At MHGS watching TV is never just watching TV. It’s an opportunity to encounter new characters and situations through the lens of text.soul.culture. This week, Kj Swanson along with Ian Klein co-presented their paper on the themes of fundamentalism and identity as seen through the character of Shepherd Book in the Joss Whedon series, Firefly. She recounts her story below.

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In August ’08, my friend Ian Klein (Columbia University) and I decided to collaborate on a paper to submit to the American & Popular Culture Association’s Southwest Annual Conference. Our paper, “Not Very Christian Of Me: The Escapist Faith of a Lost Shepherd in Joss Whedon’s Firefly” was accepted as part of the panel devoted to the works of writer/director Joss Whedon.  This past February, Ian and I flew down to Albuquerque for four of the most fun days of our lives: seriously. 10 hours of paper presentations a day on everything from the “Left Behind” series to zombie movies, from Twitter to Harry Potter.  It was candy for the interdisciplinary soul.

As MHGS made it possible for me to attend the conference, Ian and I both wanted a chance to share our work with our friends and community here in Seattle, and MHGS felt like the perfect environment for the kind of discussion we wanted to engage. So this Monday, we presented: “Theology.Psychology.Spaceships” a film screening, paper presentation and discussion around the themes of our work exploring issues of fundamentalism, identity, faith and pop culture in the narrative context of a cult TV series. It felt like the perfect culmination to our year of collaborating, wondering and creating out of these questions. We had an amazing time and were thankful for all who came eager to be entertained as well as ask questions about the nature of conversion, the role of freedom in faith, and what it means to embrace one’s past rather than eradicate it. Thanks for coming. Let’s watch more TV together soon.

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We celebrate Kj and Ian’s hard work and can hardly wait to see what their working on next. Until then, you can download their paper, or read Kj’s and Ian’s blog to keep up with their work.