Call for Proposals

This Group invites proposals that explore the intersections of religion and science fiction in ways that illuminate theoretical, methodological, and substantive issues in the study of religion. We are especially interested in proposals that invite audience conversation, make use of new media, and imagine presentations coincident with science fiction techniques for presenting alternative “sciences” and worlds. We seek proposals on the following topics:

• Science fiction retellings of religious myths, stories, and scriptures


• Comics/Graphic novels


• Science fiction texts and films as sources of religious belief and practice — are they really religious texts?


• For a possible cosponsored session with the Buddhism Section, Buddhism and science fiction


• How science fiction mutates the study of religion

Mission

This Group connects the study of religion to the limitless possibilities for world-making, soul-saving, god-imagining, community-forming, and human-being posed by science fiction (and broadly, “speculative” fictions). Science Fiction (SF) is a literary and visual medium addressing the most basic existential and teleological questions human beings can pose. As the genre of infinite possible worlds, and human and superhuman becoming, SF has a unique ability to ask, examine, and suggest answers to the most profound questions and to envision transcendence beyond traditional realist literature or religious interpretations of the world.

Anonymity of Review Process

Proposer names are visible to Chairs but anonymous to Steering Committee members.

Questions?

Rudy V. Busto
University of California, Santa Barbara
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Bruce M. Sullivan
Northern Arizona University
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Method of Submission

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