Theology and Westworld

by Juli Gittinger (Editor), Shayna Sheinfeld (Editor), Olivia Belton (Contribution by), Jacob Boss (Contribution by), Tony Degouveia (Contribution by)

Overview

In the first two seasons of the HBO series Westworld, human guests pay exorbitant fees to spend time among cybernetic Hosts—partially sentient AI robots—and live out often violent fantasies. In Theology and Westworld, scholars from a range of disciplines within religious studies examine the profound questions that arise when the narrative of Westworld interacts with the study of religion. From transhumanism and personhood to morality and divinity, this book contributes to, confounds, and challenges ideas that are found in the study of religion and philosophy. Taken together, the chapters further our understanding of what it means to live in a world where the hard questions of human existence are explored through the medium of popular culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781978707955
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	06/16/2020
Series:	Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	6.31(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.77(d)

About the Author

Juli Gittinger (PhD Religious Studies, McGill University) is a lecturer and program coordinator for religion at Georgia College.

Shayna Sheinfeld (PhD Religious Studies, McGill University) is honorary research scholar at the Sheffield Institute of Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies (SIIBS), University of Sheffield.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Consuming Westworld: Facilitating the Robotics and AI Discussion through Science Fiction

Jaime Wright

Chapter 2 Techno-Transcendence and Artificial Rapture

Olivia Belton

Chapter 3 For the Rest of Time They Heard the Drum

Jacob Boss

Chapter 4 A Comparative Inquiry into the Real

Kristin Johnston Largen

Chapter 5 Will Robots Too Be in the Image of God? Artificial Consciousness and Imago Dei in Westworld

Marius Dorobantu

Chapter 6 On Idolatry and Empathy: An Orthodox Christian Response to the Victimization Fantasies of Westworld

David K. Goodin

Chapter 7 Rethinking the Maze: Africana Religions, Somatic Memory, and the Journey to Consciousness

Amanda Furiasse

Chapter 8 Exile, the Remnant, and a Promised Land without a God

Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.

Chapter 9 “And behold, a black horse”: Heaven, Hell, and Biblical Eschatology in Westworld

Tony Degouveia

Editorial Reviews

As the editors of this fascinating book note, we are living in a golden age of “television.” Based on their work and the work of their contributors, I would add that we are also living in a golden age of scholarship examining the relationship between religion and popular culture. This book addresses a myriad of issues raised by that relationship in Westworld, including apocalypticism, AI, embodiness, ethics, rape, scripture, technology, theology, trauma, violence, and more in an illuminating exploration of one of the most thought-provoking series in recent memory.

Dan W. Clanton Jr.

Theology and Westworld tackles the big questions raised by the ideas of artificial intelligence, artificial life, and creation given dramatic life by the television series. Accessible to both people of faith and to those of none, this book is a valuable addition to the scholarly conversation. The volume considers how we imagine ourselves as the creators of artificial progeny, as well as how our own humanity might be disturbed by such a creation and our debt to it. An array of excellent scholars have brought their diverse perspectives to the philosophical, ethical, and social implications of our dreams of other worlds that are filled with other beings in servitude to our ‘violent delights’.

Beth Singler