PRESS RELEASE: 2021 Digital Religion Research Award Winner

2021 Digital Religion Research Award winner is Dr. Beth Singler for her article: The AI Creation Meme: A Case Study of the New Visibility of Religion in Artificial Intelligence Discourse

The Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies (NMRDC) is thrilled to announce Dr.Beth Singler as the winner of the 2021 Digital Religion Research Award.

Dr. Singler is the Junior Research Fellow in Artificial Intelligence and Director of Studies, Theology,Religion, and the Philosophy of Religion at Homerton College, University of Cambridge, England. Her article explores and demonstrates the ways that religious continuities and resonances emerge out of artificial intelligence in the modern era. Dr. Singler’s research expands the current scholarly conversation within Digital Religion studies to post-digital technologies by considering how AI narratives and religion interact now, and how they will in the future. This work is especially unique in that it advances knowledge about how religion is expressed in a field that is often framed by nonreligious or atheist discourses.

Dr. Singler is the third recipient of the recently established Digital Religion Research Award which recognizes the work of scholars whose research and publications promote and expand the field of Digital Religion studies. This area of scholarship explores how religious groups and practices intersect and engage with digital media in ways that influences online and offline expressions of religion. Decisions about the Award are made by members of the Advisory Board of the Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies. These individuals evaluate submissions based on how well a scholar’s work expands the current knowledge within the research area and sophisticatedly applies
the approaches and concepts developed by Dr. Heidi A. Campbell, who is the founder of the Network as well as a pioneer in the field of Digital Religion studies.

Dr. Singler will give the annual Digital Religion Research Award Lecture on November 10, 2021 in an online Zoom webinar sponsored by the Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies (NMRDC). More information is forthcoming.

The NMRDC is the premier international research network for interdisciplinary scholars and students who study how emerging technologies, religion, and digital cultures interact and intersect. For more information about the Network, visit: www.digitalreligion.tamu.edu

For more information about the annual Digital Religion Research Award and the NMRDC, please contact Heidi A. Campbell at heidic@tamu.edu. Our award winner Beth Singler can also be reached for comments on her research via email: a bvw20@cam.ac.uk

A call for submissions for the 2022 Digital Religion Research Award will be released in late November 2021.