Full Description
Sets a new trajectory for considering the intertwined relationship between theology and law through speculative cinema
Offers 7 close readings of Hollywood speculative fiction blockbusters as theological and jurisprudential texts: Shyamalan's Unbreakable, Snyder's Man of Steel, Lucas and Disney's Star Wars, Nolan's The Dark Knight & The Dark Knight Rises, Proyas' I, Robot, Nolfi's The Adjustment Bureau and Jackson's The Hobbit
Explores key themes of law including justice, the exception, law's violence, revolution, law's universality, sovereignty and property as theft
Explores key themes of theology including the nature of evil, myth and mysticism, atonement, sacrifice, compassionate acts, visions of the divine and charity as gift
Through close readings of a range of popular Hollywood speculative fiction films, Timothy Peters explores how fictional worlds, particularly those that 'make strange' the world of the viewer, can render visible and make explicit the otherwise opaque theologies of modern law. He illustrates that speculative cinema's genres of estrangement provide a way for us to see and engage the theological concepts of modern law in our era of late capitalism, global empire and the crises of neoliberalism.
Contents
Prologue: Reading the Law 'Made Strange'
From Shyamalan's Unbreakable to Snyder's Man of Steel: Comic Book Mythology on Screen and the Co-Implication of Good and Evil
The Force of/as Modern Law: Justice, Order and the Secular Theology of Star Wars
The Superhero 'Made Strange': A Christological Reading of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight
A Tale of Two Gothams: Revolution, Sacrifice and the Rule of Law in The Dark Knight Rises
Pauline Science Fiction: Alex Proyas' I, Robot, Universalism and Love Beyond the Law
Escaping the Bureaucratisation of Destiny: Law, Theology and Freedom in George Nolfi's The Adjustment Bureau
'If more people valued home above gold this world would be a merrier place': Hospitality, Gift-Exchange and the Theological Jurisprudence of JRR Tolkien's and Peter Jackson's The Hobbit
