Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Knowledge Here Begins Out There (The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series)

Opening the ancient scrolls : classic philosophers as colonial prophets -- How to be happy after the end of the world / Erik D. Baldwin -- When machines get souls : Nietzsche on the cylon uprising / Robert Sharp -- "What a strange little man" : Baltar the Tyrant? / J. Robert Loftis -- The politics of crisis : Machiavelli in the colonial fleet / Jason P. Blahuta -- I, Cylon : are toasters people, too? -- "And they have a plan" : cylons as persons / Robert Arp and Tracie Mahaffey -- "I'm Sharon, but I'm a different Sharon" : the identity of cylons / Amy Kind -- Embracing the "children of humanity" : how to prevent the next cylon war / Jerold J. Abrams -- When the non-human knows its own death / Brian Willems -- Worthy of survival : moral issues for colonials and cylons -- The search for Starbuck : the needs of the many vs. the few / Randall M. Jensen -- Resistance vs. collaboration on New Caprica : what would you do? / Andrew Terjesen -- Being Boomer : identity, alienation, and evil / George A. Dunn -- Cylons in the original position : limits of posthuman justice / David Roden -- The arrow, the eye, and earth : the search for a (divine?) home -- "I am an instrument of God" : religious belief, atheism, and meaning / Jason T. Eberl and Jennifer A. Vines -- God against the gods : faith and the exodus of the twelve colonies / Taneli Kukkonen -- "A story that is told again, and again, and again" : recurrence, providence, and freedom / David Kyle Johnson -- Adama's true lie : earth and the problem of knowledge / Eric J. Silverman -- Sagittarons, capricans, and gemenese : different worlds, different perspectives -- Zen and the art of cylon maintenance / James McRae -- "Let it be earth" : the pragmatic virtue of hope / Elizabeth F. Cooke -- Is Starbuck a woman? / Sarah Conly -- Gaius Baltar and the transhuman temptation / David Koepsell.;This thought-provoking book examines the philosophical issues arising from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series, revealing how the ragtag fleet's outward journey to Earth is also an inward exploration for the human survivors and their Cylon pursuers. PHILOSOPHY/POP CULTURE "The contributors to Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy strive to make things relevant to fans of the show, and they put their information out in a way that is accessible to folks who wouldn't know Heidegger from Heineken." Green Man Review, Spring 2009 "The writers are well versed in their subjects...The book is most effective at making the reader rethink what they thought they knew." Neo-opsis What's the point of living after your world has been destroyed? This is one of many questions raised by the Sci-Fi Channel's critically acclaimed series Battlestar Galactica . More than just an action-packed "space opera," each episode offers a dramatic character study of the human survivors and their Cylon pursuers as they confront existential, moral, metaphysical, theological, and political crises. This volume addresses some of the key questions to which the Colonials won't find easy answers, even when they reach Earth: Are Cylons persons? Is Baltar's scientific worldview superior to Six's religious faith? Can Starbuck be free if she has a special destiny? Is it ethical to cut one's losses and leave people behind? Is collaboration with the enemy ever the right move? Is humanity a "flawed creation?" Should we share the Cylon goal of "transhumanism?" Is it really a big deal that Starbuck's a woman?

What's the point of living after your world has been destroyed? This is one of many questions raised by the Sci-Fi Channel's critically acclaimed series Battlestar Galactica. More than just an action-packed "space opera," each episode offers a dramatic character study of the human survivors and their Cylon pursuers as they confront existential, moral, metaphysical, theological, and political crises.

This volume addresses some of the key questions to which the Colonials won't find easy answers, even when they reach Earth: Are Cylons persons? Is Baltar's scientific worldview superior to Six's religious faith? Can Starbuck be free if she has a special destiny? Is it ethical to cut one's losses and leave people behind? Is collaboration with the enemy ever the right move? Is humanity a "flawed creation"? Should we share the Cylon goal of "transhumanism"? Is it really a big deal that Starbuck's a woman?

What's the point of living after your world has been destroyed? This is one of many questions raised by the Sci-Fi Channel's critically acclaimed series Battlestar Galactica . More than just an action-packed "space opera," each episode offers a dramatic character study of the human survivors and their Cylon pursuers as they confront existential, moral, metaphysical, theological, and political crises. This book addresses some of the key questions to which the Colonials won't find easy answers, even when they reach Earth: Are Cylons persons? Is Baltar's scientific worldview superior to Six's religious faith? Can Starbuck be free if she has a special destiny? Is it ethical to cut one's losses and leave people behind? Is collaboration with the enemy ever the right move? Is humanity a "flawed creation?" Should we share the Cylon goal of "transhumanism"? Is it a really a big deal that Starbuck's a woman?

This thought-provoking book examines the philosophical issues arising from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica

television series, revealing how the ragtag fleet's outward journey to Earth is also an inward exploration for the human survivors and their Cylon pursuers.