Jo Walton is a science fiction writer of more than a dozen novels and has won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the highest accolades in sci-fi. She is working on a novel called Lent that has religious elements in it. She can discuss religion in science fiction and what it tries to achieve.

Manuel Lopez Zafra is an associate professor of religion at the New College of Florida in Sarasota. He is an expert on Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism, and Hinduism.

James Thrall is an associate professor of religion and culture at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. He teaches a course on science fiction and religion, which includes popular culture, film and literature. He can speak about the novel and the television adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle as well as the works […]

Lorenzo DiTomasso is a professor of religion and culture at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is an expert on apocalypticism, from the ancient to the contemporary, and also studies religion and science fiction.

Elizabeth Goldstein is associate professor of religious studies at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., and a Reform rabbi. She specializes in Hebrew Bible and Jewish studies and has written many articles on Judaism and LGBT issues, gender and purity in biblical Judaism and in modern society. She is the author of Impurity and Gender in the […]

Steven Hrotic is a part-time faculty member in religion at the University of Vermont in Burlington. He is the author of Religion and Science Fiction: The Evolution of an Idea and the Extinction of a Genre.

Robert Geraci is a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York, where he teaches a course on science fiction, fantasy and religion. He is the author of Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life and Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality.

Fuji Lozada is a professor of anthropology and environmental studies at Davidson College in Davidson, N.C., where he specializes in Chinese society. He teaches a course titled “Science, Religion and Society.”

Ben Zeller is an associate professor of religion at Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Ill. Much of Zeller’s research has been focused on the intersection of religion and science. He is an expert on so-called UFO religions – religions that incorporate beliefs outsiders would consider science fiction – such as Heaven’s Gate, and other […]