A Theological Jurisprudence of Speculative Cinema

A new trajectory for considering the intertwined relationship between theology and law Through close readings of a range of popular Hollywood speculative fiction films--Shyamalan's Unbreakable, Snyder's Man of Steel, Lucas's and Disney's Star Wars, Nolan's The Dark Knight & The Dark Knight Rises, Proyas' I, Robot, Nolfi's The Adjustment Bureau and Jackson's The Hobbit-- Timothy Peters explores how fictional worlds, particularly those that 'make strange' the world of the viewer, can render visible and make explicit the otherwise opaque theologies of modern law. He illustrates that speculative cinema's genres of estrangement provide a way for us to see and engage the theological concepts of modern law in our era of late capitalism, global empire and the crises of neoliberalism. Key features: - advances the field of cultural legal studies by considering speculative cinema as a way of revealing the theologies of modern law and legal theory - offers seven close readings of Hollywood speculative fiction blockbusters as theological and jurisprudential texts - explores key themes of law including justice, the exception, law's violence, revolution, law's universality, sovereignty and property as theft - explores key themes of theology including the nature of evil, myth and mysticism, atonement, sacrifice, compassionate acts, visions of the divine and charity as gift Timothy D Peters is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the School of Law and Society, University of the Sunshine Coast, an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Law Futures Centre, Griffith University and President of the Law, Literature and the Humanities Association of Australasia. He is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (project number DE200100881) funded by the Australian Government, examining 'New Approaches to Corporate Legality: Beyond Neoliberal Governance'.