| dc.description.abstract | Literature Review: Much of the current available scholarship on science fiction and its engagement with the spiritual centers about religious tropes in science fiction, such as aliens as deities, gnosticism, the “personhood” of machines, and apocalypse. James F. McGrath in his book Theology and Science Fiction argues that science fiction often intersects the spiritual, and suggests that these religious tropes in science fiction are actually an engagement with common theological questions. The trope of gods as aliens corresponds to the theological question of “what merits our worship, or at least our reverence?”; gnosticism responds to the question of “whether comfortable truths are preferable to a pleasant lie”; and so on (McGrath 27, 36). Scholarship on mysticism, on the other hand, typically engages with the history of mysticism and the common forms of mystical prac- tices, as enumerated in texts such as Mysticism: Its History and Challenge by Bruno Borchert and Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill. This thesis connects these two realms of scholarship by en- gaging with the mystical, rather than the theological aspects of science fiction, and investigating why science fiction is an appropriate vehicle for mystical thought and action. Thesis Statement: The reading of science fiction literatures, especially the work of Stanislaw Lem and Philip K. Dick, may be understood as simulations aimed at inducing metacognition, and through this metacognition, enlightenment. Through common science fiction tropes such as simulation, the divine invasion, and the breakdown of reality, science fiction novels thus present themselves as simulations which induce inquiry into the nature of the self and the nature of reality, and in effect, rearticulate ancient contemplative tropes through the language of a relatively modern literary genre. Theoretical Framework: The framework for this thesis is informed by an understanding of mysticism according to authors and scholars such as Evelyn Underhill, Richard Doyle, and Jeffrey J. Kripal. The framework is also based in an understanding of rhetoric that informs the analysis of how and why science fiction is conducive to mystical thought and experience. Project Description: Science fiction is a genre steeped in mystical tradition. Many themes in science fiction, such as the theme of the unknowable, incomprehensible alien, as well as the theme of alternate realities/dystopia, can be read as literary reworking of mysticism, which is conglomerate of be- liefs and practices that attempts to engage with a higher power or hidden truth. Using a mystical framework informed by scholars such as Evelyn Underhill, Jeffrey J. Kripal, Richard Doyle, and Joshua DiCaglio, science fiction novels can be read and analyzed as not only informed by mystical ideas, but as texts which function as simulations of the mystically experience in of themselves. In particular, the novels of Philip K. Dick and Stanislaw Lem rework ancient contemplative tropes concerning the nature of reality and of the self through the modern language of science fiction using its tropes of simulation, the divine invasion, and the breakdown of reality. | en |
