Eberl, J.T., Bishop, J.P. Battlestar Galactica as Philosophy: Breaking the Biopolitical Cycle (2024) The Palgrave Handbook of Popular Culture as Philosophy Editors: David Kyle Johnson (Editor-in-Chief), Dean A. Kowalski, Chris Lay, Kimberly S. Engels, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 93-112.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-24685-2_4
Abstract
The reimagined Battlestar Galactica series (2003–2009) and its prequel series Caprica (2009–2010) provoked viewers to consider anew perennial philosophical questions regarding, among others, the nature of personhood and the role of religion in culture and politics. While no single philosophical viewpoint encapsulates the creators’ vision as a whole, the theory of biopolitics, as formulated by Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and others, is a fruitful lens through which various points of story and character development may be analyzed. Two noteworthy areas of attention are, first, whether a race of intelligent, self-aware beings, who have been artificially created, should be considered “persons” with attendant moral and legal status, and second, whether the purported ontological division between the “biological” and the “artificial” has moral import concerning the degree of control one class of beings may legitimately exercise over another. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.
Author Keywords
Apotheosis; Bare life; Battlestar Galactica; Biopolitics; Biopower; Caprica; Caprica Six; Cylons; Embodiment; Gaius Baltar; Giorgio Agamben; Hannah Arendt; Homo sacer; Justice; Laura Roslin; Lee Adama; Michel Foucault; Personhood; Procreation; Religion; Roberto Esposito; Technologies of the self; Totalitarianism; Transhumanism; Zoe Graystone
Foucault News 