Description
Book SynopsisBlack Mirror, Netflix’s dystopian anthology, probes what it means to be human in a technological world. While the show raises interesting, if not disturbing, questions, it refrains from giving answers, putting the onus on viewers to continue the conversation. Accordingly, Theology and Black Mirror engages questions and prominent themes in Black Mirror with resources from the Christian tradition, including the academic disciplines of biblical studies, theology, philosophy, and ethics.
Table of ContentsMore Than Meets the Eye: An Introduction to Theology and Black Mirror
Amber Bowen and John Anthony Dunne
Part 1. Agency and Conditioning
1.Ethics through a Dark Lens: Ellul’s Technological Morality in Black Mirror
Peter Anderson
2.Barbarism, Boredom, and the Question Concerning Pornography in Fifteen Million Merits
Amber Bowen
3.Free Will and (In)determinism in Hang the DJ
Taylor W. Cyr
4.Too Many Twos: Ashley and the Artificial Authentic
Elizabeth Howard
5.Smithereens as Technological Theodicy: Addiction, Emergence, and Resistance
John Anthony Dunne
Part 2. Idols and Anti-Christs
6.Arkangel and the Death of God: A Nietzschean Critique of Technology’s Soteriological Scheme
Amber Bowen and Megan Fritts
7.Seeing and Being Seen in a Black Mirror, Dimly: Phenomenology and the Dim View of White Christmas
King-Ho Leung and Patrick McGlinchey
8.Evil Gods and the USS Callister
Celina Durgin and Dru Johnson
Part 3. Truth and Justice
9.Crowdsourcing Judgment: The Dark Side of Justice in Hated in the Nation and the Johannine Trial Narrative
Andrew J. Byers
10.Re-Dos and Re-Visions: Replay and the Search for Meaning in the Shepherd of Hermas and The Entire History of You
Jeremiah Bailey
11.King David and the White Bear Justice Park
Rachelle Gilmour
12.Alternate Eyes: Perspective Shifting in the Samson Narrative and Black Mirror
Brandon M. Hurlbert
13.“Not Some Crazy Spiritual Thing”: Rewards, Punishment, and Afterlife in Black Mirror
James F. McGrath
Part 4. Hope and Transcendence
14.Be Right Back and the Ethics of Mourning: (In)Authenticity and Resurrection in the Digital Age
Rebekah Lamb and Joanna Leidenhag
15.Reflecting the Infinite or the Finite? The Mirror Motif in Black Mirror and Gregory of Nyssa
Elizabeth Culhane
16.Memoria and The Entire History of You
Nathaniel A. Warne
17.Look Door, Get Key: Presence in Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch
Douglas Estes
18.Where are You? San Junipero and the Technology of Shared Space
Kris Song
19.Uploaded to the Cloud: Transhumanism and Digital Hope in Black Mirror
John Anthony Dunne
