Theology, Philosophy, and Severance

Call for Papers

Severance, created by Dan Erickson and Ben Stiller, has captured the imagination of the streaming world. Season 1, developed and filmed during the Covid-19 Pandemic and the backbone of the Apple TV+ streaming service, was nominated for 14 Emmys at the 74^th Annual Emmy Awards in 2022 (two wins). The long-awaited season 2 has thrust the sci-fi psychological thriller into the top five of Nielsen’s Top Ten Streaming Originals list. It includes spectacular visuals, excellent writing and dialogue, top of the field acting, and an award-winning musical score.

Severance begs for a theological and philosophical analysis. It is a brilliant commentary on life, existence, memory, love, coping with trauma, resistance, and work life balance. It asks questions of community, religion, empire, powerful corporations, and liberation. In addition, there is a distinctly existentialist stream, and the show lends itself to deep philosophical engagement of various sorts. Like all good philosophy, it does not give the viewer all the answers, even as season two comes to a close, but rather asks them to continue the story in their own imagination. This volume allows for scholars to engage deeply with the eternally fascinating theological and philosophical themes of Severance.

This volume is called Theology, Philosophy, and Severance. 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 titles and topics:

• “Who are you?”: Severance’s Exploration of Existential Identity
• “All I can be is sorry and that is all that I am”: Confession and Guilt in the Break Room
• Deeper Meaning: The Perpetuity Wing and Cheap Offers for Purpose
• The You You Are: Ricken as a Prophet of Liberation to a Captive People
• Reintegration: Kant’s Transcendent self in Mark S.
• Reversing the Severance procedure: Unity and Reintegration in Romans
• Deconstruction: (Dis-)Harmony Cobel and Dealing with the Collapse of Institutions
• The Tree of Life and The Tree of Death: Mark’s Trauma and the Avoidance of Grief
• Children of God and Children of Empire: A Healthy skepticism of Big Tech and claims to save the world
• “The Good News About Hell”: Severance as a Modern-day version of Sartre’s play, No Exit
• Part of “a noble history”: The three friends of Daniel 3 and resisting the story of empire

Other possible themes and topics:

• Surrealism
• Allegory
• Resurrection
• Exodus and Exile
• Nostalgia and the veneration of Kier
• Gothic and Romantic Themes
• Dystopian Corporations
• Freedom and Work
• The myth of the Work-Life Balance
• Identity and Memory or Identity without Memory
• Existentialism and Work

Please submit abstracts (or letters of interest) and CVs no later than June 1, 2025 to FoxN@Crown.edu. (Acceptance notifications to be sent by June 15). First drafts will be due by January 1, 2026. Final manuscript will be delivered to publisher in March/April, 2026.