A Theological Jurisprudence of Speculative Cinema

Superheroes, Science Fictions and Fantasies of Modern Law

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by Timothy D. Peters

Type

Studies

Subject

Genre > Fantasy

Keywords

fantasy, religion, superheroes

Publishing date

2023

Publisher

Edinburgh University Press

Collection

Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and the Humanities

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 312 pages
6 x 9 ¼ inches (15.5 x 23.5 cm)

ISBN

978-1-3995-2242-7

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Book Presentation:
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.

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 University and 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’.

See the publisher website: Edinburgh University Press