Theology and Black Mirror

(Hardback)

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Black Mirror, Netflixs 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.

Reviews

By focusing on Black Mirror as a case study in the human condition, this striking volume offers profound theological reflection on what it means to find the courage to live in a technological age (especially when life so often seems unlivable). This is more than a book--it is an invitation. I pray that we all are up to the task of living into the possible future it envisions, while finding the fortitude to avoid the alternative future about which it warns.

--J. Aaron Simmons, Furman University

Charlie Brooker's series Black Mirror is not the most popular show on television, but it may be the most impactful. In an era of mindless "binge" streaming, Black Mirror has managed to carve out a niche as a provocative, often gloomy exploration of the repercussions of twenty-first century technology. As such, Black Mirror has already generated notable philosophical interest, but theologians have been slower to respond, seemingly put off by the series' pessimism and violence. Theology and Black Mirror features well over a dozen essays ranging across a number of topics, demonstrating a dogged willingness to peer into the darkness of Black Mirror and seek genuine theological insight.

--Christopher B. Barnett, Villanova University

Theology and Black Mirror goes beyond theological explorations of popular culture and sharpens conversations surrounding intersections of religion and taboo. The authors unflinchingly tackle mainstream representations of free will, addiction, pornography, and death through a variety of philosophical lenses. Challenging presumptions of morality in a digital world, the essays reflect on the humanity that is perceived lost yet inherently gained through encounters with anathematic evils; this book identifies those stories as essential tools for examining the intrinsic nature of theology to culture and acknowledges modern technology as both manifesting, and a manifestation of, the ethical underpinnings of human behavior.

--Jossalyn G. Larson, Missouri University of Science and Technology

Theology and Black Mirror is a rich, rewarding, and provocative look at this cultural phenomenon that sheds new light on its familiar themes of future technology gone wrong. Moving beyond simplistic dystopian readings of the show, the book uncovers a deeper texture to Black Mirror's challenges to the understanding of human nature, meaning, finitude, and transcendence embedded in theology and moral philosophy. This book helpfully reminds us that Black Mirror's reflected anxieties about the powers and limitations of technology are inseparable from our enduring anxieties about our own.

--Shannon Vallor, The University of Edinburgh

Author Bio

Amber Bowen is assistant professor of philosophy at Redeemer University (Hamilton, ON).

John Anthony Dunne is assistant professor of New Testament and the director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN).