Sapir-Whorf” (paywall)
• Brett J. Esaki’s “Ted Chiang’s Asian American Amusement at Alien Arrival” (open access)
• Bran Nicol’s “Humanities Fiction: Translation and ‘Transplanetarity’ in Ted Chiang’s ‘The Story of Your Life’ and Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival” (open access)
• and the incomparable late Maureen Kincaid Speller’s “‘Recordings Alone Aren’t Sufficient—Speaking Arrival” (open access)

For a little more detail on how Arabic is written and correctly rendered on a page (or screen!), see this short primer from Northwestern University’s MENA Languages Program. 

On the passage of the Rwanda Bill:

• Zalfa quoted from Refugee Action’s article, “Rwanda Bill: We are No Longer a Safe Haven, Here’s What Everyone Needs to Know,” Refugee Action, 24 April 2024. 
• Read the Refugee and Asylum Seeker Voice (RAS Voice) response to the passage of the Safety of Rwanda Act. 
• A(n incomplete) list of things you can do to support refugees, if you are safely and securely able to do so.
• In Leicester, check out One Roof Leicester. 
• In Nottingham, check out Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Refugee Forum.

The material in this podcast is for informational purposes only. The personal views expressed by the hosts and their guests on the Borders Talk podcast do not constitute an endorsement from associated organisations.

Thanks to the University of Leicester's School of Arts, Media and Communication for use of recording equipment; to India Downton for her invaluable expertise; and to the Foundation for Canadian Studies in the UK and the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham for financial support.

Music: “Corrupted” by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com