Pre-orders are now open for Luna's latest Call for Papers! Follow Me: Religion in Fantasy and Science Fiction. Pre-order yours here! Ebook also available on the usual retailers' sites.
Our Award Winning series, welcomes essays from academics, independent researchers, fans and creative writers, appealing to both the casual reader and a more research-oriented one. We consider this cross-disciplinary collaboration a strength, and the beginning of many more journeys.
The book will be released on the 20th of June, so we have plenty of time to introduce you to our contributors.
Today we'll introduce you to Kevin Cooney - USA - presenting the paper, The Sacred and Profane- UFO Religions and Alien Messiahs in Rendezvous with Rama.
Abstract:
When Arthur C. Clarke crafted Rendezvous with Rama (1973), it came on the heels of the epic and wildly popular 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Over the decades, Clarke stretched readers’ imaginations with sweeping and awe-inspiring stories that tapped into the basic human instinct of curiosity. What Clarke rarely dabbled in was the subject of religion. While he touched on the subject in short stories and briefly in later novels, it was in Rendezvous with Rama that Clarke created a religion based on UFOlogy and ideas of an alien Messiah. For all of Rendezvous with Rama’s hard science and fetishistic technological detail, the heart and hero of the tale is the novel’s only religious devotee. Acting as a servant of scientific truth and an alien God, Clarke’s character of Boris Rodrigo is an exemplary link between the sacred and the profane in the history of science fiction.
About the Author:
Kevin Cooney is an expert in human ecology and graduate of Harvard University, Kevin Cooney is an independent scholar, freelance writer, and ecocritic. His interest in environmental issues and associated subjects embedded in uncanny and estrangement stories of horror and science fiction propels his work and analysis.
His previous work, features in BSFA Award Winning Worlds Apart: Worldbuilding in Fantasy and Science Fiction.
An up to date collection of his work can be found at https://linktr.ee/kcooney