ReligionDispatches.org

Diane Winston, Henry Jenkins, and Anthea Butler.

In the ever more dystopian world of Syfy Channel’s Caprica, teenage girls inhabit robot bodies, or live eternally without bodies at all, human bodies are marked by memories, and all the while there is blood flowing in the virtual streets. 

Diane Winston, Salman Hameed, Anthea Butler, and Henry Jenkins.

Tamara, the girl who is dead but doesn’t know it, who exists only within the “magic circle” of a virtual game, takes center stage in this week’s episode, and in our commentary. 

Henry Jenkins, Diane Winston, and Anthea Butler.

Among other clues to this sci-fi opera, our Caprica watchers took particular note of a bobbleheaded bull on the dashboard of a Tauron killer. What can we learn from the possibility that Capricans can be as kitsch-obsessed, cigarette-addicted, and as reckless with civil liberties as earthlings can be? 

Diane Winston, Anthea Butler, Henry Jenkins, and Salman Hameed.

More on the sci-fi TV show that imagines monotheists rebelling against a polytheist society, speculates about the nature of the human soul, and asks, “Can you be free if you’re not real?”

Anthea Butler, Salman Hameed, Henry Jenkins, and Diane Winston.

Welcome to the first installment of our ongoing coverage of television’s latest contribution to the cultural intersection of science and religion, with bonus themes to include: the body, artificial intelligence, paganism, original sin, immigration, and race. Join Diane Winston, Anthea Butler, Salman Hameed, and Henry Jenkins every week as they delve into deep exegesis of Caprica.

Michael A. Elliott.

An online novel about a flu pandemic blurs the boundaries between real “flu-blogging” and the dystopic world of its blogger protagonist. And it exposes the cultural anxiety, both religious and secular, that disease unleashes.

Eric Zassenhaus.

When an inexperienced Pentecostal pastor gets called by God to make a $50 million epic science-fiction film, is he a visionary, a prophet, or just another box office grifter? A new documentary tells the tale.

Gabriel Mckee.

“Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence” in Wastelands, a new anthology of post-apocalyptic fiction.

Gabriel Mckee.

A Church of Jedi attack spawns numerous interviews; despite thinly-veiled mockery, the coverage offers an unprecedented legitimacy, allowing them to subvert traditional media for their own ends.

Nick Street.

What does a sci-fi hit have to tell us about ancient Greek theater and today’s electronically-inflected cultural landscape?

Gabriel Mckee.

A recent statement by a Vatican astronomer opens a theological can of worms...