A Theological Jurisprudence of Speculative Cinema: Superheroes, Science Fictions and Fantasies of Modern Law

by Timothy D. Peters

Overview

Through close readings of a range of popular Hollywood speculative fiction films including The Dark Knight, Unbreakable, I, Robot and The Hobbit, 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399522427
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	07/17/2023
Series:	Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and the Humanities
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Timothy D Peters is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the School of Law and Society, University of the Sunshine Coast, an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Law Futures Centre, Griffith Universityand President of the Law, Literature and the Humanities Association of Australasia. He is co-editor (with Dr Karen Crawley) of Envisioning Legality: Law, Culture and Representation (Routledge, 2018) and the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (project number DE200100881) funded by the Australian Government, examining ‘New Approaches to Corporate Legality: Beyond Neoliberal Governance’.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Reading the Law ‘Made Strange’

1. From Shyamalan’s Unbreakable to Snyder’s Man of Steel: Comic Book Mythology on Screen and the Co-Implication of Good and Evil
2. The Force of/as Modern Law: Justice, Order and the Secular Theology of Star Wars
3. The Superhero ‘Made Strange’: A Christological Reading of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight
4. A Tale of Two Gothams: Revolution, Sacrifice and the Rule of Law in The Dark Knight Rises
5. Pauline Science Fiction: Alex Proyas’ I, Robot, Universalism and Love Beyond the Law
6. Escaping the Bureaucratisation of Destiny: Law, Theology and Freedom in George Nolfi’s The Adjustment Bureau
7. ‘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