Ecology, technology and the Christian heritage in Nordic speculative media

The Nordic countries have a reputation for strong environmental concern, but they are also at the forefront of technological innovation. In the Protestant tradition of the North with its focus on the work ethic, all three aspects converge to create a particular cultural nexus. Now, however, the technologically transformed world seems to be out of control. Nature is striking back. This new recognition of the uncontrollable agency of nature is a challenge to the cultural imagination that manifests in speculative fiction (SF). The conference examines how contemporary Nordic SF addresses the gap in between the rational and the (super)natural and what it means to be human in times of increasing technologisation and digitalisation, ecological crisis and spiritual reorientation.