House of Card: Ender's Game and Speculative Fiction as a Vehicle for Religio-Political Values

Speculative fiction, through its explicit engagement with possible futures of the present world, represents a unique opportunity for writers and readers to connect present-day cultural concerns to possible futures. Speculative fiction allows authors to set characters in worlds created by misguided v...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of religion and popular culture
Main Author: Ross, Meredith (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: University of Saskatchewan [2016]
In: Journal of religion and popular culture
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Card, Orson Scott 1951-, Ender's game / Speculative fiction / Anti-Utopian / USA / Religious policy / Social criticism
RelBib Classification:AA Study of religion
AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism
AG Religious life; material religion
CD Christianity and Culture
Further subjects:B Conservatism
B speculative fiction
B Orson Scott Card
B Twentieth Century
B Dystopia
B Mormonism
B Ender's Game
B Science Fiction
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:Speculative fiction, through its explicit engagement with possible futures of the present world, represents a unique opportunity for writers and readers to connect present-day cultural concerns to possible futures. Speculative fiction allows authors to set characters in worlds created by misguided values present in the world of the reader, providing a platform to “break” and remake that world through critique. By examining not just the world that an author has created but also the trajectory of its creation, we can gain insight into the author's understanding of how religion and politics interact and impact history. Using works from Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game canon as a case study, this article argues that speculative fiction can serve as a vehicle for cultural values and is thus useful to historians of American religion.
ISSN:1703-289X
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of religion and popular culture
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3138/jrpc.28.2-3.3464