So Say We All: Religion and Society in Science Fiction

Dear Colleagues,

Science fiction wanders perennially in realms traditionally considered the purview of religion, asking questions about the ordering of the universe, the nature of existence, and the proper basis for human (and non-human) relations. When the speculative force of science fiction is directed toward imagining societies shaped by distinct sets of values, often those systems of value are or could be understood to be religious. This Special Issue will explore the ways science fiction constructs social systems of meaning that are either explicitly or implicitly religious, both in recasting received religious forms, and in imagining new forms of its own. What wider social assumptions are being rehearsed when the crew on Battlestar Galactica joins in the ritualized affirmation “So say we all”? Or when any imagined community functions according to shared (or at least enforced) general principles that take on the power of religious norms? What religiously motivated processes of refinement, recalibration, or rejection might be at work in resistance to those social foundations? Our focus will be on the issues—aesthetic, ethical, spiritual, practical—raised by science fiction as it invents social frameworks for answering the religious question “How shall we live?” and its concomitant, “How shall we not live?” Articles addressing science fiction in any form, including written texts, film and television, are welcome.

Prof. Dr. James H. Thrall
Guest Editor

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