Theology, Religion, and Twin Peaks

Call for Papers

Twin Peaks, originally developed by David Lynch and Mark Frost, is perhaps the most influential TV show of all time. Prior to its arrival on ABC in 1990, the most-watched shows on television were Soap Operas, and just about every show, regardless of genre, was largely episodic in nature. It was rare to develop a plotline beyond a single episode, and if it occurred, the viewer would often be greeted with a title card that read, “To Be Continued…” Twin Peaks broke the mold by telling a long-form story over multiple episodes (even as it self-consciously adopted the tropes of the Soaps). Indeed, Twin Peaks even dared to continue to ask the central question from the pilot across multiple seasons—“Who killed Laura Palmer?” As it did so, it defied the expectations of the detective mystery genre, since the clues did not add up like viewers might have supposed. Indeed, the clues ultimately pointed beyond themselves to a broader mystery that included supernatural beings and realms, which placed the significance of the smalltown mystery on a cosmic scale. In the early 1990s, however, audiences that were originally enthralled by the show’s quirky vibe, Hollywood-level quality, and unique mode of storytelling, eventually turned it off, especially after executives at ABC forced the showrunners to reveal Laura Palmer’s killer. Twin Peaks was, at the time season 2 was concluding, a victim of its own success. But in today’s media landscape, especially with the advent of streaming services, audiences are quite happy to commit to a story that does not wrap up the central questions raised in a pilot for several seasons. Twin Peaks paved the way for a mode of storytelling that we regularly take for granted.

Twin Peaks also demonstrated that audiences were interested in a kind of mystery that went beyond what one typically gets in a detective story—something with deeper stakes at an existential and metaphysical level. This is partly why a show like The X-Files became prominent in the aftermath of Twin Peaks’ cancellation. The X-Files scratched that same itch of interest in the supernatural, while reverting to the episodic form of storytelling that was more amenable to Nielsen ratings at the time. In the wake of Twin Peaks, there has been an increased interest in the supernatural, the paranormal, and the extraterrestrial more broadly, all of which point to a deeper desire within viewers to know if there is more to life than we might presently realize.

Towards that end, our volume, Theology, Religion, and Twin Peaks, will engage the religious, theological, spiritual, and supernatural elements of Twin Peaks, which are discernable throughout the two original seasons that aired on ABC, the subsequent film that was made in 1992, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and the third season of Twin Peaks, which aired on Showtime in 2017, often referred to as The Return.

Such will be a great contribution to the reception of Twin Peaks, which has been uniquely buttressed by one of the most earnest and stimulating fandoms in all of popular culture. Although the show was originally canceled in 1991, and the film Fire Walk With Me in 1992 was much maligned at the time, the fandom endured. Publications like the fan magazine Wrapped in Plastic, spearheaded by John Thorne, and the annual Twin Peaks festivals in Snoqualmie, Washington and around the world, helped to keep interest in the show alive. Part of the reason for the creation of the fandom is the generative way that the show addresses supernatural mystery, shying away from simple or quick solutions. Twin Peaks has a unique approach to mystery that frustrates and compels at the same time, inviting deeper exploration and promoting multiple lines of interpretation. This provides as good of an invitation as any to explore the religious and theological significance of Twin Peaks at greater length.

And so we invite scholars of Religion, Theology, Divinity, and Philosophy to submit abstracts of less than 500 words for consideration in our volume on the following sort of representative topics:

-Overt portrayals of religion (i.e., Tibetan Buddhism, Christianity, etc).

-Religious themes from, e.g., Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, etc.

-Transcendental Meditation

-The Role of Religion within Americana

-The Dark Side of American Ideals

-Occultic Folk Religion and Magic

-UFOs and Conspiracy Theories

-Indigenous Spirituality

-The Spirituality of Nature

-Industrialization

-The Psychology of Dreams

-Demon Possession

-Violence against Women

-Sexuality

-Dualism

-Sacramentology of the Mundane

-The Fractured Self

-Trauma & Suffering

-Cosmic Theodicy

-Apophatic Theology and the Ineffable Judy

-The Integration of Twin Peaks and David Lynch’s wider oeuvre

-Comparing Twin Peaks with the “deuterocanonical” literary material

-The Influence and Legacy of Twin Peaks

Please submit abstracts (or letters of interest) and CVs no later than October 1, 2023 to j-dunne@bethel.edu and kris.song@gmail.com. First drafts will be due by October 1, 2024. Final manuscript will be delivered to publisher in February, 2025.