My dissertation examines fantasy and identity across a variety of media, and I analyze how their various forms interact with historical contexts and help us understand narratives of race. Science fiction films act as a valuable testing ground for theories of identity, as the creation of alienating worlds reveals the play of alienation and identification at work in the recent history of race and representation. In Chapter 2, for example, I focus on John Sayles' 1984 film The Brother From Another Planet, where the main character?s status as both extraterrestrial and black man lends insight into the black citizen?s relationship to an alienating urban environment in the context of a Reagan-era retreat from federal government support for inner cities. In Chapter 3, I argue that avant-garde film forms a fascinating relationship to science fiction in its similar displacement of time, place and narrative