Gothic Tensions between Faith, Science, and Faith in Science in Doctor Who

Document Type

Presentation

Abstract

This talk examined the use of Gothic tropes on the television show Doctor Who, through the lens of current theories about the Gothic's original emergence in the eighteenth century. Carnes argued that the Gothic’s resurgence in contemporary literature results from anxieties very similar to the anxieties that led to the Gothic’s birth in the eighteenth century: anxieties that resulted from a loss of faith in the ideologies of both the “enlightened” science of modernity and the religious beliefs of premodernity. Over the course of the Doctor Who series, Gothic tropes have often been deployed to generate a tension between scientific and religious worldviews, but for much of the show’s early history, this tension was not legitimately Gothic because the show expressed little real skepticism of science. For instance, the heavy use of Gothic tropes in 1970s episodes was in service of a staunchly scientistic ideology (an ideology which scholars such as Lindy Orthia have shown was highly evident in this era of the program). In contrast, certain Gothic episodes of the twenty-first-century incarnation of the series are more authentically animated by doubts in both traditional religion and modern science. Like the traditional Gothic, these recent episodes do not unequivocally favor science in this conflict. Carnes suggested that, for a public whose faith in science and Enlightenment values as a means of human progress has faded, scientism may be taking on the role once played in the Gothic by Catholicism: that of an outdated belief system with a powerful pull on the imagination which must nevertheless be defeated by a new ideology. This new ideology’s characteristics, while still under negotiation, appear to include a level of religiosity, or at the very least, skepticism in science’s ability to determine truth.

Publication Date

11-13-2017

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS