Other Worlds

This conversation is also available on YouTube. We’re talking about Juda   an eight-part Israeli tv series about vampires, the criminal underworld and orthodox Judaism.  So if you are interested in any of those things and what they might have to say about living in the world today, then this is the place for you.   Written by and starring Zion Baruch, Juda is filmed in Hebrew, Russian, French, Romanian and English, but if you’re not fluent in all five of those languages, subtitles are available. It follows the story of an egotistical gambler who crosses paths with a vampire and is himself transforming, along the way exploring themes of religious identity, community and choice.   I sat down to talk about Juda with Doctor Holly A Jordan who brings her perspectives both as an academic with backgrounds in education, religion and political theory and as a Jewish person.   Watch Juda on HULU: https://www.hulu.com/series/juda-a72bba8f-94e3-4d30-bcb7-64876f73c9d2 Title music: 95TURBOSOL www.other-worlds.org

This conversation was recorded during the CS Lewis festival in Belfast. The festival took its theme from a collection of essays that Lewis wrote arguing for the importance of fantasy and speculative fiction. The title of that collection: Of This And Other Worlds. I met with Johnny Lowden in the Lamppost Café in East Belfast not far from were CS Lewis was born. We met quickly and with no specialist sound equipment so the background noise of conversation and clinking china is all authentic. Johnny Lowden’s theological studies specialised in cultural phenomena within evangelicalism and he’s well versed in the works of Lewis and Tolkien. We discussed why the same evangelical tradition which widely celebrates CS Lewis also encouraged parents to burn their children’s Harry Potter books and we explored how fantasy fiction, like theology – can either become pure escapism, or it can be the fuel for the transformation of the world.