Author: Andrew Crome
Publisher: Darton, Longman & Todd Limited
ISBN: 9780232530216
Category : Doctor Who (Fictitious character)
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Doctor Who has always contained a rich current of religious themes and ideas. In its very first episode it asked how humans rationalise the seemingly supernatural, as two snooping school teachers refused to accept that the TARDIS was real. More recently it has toyed with the mystery of Doctor’s real name, perhaps an echo of ancient religions and rituals in which knowledge of the secret name of a god, angel or demon was thought to grant a mortal power over the entity.But why does Doctor Who intersect with religion so often, and what do such instances tell us about the society that produces the show and the viewers who engage with it? The writers of Time and Relative Dimensions in Faith attempt to answer these questions through an in-depth analysis of the various treatments of religion throughout every era of the show’s history. While the majority of chapters focus on televisual Doctor Who, the authors also look at audios, novels and the response of fandom. Their analyses – all written in an accessible but academically-thorough style – reveal that examining religion in a long-running series such as Doctor Who can contribute to a number of key debates within faith communities and religious history.Most importantly, it provides another way of looking at why Doctor Who continues to inspire, to engage and to excite generations of passionate fans, whatever their position on faith.The contributors are drawn from the UK, the USA and Australia, and their approaches are similarly diverse. Chapters have been written by film scholars and sociologists; theologians and historians; rhetoricians, philosophers and anthropologists. Some write from the perspective of a particular faith or belief; some write from the perspective of no religious belief. All, however, demonstrate a solid knowledge of and affection for the brilliance of Doctor Who.Chapter titles:‘Why Time Lords do not live forever’; ‘Pushing the Protest Button: Doctor Who’s Anti-Authoritarian Ethic’; ‘Divine and Human Nature: incarnation and kenosis in Doctor Who’; ‘Breaking the Faiths in “The Curse of Fenric” and ‘The God Complex”’; ‘The Doctor Working on God’s Time: Kairos and Intervention in “The Waters of Mars” and “A Christmas Carol”’; ‘“You’re this Doctor’s companion. What exactly do you do for him? Why does he need you?”: Doctor Who, Liminality and Martha the Apostle’; ‘“Humany-Wumany”: Humanity vs. Human in Doctor Who’; ‘The Monstrous and the Divine in Doctor Who: The Role of Christian Imagery in Russell T. Davies’s Doctor Who Revival’; ‘“With proof, you don’t have to believe”: Doctor Who and the Celestials’; ‘“Her Brain was full of Superstitious Nonsense”: Modernism and the Failure of the Divine in Doctor Who’; ‘Religion in Doctor Who: Cult Ethics’; ‘Mediating Between the Scientific and the Spiritual in Doctor Who’; ‘Karma, Conditionality, and Clinging to the Self: The Tennant Years as Seen Through a Tibetan Buddhist Lens’; '"There never was a Golden Age”: Doctor Who and the Apocalypse’; ‘Qui Quae Quod: Doctor Who and the History of Magic’; ‘The Church Militant? The Church of England, humanity and the future in Doctor Who’; ‘Bigger on the Inside? Doctoring the Concept of “Religion or Belief” under English Law’; ‘“Something Woolly and Fuzzy”: The Representation of Religion in the Big Finish Doctor Who Audio Adventures’; ‘Doctoring the Doctor: Midrashic Adventures in Text and Space’.
Author: Andrew Crome
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1625643772
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 367
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Book Description
Doctor Who has always contained a rich current of religious themes and ideas. In its very first episode it asked how humans rationalize the seemingly supernatural, as two snooping schoolteachers refused to accept that the TARDIS was real. More recently it has toyed with the mystery of Doctor's real name, perhaps an echo of ancient religions and rituals in which knowledge of the secret name of a god, angel or demon was thought to grant a mortal power over the entity. But why does Doctor Who intersect with religion so often, and what do such instances tell us about the society that produces the show and the viewers who engage with it? The writers of Religion and Doctor Who: Time and Relative Dimensions in Faith attempt to answer these questions through an in-depth analysis of the various treatments of religion throughout every era of the show's history. While the majority of chapters focus on the television show Doctor Who, the authors also look at audios, novels, and the response of fandom. Their analyses--all written in an accessible but academically thorough style--reveal that examining religion in a long-running series such as Doctor Who can contribute to a number of key debates within faith communities and religious history. Most importantly, it provides another way of looking at why Doctor Who continues to inspire, to engage, and to excite generations of passionate fans, whatever their position on faith. The contributors are drawn from the UK, the USA, and Australia, and their approaches are similarly diverse. Chapters have been written by film scholars and sociologists; theologians and historians; rhetoricians, philosophers and anthropologists. Some write from the perspective of a particular faith or belief; others write from the perspective of no religious belief. All, however, demonstrate a solid knowledge of and affection for the brilliance of Doctor Who.
Author: Gregory Erickson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000648281
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 297
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Book Description
This book explores the concept that, as participation in traditional religion declines, the complex and fantastical worlds of speculative television have become the place where theological questions and issues are negotiated, understood, and formed. From bodies, robots, and souls to purgatories and post-apocalyptic scenarios and new forms of digital scripture, the shows examined – from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Westworld – invite their viewers and fans to engage with and imagine concepts traditionally reserved for religious spaces. Informed by recent trends in both fan studies and religious studies, and with an emphasis on practice as well as belief, the thematically focused narrative posits that it is through the intersections of these shows that we find the reframing and rethinking of religious ideas. This truly interdisciplinary work will resonate with scholars and upper-level students in the areas of religion, television studies, popular culture, fan studies, media studies, and philosophy.
Author: Steve Donaldson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498220061
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
In Dimensions of Faith, cognitive scientist Steve Donaldson takes readers on a journey from the world of assumptions, set minds, widely varying beliefs, and popular misconceptions to an understanding of the true essence and role of faith as the natural and inevitable product of brains. Using numerous illustrations and examples, Donaldson shows how faith is necessitated by a variety of unavoidable limitations, exposes the myth of a divide between faith and critical thinking, provides practical advice for crafting coherent beliefs, and explains why there can never be such a place as "Factland." Along the way he takes a special look at religious faith--evaluating its attributes, exploring its relation to other manifestations of faith, investigating whether God has done his job well enough to warrant the faith placed in him, and pondering how truth seekers can sometimes end up in very different places.
Author: Marcus K. Harmes
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476642001
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
Science has always been part of Doctor Who. The first episode featured scenes in a science laboratory and a science teacher, and the 2020 season's finale highlighted a scientist's key role in Time Lord history. Hundreds of scientific characters, settings, inventions, and ethical dilemmas populated the years in between. Behind the scenes, Doctor Who's original remit was to teach children about science, and in the 1960s it even had a scientific advisor. This is the first book to explore this scientific landscape from a broad spectrum of research fields: from astronomy, genetics, linguistics, computing, history, sociology and science communication through gender, media and literature studies. Contributors ask: What sort of scientist is the Doctor? How might the TARDIS translation circuit and regeneration work? Did the Doctor change sex or gender when regenerating into Jodie Whittaker? How do Doctor Who's depictions of the Moon and other planets compare to the real universe? Why was the program obsessed with energy in the 1960s and 1970s, Victorian scientists and sciences then and now, or with dinosaurs at any time? Do characters like Missy and the Rani make good scientist role models? How do Doctor Who technical manuals and public lectures shape public ideas about science?
Author: Frauke Uhlenbruch
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 056766404X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
The idea of Utopia was first made current and popular by Sir Thomas More with the publication of his book by the same name in 1516. The 'no-place' that was created has had a fantastic reception history, which makes its application to the biblical books of Nehemiah, Ezra and Chronicles as vibrant as the current scholarship which is ongoing into the Renaissance term and its implications. The essays in this collection take different approaches to the question: are there proto-utopian elements in the three books from the Hebrew Bible? Methodological considerations are to be found, but each essay also moves beyond the methodological constraint to raise the hypothetical question of 'what if?' in different ways. The essays evaluate the potential, and pitfalls, of reading Biblical books as (proto-)utopian. Topics include how utopia construct intricate counter-realities, and how to tell whether a proposal diagnosed as 'utopian' from a modern point of view is meant to motivate its audience to political action. Case studies which read aspects of Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah as potential utopian traits include the restoration project of Ezra-Nehemiah and the rejection of foreign wives, utopian concerns in Chronicles, as well as the empire's role in writing a putative utopia, and King Solomon as a utopian fantasy-king.
Author: Kim D Weinert
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000048039
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
This book engages with the place of law and legality within Australia’s distinctive contribution to global televisual culture. Australian popular culture has created a lasting legacy – for good or bad – of representations of law, lawyers and justice ‘down under’. Within films and television of striking landscapes, peopled with heroes, antiheroes, survivors and jokers, there is a fixation on law, conflicts between legal orders, brutal violence and survival. Deeply compromised by the ongoing violence against the lives and laws of First Nation Australians, Australian film and television has sharply illuminated what it means to live with a ‘rule of law’ that rules with a legacy, and a reality, of deep injustice. This book is the first to bring together scholars to reflect on, and critically engage with, the representations and global implications of law, lawyers and justice captured through the lenses of Australian film, television and social media. Exploring how distinctively Australian lenses capture uniquely Australian images and narratives, the book nevertheless engages these in order to provide broader insights into the contemporary translations and transmogrifications of law and justice.
Author: Andrew O'Day
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786734710
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
Peter Capaldi's Doctor Who – unpredictable, embattled, mercurial - has raised many fresh issues for followers of the Time Lord. In this book, the first to address the Capaldi era in depth, international experts on the show explore Capaldi's portrayal of the Doctor, and Steven Moffat's role as show writer and executive producer. They evaluate the effect of Capaldi's older age on the series' pace and themes; his Scottishness and representations of Scotland in Doctor Who's history, and the roles of the Doctor's female companions, particularly Clara Oswald as played by Jenna Coleman. The politics of war are addressed, as is the development of the alien-fighting military organisation UNIT in the show, as well as controversial portrayals of the afterlife and of immortality. There's discussion of promotional discourses, the imagining of the Twelfth Doctor in fan fiction and fan art, fan responses to the re-gendering of the Master as female, and of Christmas television and the uncanny. For fans, scholars and students alike, this book is a fitting tribute to and assessment of Peter Capaldi's Doctor Who.
Author: Richard A. Hall
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 144086988X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 386
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Book Description
The American Villain: Encyclopedia of Bad Guys in Comics, Film, and Television seeks to provide one go-to reference for the study of the most popular and iconic villains in American popular culture. Since the 1980s, pop culture has focused on what makes a villain a villain. The Joker, Darth Vader, and Hannibal Lecter have all been placed under the microscope to get to the origins of their villainy. Additionally, such bad guys as Angelus from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Barnabas Collins from Dark Shadows have emphasized the desire for redemption—in even the darkest of villains. Various incarnations of Lucifer/Satan have even gone so far as to explore the very foundations of what we consider "evil." The American Villain: Encyclopedia of Bad Guys in Comics, Film, and Television seeks to collect all of those stories into one comprehensive volume. The volume opens with essays about villains in popular culture, followed by 100 A–Z entries on the most notorious bad guys in film, comics, and more. Sidebars highlight ancillary points of interest, such as authors, creators, and tropes that illuminate the motives of various villains. A glossary of key terms and a bibliography provide students with resources to continue their study of what makes the "baddest" among us so bad.
Author: Marcus K. Harmes
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442232854
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 245
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Book Description
Although it started as a British television show with a small but devoted fan base, Doctor Who has grown in popularity and now appeals to audiences around the world. In the fifty-year history of the program, Doctor Who’s producers and scriptwriters have drawn on a dizzying array of literary sources and inspirations. Elements from Homer, classic literature, gothic horror, swashbucklers, Jacobean revenge tragedies, Orwellian dystopias, Westerns, and the novels of Agatha Christie and Evelyn Waugh have all been woven into the fabric of the series. One famous storyline from the mid-1970s was rooted in the Victoriana of authors like H. Rider Haggard and Arthur Conan Doyle, and another was a virtual remake of Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda—with robots! In Doctor Who and the Art of Adaptation: Fifty Years of Storytelling, Marcus Harmes looks at the show’s frequent exploration of other sources to create memorable episodes. Harmes observes that adaptation in Doctor Who is not just a matter of transferring literary works to the screen, but of bringing a diversity of texts into dialogue with the established mythology of the series as well as with longstanding science fiction tropes. In this process, original stories are not just resituated, but transformed into new works. Harmes considers what this approach reveals about adaptation, television production, the art of storytelling, and the long-term success and cultural resonance enjoyed by Doctor Who. Doctor Who and the Art of Adaptation will be of interest to students of literature and television alike, and to scholars interested in adaptation studies. It will also appeal to fans of the series interested in tracing the deep cultural roots of television’s longest-running and most literate science-fiction adventure.
