For episode 15 of Pop Apocalypse, we welcome assistant professor, Fryderyk Kwiatkowski, on to discuss the relationship between ancient Gnostic myth and modern cinema. Fryderyk takes us through the impact European intellectuals 20:29 Carl Jung, Hans Jonas, and Eric Voegelin on popular conceptions of Gnosticism. We then dive into analyses of the Gnostic elements in films 34:34 like the Matrix, Dark City, Truman Show, and more recent cinema like Free Guy, Chappie, and the television series Silo.

BIO
Fryderyk Kwiatkowski is an Assistant at AGH University of Krakow. He earned a joint doctoral degree from the University of Groningen and the Jagiellonian University in 2023 with a thesis entitled Gnosticism in Hollywood: From European Academia to American Popular Culture. His research interests encompass the cultural reception of late antique esoteric traditions, their intersections with discourses on utopias and dystopias, and the (not-so-obvious) intertwinement of popular media, philosophy, and religion. He is currently developing a project on the role of imagination in contemporary technoculture, with a focus on the feedback loops between transhumanism, science fiction, and esotericism. He has published his research in venues such as Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies, CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, Journal of Religion and Film.

NOTES
Fryderyk Kwiatkowski
Academia.edu
Gnosticism in Hollywood: From European Academia to American Popular Culture
"Eric Voegelin and Gnostic Hollywood"
"How to Attain Liberation from a False World? The Gnostic Myth of Sophia in Dark City."