R&L Logo R&L Logo
  • GENERAL
    • Browse by Subjects
    • New Releases
    • Coming Soon
    • Chases's Calendar
  • ACADEMIC
    • Textbooks
    • Browse by Course
    • Instructor's Copies
    • Monographs & Research
    • Reference
  • PROFESSIONAL
    • Education
    • Intelligence & Security
    • Library Services
    • Business & Leadership
    • Museum Studies
    • Music
    • Pastoral Resources
    • Psychotherapy
  • FREUD SET
Cover Image
Hardback
Paperback
share of facebook share on twitter
Add to GoodReads

Theology, Religion, and Dystopia

Edited by Scott Donahue-Martens and Brandon Simonson - Contributions by Scott Donahue-Martens; Beáta Gombkötő; Thomas G. Hermans-Webster; Justin F. Martin; C. J. McCrary; John C. McDowell; David Penn; Amanda L. Pumphrey; Nicholaus B. Pumphrey; Shayna Sheinfeld and Brandon Simonson

Dystopia, from the Greek dus and topos “bad place,” is a revelatory genre and concept that has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity at the start of the twenty-first century. This book addresses approaches to the study of dystopia from the academic fields of theology and religious studies. Following a co-written chapter where Scott Donahue-Martens and Brandon Simonson argue that dystopia can be understood as demythologized apocalyptic, ten unique contributions each engage a work of popular culture, such as a book, movie, or television show. Topics across chapters range from the critical function of dystopia, social location and identity, violence, apocalypse and the end of everything, sacrifice, catharsis, and dystopian existentialism. This volume responds to the need for theological and religious reflection on dystopia in a world increasingly threatened by climate change, pandemics, and global war.

  • Details
  • Details
  • Author
  • Author
  • TOC
  • TOC
  • Reviews
  • Reviews
Lexington Books / Fortress Academic
Pages: 208 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-1-9787-1329-1 • Hardback • September 2022 • $111.00 • (£85.00)
978-1-9787-1331-4 • Paperback • February 2024 • $39.99 • (£30.00)
Series: Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture
Subjects: Religion / Theology, Literary Criticism / Science Fiction & Fantasy, Social Science / Popular Culture

Scott Donahue-Martens is a Ph.D. candidate in Homiletics at Boston University School of Theology.

Brandon Simonson is an instructor of biblical studies at Boston University School of Theology and adjunct lecturer in the Department of Religious and Theological Studies at Merrimack College.

1.Dystopia as Demythologized Apocalyptic

Brandon Simonson and Scott Donahue-Martens

2.The Dystopic Relations of Interstellar: A Response from Christian Ecotheology

Thomas G. Hermans-Webster

3.Color-blind Dystopia: The Giver, Theology, Race, and Ricoeur

Scott Donahue-Martens

4.Qu(e)erying Posthuman Theologies in Ghost in the Shell

Amanda L. Pumphrey and Nicholaus B. Pumphrey

5.Social Life from Scratch: Morality, Religion, and Society in The Walking Dead

Justin F. Martin

6.How NOT to be a Zombie: The Walking Dead and Love for the World

David Penn

7.Dystopia in the Apocalypse: Religion and Community in Asimov’s Foundation Universe

Brandon Simonson

8.Katniss, Christos: Sacrifice and Salvation in Scripture and Young Adult Dystopian Novels

Shayna Sheinfeld

9.Dystopian Festivals, Utopian Fictions: Sovereignty, Sacrifice, and Sanctity in Biblical Jubilee and The Purge

C. J. McCrary

10.The Ability or Inability to Change by the Presence or Absence of Deus ex Machina

Beáta Gombkötő

11.The Spectacle of Hope Beyond Capital’s Dehumanizing Violence: Reading George Lucas’ Dystopian THX 1138

John C. McDowell

In this timely book, Donahue-Martens and Simonson have edited together an opulent blend of dystopian wealth. This volume puts recent dystopian narratives into dialogue with biblical text, Ricoeurian thought, and a diversity of religious thinkers, pointing readers to varied understandings of this key topic. Beginning with dystopia as demythologized apocalyptic, the reader is invited into conversation with both our present and future. Drawing from books, films, and television, the volume presents a broad and intricate examination of both the theory behind dystopia and religion as well as its results. I will definitely be reaching for this volume on my bookshelf in the future.


— George Tsakiridis, South Dakota State University


The 21st century has witnessed an astonishing increase of dystopic themes in popular culture—no accident in light of new ecological disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, an upsurge in racially motivated violence, and a resurgence of totalitarian governments around the world. This remarkable collection of essays brings religious and theological studies to bear on dystopia from a wide range of methodological approaches while engaging a variety of popular cultural phenomena, including television, movies, literature, and social practices. Readers will find the volume provocative and engaging as it takes the intersections of religion, dystopia, utopia, and apocalyptic in new and insightful directions.


— Bryan Stone, Boston University School of Theology


The value of examining dystopia, particularly for its religious and theological elements, could be no more timely than right now. Whether it be film, television, comic book, or novel, at the soul of any dystopia lies both truths and warnings about our own society, and Theology, Religion, and Dystopia takes an unflinching account of these troubling futures. In dissecting and naming the spiritual drives, aims, and bogeymen that undergird these fictions, Donahue-Martens and Simonson’s contributors do us a service of marking such territory within our own faiths and lives.


— A. David Lewis, MCPHS University


Theology, Religion, and Dystopia

Cover Image
Hardback
Paperback
Summary
Summary
  • Dystopia, from the Greek dus and topos “bad place,” is a revelatory genre and concept that has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity at the start of the twenty-first century. This book addresses approaches to the study of dystopia from the academic fields of theology and religious studies. Following a co-written chapter where Scott Donahue-Martens and Brandon Simonson argue that dystopia can be understood as demythologized apocalyptic, ten unique contributions each engage a work of popular culture, such as a book, movie, or television show. Topics across chapters range from the critical function of dystopia, social location and identity, violence, apocalypse and the end of everything, sacrifice, catharsis, and dystopian existentialism. This volume responds to the need for theological and religious reflection on dystopia in a world increasingly threatened by climate change, pandemics, and global war.

Details
Details
  • Lexington Books / Fortress Academic
    Pages: 208 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½
    978-1-9787-1329-1 • Hardback • September 2022 • $111.00 • (£85.00)
    978-1-9787-1331-4 • Paperback • February 2024 • $39.99 • (£30.00)
    Series: Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture
    Subjects: Religion / Theology, Literary Criticism / Science Fiction & Fantasy, Social Science / Popular Culture
Author
Author
  • Scott Donahue-Martens is a Ph.D. candidate in Homiletics at Boston University School of Theology.

    Brandon Simonson is an instructor of biblical studies at Boston University School of Theology and adjunct lecturer in the Department of Religious and Theological Studies at Merrimack College.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • 1.Dystopia as Demythologized Apocalyptic

    Brandon Simonson and Scott Donahue-Martens

    2.The Dystopic Relations of Interstellar: A Response from Christian Ecotheology

    Thomas G. Hermans-Webster

    3.Color-blind Dystopia: The Giver, Theology, Race, and Ricoeur

    Scott Donahue-Martens

    4.Qu(e)erying Posthuman Theologies in Ghost in the Shell

    Amanda L. Pumphrey and Nicholaus B. Pumphrey

    5.Social Life from Scratch: Morality, Religion, and Society in The Walking Dead

    Justin F. Martin

    6.How NOT to be a Zombie: The Walking Dead and Love for the World

    David Penn

    7.Dystopia in the Apocalypse: Religion and Community in Asimov’s Foundation Universe

    Brandon Simonson

    8.Katniss, Christos: Sacrifice and Salvation in Scripture and Young Adult Dystopian Novels

    Shayna Sheinfeld

    9.Dystopian Festivals, Utopian Fictions: Sovereignty, Sacrifice, and Sanctity in Biblical Jubilee and The Purge

    C. J. McCrary

    10.The Ability or Inability to Change by the Presence or Absence of Deus ex Machina

    Beáta Gombkötő

    11.The Spectacle of Hope Beyond Capital’s Dehumanizing Violence: Reading George Lucas’ Dystopian THX 1138

    John C. McDowell

Reviews
Reviews
  • In this timely book, Donahue-Martens and Simonson have edited together an opulent blend of dystopian wealth. This volume puts recent dystopian narratives into dialogue with biblical text, Ricoeurian thought, and a diversity of religious thinkers, pointing readers to varied understandings of this key topic. Beginning with dystopia as demythologized apocalyptic, the reader is invited into conversation with both our present and future. Drawing from books, films, and television, the volume presents a broad and intricate examination of both the theory behind dystopia and religion as well as its results. I will definitely be reaching for this volume on my bookshelf in the future.


    — George Tsakiridis, South Dakota State University


    The 21st century has witnessed an astonishing increase of dystopic themes in popular culture—no accident in light of new ecological disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, an upsurge in racially motivated violence, and a resurgence of totalitarian governments around the world. This remarkable collection of essays brings religious and theological studies to bear on dystopia from a wide range of methodological approaches while engaging a variety of popular cultural phenomena, including television, movies, literature, and social practices. Readers will find the volume provocative and engaging as it takes the intersections of religion, dystopia, utopia, and apocalyptic in new and insightful directions.


    — Bryan Stone, Boston University School of Theology


    The value of examining dystopia, particularly for its religious and theological elements, could be no more timely than right now. Whether it be film, television, comic book, or novel, at the soul of any dystopia lies both truths and warnings about our own society, and Theology, Religion, and Dystopia takes an unflinching account of these troubling futures. In dissecting and naming the spiritual drives, aims, and bogeymen that undergird these fictions, Donahue-Martens and Simonson’s contributors do us a service of marking such territory within our own faiths and lives.


    — A. David Lewis, MCPHS University


ALSO AVAILABLE

  • Cover image for the book Theology and Tolkien: Constructive Theology
  • Cover image for the book The Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram: Co-Creator of the Integral Yoga
  • Cover image for the book A Theology of Power and Privilege: An Evangelical Perspective on Race
  • Cover image for the book Holy Body: Gender and Sexual Difference in Theological Anthropology and Ecclesiology
  • Cover image for the book Triune Well-Being: The Kenotic-Enrichment of the Eternal Trinity
  • Cover image for the book Progressive Rock, Religion, and Theology
  • Cover image for the book Children, Theology, and Bioethics: Beyond Autonomy
  • Cover image for the book Theology of the Soul: A Pauline Perspective on Cultural, Philosophical, and Traditional Concepts
  • Cover image for the book Theology, Religion, and Dungeons & Dragons: Explorations of the Sacred through Fantasy Worlds
  • Cover image for the book The Last of Us and Theology: Violence, Ethics, Redemption?
  • Cover image for the book Theology and the Blues
  • Cover image for the book An Advaitic Modernity?: Raimon Panikkar and Philosophical Theology
  • Cover image for the book Theology and Tolkien: Practical Theology
  • Cover image for the book The Freedom of Christian Theology: New Studies in Dialogue with Eberhard Jüngel
  • Cover image for the book Re-embodying Pastoral Theology: Ritual Care for Moral Injury in Veterans
  • Cover image for the book The Spirit and the Song: Pneumatological Reflections on Popular Music
  • Cover image for the book Originalism in Theology and Law: Comparing Perspectives on the Bible and the Constitution
  • Cover image for the book Geoliturgy and Ecological Crisis: The Spiritual Practice of Caring for Creation
  • Cover image for the book The Architecture of Blame: The End of Victimage and the Beginning of Justice
  • Cover image for the book Questing through the Riordanverse: Studying Religion with the Works of Rick Riordan
  • Cover image for the book Theology and Vampires
  • Cover image for the book A Theology of Traumatic Affect: A Political and Religious Engagement
  • Cover image for the book Centering Hope as a Sustainable Decolonial Practice: Esperanza en Práctica
  • Cover image for the book The Goldilocks God: Searching for the via media
  • Cover image for the book Theology, Religion, and The Office: Beauty in Ordinary Things
  • Cover image for the book Unconscious Christianity in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Late Theology: Encounters with the Unknown Christ
  • Cover image for the book Theology, Fantasy, and the Imagination
  • Cover image for the book The Unfractured Faith of Erik Routley: From Brighton to Princeton
  • Cover image for the book Bonhoeffer’s Religionless Christianity in Its Christological Context
  • Cover image for the book Religion, Theology, and Stranger Things: Studies from the Upside Down on Evil, Ethics, Horror, and Hope
  • Cover image for the book Augustine’s Apocalyptic Political Theology in the Evil Saeculum
  • Cover image for the book Theology and the DC Universe
  • Cover image for the book Luther after Derrida: The Deconstructive Drive of Theology
  • Cover image for the book Credit and Faith
  • Cover image for the book Theology and H.P. Lovecraft
  • Cover image for the book Theology and Horror: Explorations of the Dark Religious Imagination
  • Cover image for the book Bob Dylan and the Spheres of Existence
  • Cover image for the book Theology and the Avett Brothers
  • Cover image for the book Marveling Religion: Critical Discourses, Religion, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • Cover image for the book Virtual Communion: Theology of the Internet and the Catholic Sacramental Imagination
  • Cover image for the book Postcolonial Practice of Ministry: Leadership, Liturgy, and Interfaith Engagement
  • Cover image for the book Black Theology and The Black Panthers
  • Cover image for the book Martin Luther King: A Religious Life
  • Cover image for the book African Personality and Spirituality: The Role of Abosom and Human Essence
  • Cover image for the book African Pentecostal Theology: Modality, Disciplinarity, and Decoloniality
  • Cover image for the book Women's Work: The Transformational Power of Faith-Based Community Organizing
  • Cover image for the book Dumitru Staniloae’s Trinitarian Ecclesiology: Orthodoxy and the Filioque
  • Cover image for the book Zygmunt Bauman and Pope Francis in Dialogue: The Labyrinth of Liquid Modernity
  • Cover image for the book Cuban Feminist Theology: Visions and Praxis
  • Cover image for the book Theology and Tolkien: Constructive Theology
  • Cover image for the book The Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram: Co-Creator of the Integral Yoga
  • Cover image for the book A Theology of Power and Privilege: An Evangelical Perspective on Race
  • Cover image for the book Holy Body: Gender and Sexual Difference in Theological Anthropology and Ecclesiology
  • Cover image for the book Triune Well-Being: The Kenotic-Enrichment of the Eternal Trinity
  • Cover image for the book Progressive Rock, Religion, and Theology
  • Cover image for the book Children, Theology, and Bioethics: Beyond Autonomy
  • Cover image for the book Theology of the Soul: A Pauline Perspective on Cultural, Philosophical, and Traditional Concepts
  • Cover image for the book Theology, Religion, and Dungeons & Dragons: Explorations of the Sacred through Fantasy Worlds
  • Cover image for the book The Last of Us and Theology: Violence, Ethics, Redemption?
  • Cover image for the book Theology and the Blues
  • Cover image for the book An Advaitic Modernity?: Raimon Panikkar and Philosophical Theology
  • Cover image for the book Theology and Tolkien: Practical Theology
  • Cover image for the book The Freedom of Christian Theology: New Studies in Dialogue with Eberhard Jüngel
  • Cover image for the book Re-embodying Pastoral Theology: Ritual Care for Moral Injury in Veterans
  • Cover image for the book The Spirit and the Song: Pneumatological Reflections on Popular Music
  • Cover image for the book Originalism in Theology and Law: Comparing Perspectives on the Bible and the Constitution
  • Cover image for the book Geoliturgy and Ecological Crisis: The Spiritual Practice of Caring for Creation
  • Cover image for the book The Architecture of Blame: The End of Victimage and the Beginning of Justice
  • Cover image for the book Questing through the Riordanverse: Studying Religion with the Works of Rick Riordan
  • Cover image for the book Theology and Vampires
  • Cover image for the book A Theology of Traumatic Affect: A Political and Religious Engagement
  • Cover image for the book Centering Hope as a Sustainable Decolonial Practice: Esperanza en Práctica
  • Cover image for the book The Goldilocks God: Searching for the via media
  • Cover image for the book Theology, Religion, and The Office: Beauty in Ordinary Things
  • Cover image for the book Unconscious Christianity in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Late Theology: Encounters with the Unknown Christ
  • Cover image for the book Theology, Fantasy, and the Imagination
  • Cover image for the book The Unfractured Faith of Erik Routley: From Brighton to Princeton
  • Cover image for the book Bonhoeffer’s Religionless Christianity in Its Christological Context
  • Cover image for the book Religion, Theology, and Stranger Things: Studies from the Upside Down on Evil, Ethics, Horror, and Hope
  • Cover image for the book Augustine’s Apocalyptic Political Theology in the Evil Saeculum
  • Cover image for the book Theology and the DC Universe
  • Cover image for the book Luther after Derrida: The Deconstructive Drive of Theology
  • Cover image for the book Credit and Faith
  • Cover image for the book Theology and H.P. Lovecraft
  • Cover image for the book Theology and Horror: Explorations of the Dark Religious Imagination
  • Cover image for the book Bob Dylan and the Spheres of Existence
  • Cover image for the book Theology and the Avett Brothers
  • Cover image for the book Marveling Religion: Critical Discourses, Religion, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • Cover image for the book Virtual Communion: Theology of the Internet and the Catholic Sacramental Imagination
  • Cover image for the book Postcolonial Practice of Ministry: Leadership, Liturgy, and Interfaith Engagement
  • Cover image for the book Black Theology and The Black Panthers
  • Cover image for the book Martin Luther King: A Religious Life
  • Cover image for the book African Personality and Spirituality: The Role of Abosom and Human Essence
  • Cover image for the book African Pentecostal Theology: Modality, Disciplinarity, and Decoloniality
  • Cover image for the book Women's Work: The Transformational Power of Faith-Based Community Organizing
  • Cover image for the book Dumitru Staniloae’s Trinitarian Ecclesiology: Orthodoxy and the Filioque
  • Cover image for the book Zygmunt Bauman and Pope Francis in Dialogue: The Labyrinth of Liquid Modernity
  • Cover image for the book Cuban Feminist Theology: Visions and Praxis
facebook icon twitter icon instagram icon linked in icon NEWSLETTERS
ABOUT US
  • Mission Statement
  • Employment
  • Privacy
  • Accessibility Statement
CONTACT
  • Company Directory
  • Publicity and Media Queries
  • Rights and Permissions
  • Textbook Resource Center
AUTHOR RESOURCES
  • Royalty Contact
  • Production Guidelines
  • Manuscript Submissions
ORDERING INFORMATION
  • Rowman & Littlefield
  • National Book Network
  • Ingram Publisher Services UK
  • Special Sales
  • International Sales
  • eBook Partners
  • Digital Catalogs
IMPRINTS
  • Rowman & Littlefield
  • Lexington Books
  • Hamilton Books
  • Applause Books
  • Amadeus Press
  • Backbeat Books
  • Bernan
  • Hal Leonard Books
  • Limelight Editions
  • Co-Publishing Partners
  • Globe Pequot
  • Down East Books
  • Falcon Guides
  • Gooseberry Patch
  • Lyons Press
  • Muddy Boots
  • Pineapple Press
  • TwoDot Books
  • Stackpole Books
PARTNERS
  • American Alliance of Museums
  • American Association for State and Local History
  • Brookings Institution Press
  • Center for Strategic & International Studies
  • Council on Foreign Relations
  • Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
  • Fortress Press
  • The Foundation for Critical Thinking
  • Lehigh University Press
  • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  • Other Partners...