Theology and Black Mirror

Amber Bowen is assistant professor of philosophy at Redeemer University (Hamilton, ON). John Anthony Dunne is assistant professor of New Testament and the director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN).

Theology and Black Mirror is a rich, rewarding, and provocative look at this cultural phenomenon that sheds new light on its familiar themes of future technology gone wrong. Moving beyond simplistic dystopian readings of the show, the book uncovers a deeper texture to Black Mirror’s challenges to the understanding of human nature, meaning, finitude, and transcendence embedded in theology and moral philosophy. This book helpfully reminds us that Black Mirror’s reflected anxieties about the powers and limitations of technology are inseparable from our enduring anxieties about our own.

• More Than Meets the Eye: An Introduction to Theology and Black MirrorAmber Bowen and John Anthony DunnePart 1. Agency and Conditioning1.Ethics through a Dark Lens: Ellul’s Technological Morality in Black MirrorPeter Anderson2.Barbarism, Boredom, and the Question Concerning Pornography in Fifteen Million MeritsAmber Bowen3.Free Will and (In)determinism in Hang the DJTaylor W. Cyr4.Too Many Twos: Ashley and the Artificial Authentic Elizabeth Howard5.Smithereens as Technological Theodicy: Addiction, Emergence, and Resistance John Anthony DunnePart 2. Idols and Anti-Christs6.Arkangel and the Death of God: A Nietzschean Critique of Technology’s Soteriological SchemeAmber Bowen and Megan Fritts7.Seeing and Being Seen in a Black Mirror, Dimly: Phenomenology and the Dim View of White ChristmasKing-Ho Leung and Patrick McGlinchey8.Evil Gods and the USS CallisterCelina Durgin and Dru JohnsonPart 3. Truth and Justice9.Crowdsourcing Judgment: The Dark Side of Justi