The Legacy of The X-Files

James Fenwick is a senior lecturer in the Department of Media Arts and Communication at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. He is the author of Stanley Kubrick Produces (2020), editor of Understanding Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey: Representation and Interpretation (2018), and co-editor of Shadow Cinema: The Historical and Production Contexts of Unmade Films (2020). Diane A. Rodgers is a senior lecturer in Department of Media Arts and Communication at Sheffield Hallam University, UK and co-founder of the Centre for Contemporary Legend. Her PhD examines the communication of folklore in media and she is the author of chapters on television in Folk Horror Revival: Urban Wyrd (2019) and Nation and Fascination (2021).

List of Contributors

Introduction: A Critical Reflection on Thirty Years of The X-Files
James Fenwick and Diane Rodgers (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)

Part I: Cultural Legacies: Landscape, Environment, and Technology
1. Space and Location in The X-Files
Matt Melia (Kingston University, UK)
2. ‘Mulder, it’s me’: Intimacy, Invasion and Mobile Phones
Victoria Scrimer (University of Mary Washington, USA) and Nicholas Stanton (University of Denver, USA)
3. Artificial Intelligence, Surveillance and the (Post)human in The X-Files
Alex Goody and Antonia Mackay (Oxford Brookes University, UK)
4. Agentic Oil and Petrocultures: Black Oil in The X-Files
Chantelle Mitchell and Jaxon Waterhouse (independent scholars, Australia)
5. Believe the Lie: Digital Visual Effects in The X-Files
Tom Livingstone (University of the West of England, UK)

Part II: Contemporary Legend: Conspiracy, Belief, Politics
6. ‘I want to believe’: How UFOs Conquered The X-Files
David Clarke (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)
7. (Cult)ural Tensions: New Religious Movements and The X-Files
Racheal Harris (Deakin University, Australia)
8. The End of History? Contesting the Legacy of the 1960s and 1970s in The X-Files
Gregory Frame (University of Nottingham, UK)
9. ‘You believe what you want to believe—that's what everybody does now’: The X-Files, Fake News and the Rise of QAnon
Bethan Jones (University of York, UK)

Part III: The X-Philes: Fandom and Paratextual Narratives
10. The Aliens are not What They Seem: The X-Files and the legacy of Twin Peaks
Briac Picart Hellec (Le Havre Normandy University, France)
11. A Very Sci-fi Christmas: An Examination of the Christmas Episodes of The X-Files and Millennium
Will Lorenzo (independent scholar, USA)
12. The Truth is…Inside the Panels!: Comic Adaptations of The X-Files
Iris Haist (Erich Ohser University, Germany)
13. “X Files till I DIE”: Fan Memory from the X-Philes
Janelle Vermaak Griessel and Natalie Le Clue (Nelson Mandela University, South Africa)
14. Reading into the Romance: Gender, Genre, and the Rabid Shippers of The X-Files Fandom
Marissa Spada (University of Michigan, USA)
15. The X-Files and Video Games: At the Threshold of Virtual Reality
Ivan Girina and Andra Ivanescu (Brunel University, UK)

Part IV: Intersectional Legacies: Identity and Representation
16. Racialized Disability as Narrative Prosthesis in The X-Files
Lzz Johnk and Gabrielle Miller (Oregon State University, USA)
17. ‘I’m a Medical Doctor, and a Scientist’: Powerful Women, Angry Men, and Representational Violence in The X-Files
Erin Siodmak (Tulane University, USA)
18. Invasion of Body Snatchers: Queer Theory, Cultural Capital and Desirability of Fox Mulder’s Body
Klára Feikusová (Palacký University (Czech Republic)
19. A Collection of Human Curiosities: Disability in The X-Files
Andrew Sydlik (independent scholar, USA)
20. The Scully Effect: The X-Files and Women in STEM
Jolene Mendel (American Public University, USA)

Appendix 1: List of Series, Episodes and Films in Chronological Order
Appendix 2: The X-Files Main and Recurring Cast
Index