Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Mission Accomplished or Mission Frakked Up? (Popular Culture and Philosophy)

"A collection of essays exploring philosophical, political, and cultural themes of the television show Battlestar Galactica"--Provided by publisher. Foreword “I Dare You to Watch This Show!” Acknowledgments MODEL ONE: Some Are Programmed to Think They Are Human The Narrative Disruptions of Model Eight Frak-tured Postmodern Lives, Or, How I Found Out I Was a Cylon The Avatar and the Ego: Reconciling Ourselves with Videogames Gothic Anxiety Am I a Cylon? Self-Knowledge at the Crossroads MODEL TWO: They Look Like Us Now Kiss Me, Now Die! I Frak, Therefor I Am The C-Word: Queering the Cyclons I, Cyborg I am a Cylon MODEL THREE: We Became What We Beheld You Can’t Rape a Machine Knowing We’re Frakked: Democracy and Bad Decisions The Razor’s Edge: Galactica, Pegasus and Lakoff Some Cylons are More Equal Than Others They Evolved, but Do They Deserve Consideration? MODEL FOUR: Battlestar Iraqtica Playing with Fire Without Getting Burned: Blow-Back Re-Imagined The Wretched of New Caprica Choosing Sides: Occupation or Resistance? Secrets and Lies: Balancing Security and Democracy in the Colonial Fleet Weapons of Mass Salvation SALTed Popcorn: The Original Battlestar Galactica in Historical Context MODEL FIVE: Finding Purpose in the Void 33, 34, 35 ... The Life of the Limits Lost in Space? Finding Your Way Without a Map Free Will, Determinism and Schopenhauer (Oh, My!) Living in the Watchtower The Meaning of a Deathless Life MODEL SIX: Near the End of Our Journey Why Your Mormon Neighbor Knows More About This Show Than You Do DINO or Dialogic: What Does “Re-Imagined” Really Mean? The Real War Between Battlestar Galacticas A Dangerous Place for Women Eve, Lilith and the Cylon Connection Dreamers in the Night Coduction: Cylons, Colonials and Criticism DOSSIER Call Signs Decodings Lexicon Intel Other Campaigns (Bibliography) War Journal (Episode Listing) The Universe is a Vast and Complex System: Coincidental, Serendipitous Events Are Bound to Occur... (Index) Amid the suffocating for of conformity that descended over America following 9/11, only one voice was able to reach the masses with honest commentary about the war on terror and the profound moral dilemmas involved in invasion, occupation, and resistance. This was the rebound TV science-fiction series, Battlestar Galactica. Who counts as human? Is killing an intelligent non-human murder or garbage disposal? Can we really know who we are until we know what we are? Battlestar Galactica confronts the reality of the twenty-first-century world system, where any one of us may discover, at any moment, that we are not what we thought we were, that our identity has been fragmented, corrupted, lost, stolen or deleted. Battlestar Galactica has been hailed by Time magazine and other critics as the smartest and most thought-provoking show on television. As well as thoughtful analysis of every aspect of the saga, Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy provides abundant background information and looks at every report from the Battlestar Galactica universe: all three TV series, the movie Razor, webisodes, novels, comics, video games and fanfic. In attempting to retain her'human'side, does Sharon really have free will? Is killing a Cylon murder or garbage disposal? These are some of the questions addressed in this thoughtful collection of writings on the philosophical underpinnings of Battlestar, Galactica. The book includes a brief analysis of the original 1970s and 80s series but concentrates primarily on the episodes, characters, and issues from the entirely reimagined current series (including its fourth and final season, scheduled for airing in early 2008) as well as the two-hour TV movie and direct-to-DVD release Razor. Contents Foreword "I Dare You To Watch This Show!" Acknowledgments Model One 1 2 3 4 5 Model Two 6 7 8 9 10 Model Three 11 12 13 14 15 Model Four 16 17 18 19 20 21 Model Five 22 23 24 25 26 Model Six 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Dossier Callsigns Decodings Lexicon Intel Other Campaigns War Journal The Universe is a vast and complex system: coincidental, serendipitous events are bound to occur... "Act of Contrition" was the first script that Bradley Thompson and I wrote for Battlestar Galactica.