Futures of an unknown world: utopian and dystopian visions of religion in Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota series
Drawing on Fredric Jameson’s and Monika Kaup’s work, this article analyzes some aspects of utopian and dystopian thinking about religion in contemporary science fiction, taking as an example Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota series (2016–2021). In these novels set in the twenty-fifth century, religion is re...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge
2024
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| In: |
Religion
Year: 2024, Volume: 54, Issue: 3, Pages: 431–452 |
| Further subjects: | B
Terra Ignota
B speculative fiction B possibilizing B Imagination B Religion B Dystopia B Utopia B Science Fiction |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Drawing on Fredric Jameson’s and Monika Kaup’s work, this article analyzes some aspects of utopian and dystopian thinking about religion in contemporary science fiction, taking as an example Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota series (2016–2021). In these novels set in the twenty-fifth century, religion is restricted to individual counseling with so-called ‘sensayers’, a future equivalent of scholars-of-religion\s-cum-spiritual-advisors. In exploring these visions of future religion, utopia and dystopia prove to be important concepts. Centering religion’s ambivalence as both a centripetal and centrifugal societal force, Palmer presents a continuum of utopian, dystopian, anti-utopian, and anti–anti-utopian religion(s). Nevertheless, in Terra Ignota religion remains conceptualized as an anthropological necessity, limiting the radical difference of her unknown world. In conclusion, drawing on Gayle Salamon and Richard M. Zaner, I argue that speculative fiction’s ‘acts of possibilizing’ can be generative of theoretical insight, providing occasion for fertilizing our ‘ability to fantasy’. |
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| ISSN: | 1096-1151 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/0048721X.2024.2362065 |