|
Since 2006, I have been directing a collaborative project on religion and technology in comparative, historical and cross-cultural perspective. The aim of this project is to generate new understandings of the deep and mutually determinative relationship of religion and technology, and to explore how these terms are articulated in different ways, in different religious traditions, and in disparate scenes of religious encounter. Its specific goals are: -
to review and assess the theoretical discourses which define these two realms of human experience, action and perception; -
to develop a cross-cultural and transnational comparative framework of analysis in which discrete cases of religious encounter with technologies can be situated; -
to set an agenda for scholarly and public discussion concerning our contemporary global circumstance, defined by the ever-deepening penetration of advanced technologies in everyday life, and, at the same time, the increasingly public “return to religion” on the world stage. At the core of this project was a workshop held on 19-21 January 2007at the Art Gallery of Hamilton (Canada), which brought together an international group of scholars working in various disciplinary traditions: theology, philosophy, communication and media studies, anthropology, history, sociology, cultural studies, engineering, and science and technology studies. Our studies will culminate in book, Deus in Machina: Exploring Religion and Technology in Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective (on contract with Fordham University Press).
For more on religion and technology, and the Deus in Machina project, visit the project website: www.ghostlymachine.com |
|
