Blog

Heidi Campbell - Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - 13:40

Over the next few month the Network will be featuring a new blog series. The "Digital Religion Scholars Spotlight" series will provide brief overview of interesting and important work being done by scholars around the world studying themes related to Digital Religion. Spotlights will provide reviews of recent books and research studies of these scholars , as well as provide background information on key and up-and-coming scholars in the field.


Heidi Campbell - Monday, September 25, 2017 - 11:06

The International Society for Media, Religion and Culture (http://ismrc-seoul.com/) is offering a unique opportunity for Doctoral Students studying Digital Religion topics. Below is a Call for Papers: for the 2nd Doctoral Colloquium Pre-Conference to be held the day before the start of the 2018 ISMRC conference (see: http://www.colorado.edu/ismrc/). The event will be held at University of Colorado, Boulder.

This pre-conference will provide doctoral students the opportunity to present their research, receive feedback from leaders in the field, discuss theoretical, methodological and professional challenges, as well as network with other peers.
Interested students should prepare a) 1-2 page (500-800 word) extended abstract of the student's thesis/major research project and b) a sample paper/chapter (up to 5000 words) of writing related to the topic.
All materials are to be prepared in English and are due on or before 15th of January 2018.

Please send all applications to the Doctoral Colloquium Chair, Associate Professor Heidi Campbell (heidic@tamu.edu), with subject: ISMRC doctoral colloquium application.
Questions may also be directed to the same email.

Important dates are as follows:

Pre-Conference date: 7th of August 2018
Deadline for Paper proposals: 15 January 2018
Notification of acceptances: end of February 2018

We highly encourage international and interdisciplinary student participation in this event!


Heidi Campbell - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - 11:20

The season of Lent is upon us. This is a holy season for Christians who seek to identify with Jesus Christ’s 40 days of fasting as he prepared to be tested and later crucified. In order to identify with Christ’s self-sacrifice, Christians often join in a symbolic fast, giving up certain foods such as meat or chocolate or even giving up certain practices.

In recent years, fasting from the internet or other forms of technology has become popular. Fasting from technology is encouraged by many religious leaders as the ideal way for individuals to reflect on their daily dependency on technology. Sometimes called taking a “digital Sabbath,” it refers to the Christian and Jewish practice, in which one day a week is set aside as sacred.

On such a day, secular practices such as using media are halted in order to help believers focus on God and their faith. This is based on the premise that the best way to critically engage with technology is to unplug from it. It’s a way to remember that true communication is unmediated by technology and grounded in being with one another in the “real world.”

Unplugging from social media or limiting one’s internet use for a set period such as during Lent can be helpful for some individuals. My research, conducted over two decades, however, shows that some of core assumptions on which digital fasting is based on can be problematic or misguided.

Technology can, in fact, be good for religion. The question is, how do we engage with technology thoughtfully and actively?

Media and immoral values?

First, let’s look at how religious groups interact and make decisions about new forms of media.

In my recent book, “Networked Theology,” my coauthor Stephen Garner and I discuss how some religious communities believe the media primarily promote immoral values and frivolous entertainment. Therefore, they insist interaction with media via digital devices should be controlled, just as is done during a digital fast.

In “Networked Theology,” we explain how abstaining from media is based on an assumption often referred to as “technological determinism.” It is a theory that argues media technology shapes how individuals in society think and act. Technology is presented as the central factor driving society, and its character is often described as selfish and dehumanizing.

This view presents the internet as a medium that creates environments that disconnect us from reality. For example, YouTube could be seen to promote entertainment culture over wisdom, Facebook encourages self-promotion over community-building and Twitter facilitates tweeting whatever comes to one’s mind rather than listening.

People are not passive users

The truth is digital media is increasingly a part of daily routines. People learn, do business and communicate with technology. Often technology enhances our daily lives, such as eyeglasses correcting vision or the telephone helping people communicate across time and space.

A man praying during Lent. AP Photo/Fernando Llano
.
The problem, however, comes when we assume that people have only two options: to engage technology and inevitably be seduced by it, or refuse to use it in order to resist its power.

Digital fasting follows this second option. It presents individuals as slaves of technology. Taking the occasional timeout from the all-powerful grip of technology is done in order to simply regroup and prepare to again face its irresistible seduction.

In my view, such an approach places too much emphasis on the assertion that technological devices now dictate most people’s lives. It also does not take into account that technology users have the ability to make their own choices about how they approach it. So people can choose to use technology in ways that fulfill spiritual goals.

In “Networked Theology,” we argue that digital technology can be reshaped by users. As others have written, we agree that people should take more responsibility for the time spent with their devices.

Deepening devotion with technology

So, instead of resisting technology during Lent, individuals could use this space of holy reflection to actively consider how to integrate technology to support their spiritual development.

Religious groups have the ability to determine the culture technology promotes, if only they take time to prayerfully create their own “theology of technology.”

I describe part of this process as being “techno-selective.” What this means is reflecting on the technology we select and how and why we use it. It also means being proactive in shaping our technologies so they enhance and not distract from our spiritual journeys.

A digital Lent can become about considering how our devices can help us do justice, practice kindness and demonstrate humility in our world. For example, people could ask if their postings on Facebook are helping in creating a positive or more abusive world? Or, whether the apps they use or their cellphone etiquette promotes peace and social change?

Apps for social justice

In the last five years I have been working with a team of students at Texas A&M University to explore how social and mobile media are being developed that can support a variety of religious beliefs and practices. We found there are religious apps to help people do that. Internet memes also provide unique insights into common stereotypes about religion within popular culture.

Memes can be crafted to counter such misconceptions. For example, the wearing of hijabs, or head scarves, by Muslim women is viewed by many outside the religion as oppressive, but wearing the veil and modesty are themes frequently affirmed in memes created by Muslims.

Digital devices can create space for holy reflection. Linda Flores, CC BY-NC-ND

Further, our research on religious mobile apps has found increasing numbers of apps are available that help individuals stay faithful in their religious practices on a daily basis. Apps can help with the reading of sacred texts, provide religious study aids, help locate kosher or halal products to maintain a holy lifestyle and connect people with places of worship and also to other beliefs.

Prayer and meditation apps can help users remember when to pray and become more accountable in these daily spiritual practices.

Also apps designed to encourage involvement in social justice causes, such as TraffickStop, Lose Weight or Donate and CharityMiles, help raise awareness of key issues and even help users link their daily practices, such as what they eat, to micro-donations to social justice organizations.

A digital Lent?

Lent is a great time for religious individuals and groups to pause and consider not only their own technological practices and how they shape our world but also the ways in which digital resources can be integrated into their communities to support their beliefs.

So instead of giving up Facebook for Lent, consider doing Lent digitally.

Practicing 40 days of technoselectivity might actually have a longer-term impact socially and spiritually on one’s daily life. It could even deepen religious devotion.

This piece was first published with The Conversation and appears online at: https://theconversation.com/how-to-use-digital-devices-this-lent-for-hol...


Heidi Campbell - Thursday, November 19, 2015 - 12:21

The upcoming American Academy of Religion 2015 convention boasts a number of very interesting session related to Digital Religion studies. From engaging themes such as Religion and Game Studies to Buddhist & Jewish engagement with the Internet, here are our recommendations for top 4 must attend Digital Religion sessions for this year:

(1)
Video Gaming and Religion Seminar
Theme: Crafting the Study of Religion and Video Games: A Roundtable Discussion of Key Perspectives
Heidi Ann Campbell, Texas A&M University, Presiding
Monday - 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Hilton-206 (Level 2)

The roundtable addresses the study of religion and video gaming. In order to "craft" key perspectives, the discussants focus on the sandbox game Minecraft (2009), an open world platform in which players find various materials which they can then transform into almost any structure imaginable. Through a moderated conversation, each discussant will use Minecraft to respond to one of three questions: (1) How should religious study concern itself with video games? (2) What methods and research questions do you recommend? (3) Do scholars have to play the game to analyze it? On a more general level, the roundtable will address how studying video games furthers religious studies. Just as films helped to illuminate and expose the religiosity of the twentieth century, video games now depict the religiosity of the twenty-first century in compelling and important ways

Panelists:
Jason Anthony, Brooklyn, NY
Ian Bogost, Georgia Institute of Technology
Gregory Grieve, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
Owen Gottlieb, Rochester Institute of Technology
Kerstin Radde-Antweiler, University of Bremen
Michael Waltemathe, Ruhr Universität Bochum
Rachel Wagner, Ithaca College
Xenia Zeiler, University of Helsinki

Responding:
Michael Houseman, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

(2)
Religion, Media, and Culture Group
Theme: Lessons in Jewish Resistance and Reconstruction of New Media from Digital Judaism
Heidi Ann Campbell, Texas A&M University, Presiding
Monday - 4:00 PM-6:30 PM
Marriott-A601 (Atrium Level)

This panel explores how various stakeholders within Jewish communities respond to new media through a range of strategic negotiation processes involving a complex interplay between embracing and resisting various technological affordances. Presenters represent key studies from Digital Judaism: Jewish Negotiations with Digital Media and Culture (Routledge, 2015). Each study considers how Jewish user-communities in the USA and Israel negotiate perceived positive and problematic affordance of digital media in light of their religious tradition and moral boundaries. Together presenter reflect theoretically of the religious and cultural factors influencing the technological decision-making for various Jewish communities from American Reform Jewish communities use of social media to attempts of National Religious groups in Israel to create a kosher internet through filtered engagement strategies.

Menahem Blondheim, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Jewish Communication Tradition and Its Encounters with (the) New Media

Wendi Bellar, Texas A&M University
Sanctifying the Internet: Aish HaTorah’s Use of the Internet for Digital Outreach

Oren Golan, University of Haifa
Legitimation of New Media and Community Building among Jewish Denominations in the USA

Michele Rosenthal, University of Haifa
On Pomegranates and Etrogs: Internet Filters as Practices of Media Ambivalence among Israeli National Religious Jews

Owen Gottlieb, Rochester Institute of Technology
Jewish Games for Learning: Renewing Heritage Traditions in the Digital Age

(3)
Religion, Media, and Culture Group
Theme: Third Spaces, Media, and Hybrid Subjects
Andrew Aghapour, University of North Carolina, Presiding
Sunday - 5:00 PM-6:30 PM
Marriott-A705 (Atrium Level)

Media creates spaces where religious authority, identities, and communities are forged. Subjects come into being in these spaces, shaped by the state, the market, religious authority, but also by the alternative and hybrid possibilities that emerge in unexpected ways from new modes of communication. The panel begins with an exploration of third spaces as a theoretical framework and, from there turns to intriguing case studies of diverse hybrids: autodidact Sunni intellectuals subverting traditional modes of authority, the production of a marketable America after WWII by the Ad Council, and the tourist who finds herself in the strange juxtaposition of paired centers celebrating civil rights and Coca Cola. In each, media reifies entrenched modes of being while simultaneously opening new spaces for unprecedented subjects.
Stewart M. Hoover, University of Colorado
Nabil Echchaibi, University of Colorado
The Third Spaces of Digital Religion

Emad Hamdeh, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University
The Internet and Religious Authority in Modern Sunnism

Andrew Polk, Middle Tennessee State University
Free-Market Religion: Selling America after the Second World War

Lucia Hulsether, Yale University
Buying into the Dream: Utopian Subjects at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights

(4)
Science, Technology, and Religion Group
Theme: Science Fiction, Science and Religion
Ted Peters, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Presiding
Sunday - 1:00 PM-2:30 PM
Marriott-International 9 (International Level)

This paper session examines the role science fiction plays in thinking about science and religion.

Catherine Newell, University of Miami
Single Vision: The Wages of Scientific Materialism and Resurgence of Nature Religion in LeGuin's "Newton's Sleep"

Lisa L. Stenmark, San Jose State University
Developing an Apocalyptic Vision: Postcolonial and Indigenous Science Fiction and Hope for a New World

Neela Bhattacharya Saxena, Nassau Community College
AI as Awakened Intelligence: Technological Singularity and the Buddhist Bardo in the Film Her


Heidi Campbell - Tuesday, March 3, 2015 - 08:39

Sex is often a taboo topic in many conservative religious cultures. However, researchers have found that the Internet breaks down normal social barriers and helps religious individuals, such as Muslims, engage more freely about sex.

According to Roxanne D. Marcotte, associate professor in religious studies at University of Quebec-Montreal, websites like MuslimVillage.com provide Australian Muslims with a unique social space that enables them to more openly discuss sexuality-related issues than is typically possible in traditional communities.

This is a follow-up to an earlier study about online gender and sexuality discussions in Australian Muslim forums, which found Muslims actively tackle, negotiate, condone and condemn controversial issues such as polygamy or polygyny and homosexuality, for which non-Muslims have so many preconceived ideas.

In “Let’s Talk about Sex: Australian Muslim online discussions,” Marcotte looks at how MuslimVillage.com, an Australian-based Muslim community website started in 2001 with over 26,000 registered members, seeks to build a sense of community and provide an online space for Muslims to discuss a wide variety of topics, including queries about religion and sexuality.

Through careful observation of how Muslim participants write about certain sex-related issues online she concludes that the Internet significantly helps to break down traditional social taboos.

“Because of anonymity online, such talk is no longer restricted to circles of close and personal friends,” explained Marcotte. “Online forums make possible open and lively public debates of rather intimate matters. The Internet helps Muslims engage with fewer inhibitions than they might have with offline family or community, and forcefully put forward their own opinions.”

Her research also notes a double standard between Muslim men and women. Online forums allow women to question why men suffer few consequences for engaging in premarital or extramarital sex, while women are viewed extremely negatively if they do so. The Internet also allows Muslims of both genders to debate practices such as women undergoing surgery to reconstruct their virginity in order to conform to prevalent social community norms.

This study spotlights the important resources the Internet provides, especially for Muslims living in Muslim minority countries. As Marcotte states, “It highlights the many ways Muslims in Muslim minority contexts tackle and juggle tradition and modernity, by engaging in opinion sharing that is very wise, down to earth and pragmatic in the ways they deal with sexuality related issues, so that its advice translates across cultural contexts.”

“Let’s talk about sex: Australian Muslim online discussions”, was published Contemporary Islam by Springer Netherlands. More information can be found at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11562-014-0316-9

This summary of research is also found at RNS, see: http://pressreleases.religionnews.com/2015/03/03/study-explores-impact-m...


Heidi Campbell - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - 10:16

A new online journal seeks to broaden and energize scholarly and popular discussions on video gaming, religion and culture. Motivated by evidence that suggests video games play an important role in cultural and religious socialization, especially for the young people, “gamevironments. games, religion, and stuff” is a groundbreaking journal highlighting important approaches to studying gaming and religion.

The publication is spearheaded by Kerstin Radde-Antweiler, Associate Professor of Media of Religions from the University of Bremen in Germany, and Xenia Zeiler, Associate Professor of South Asian Studies, from the University of Helsinki in Finland. They represent a new movement of scholars that take seriously the ways digital and video games and game play reflect and shape popular notions about religion in contemporary culture.

Gamevironments seeks an exhaustive understanding of video games, religion, and culture through not only providing analysis of the religious themes within video game content, but also provide spotlight research that focuses on the impact religious characters and narratives have on gamers.

As Radde-Antweiler states, “This journal looks beyond how religion is simply depicted and narrated in video games, by also highlighting research of how religion is encountered in studies of gaming and environments.”

Together Radde-Antweiler and Zeiler argue that in order to fully understanding the complex relation of religion and video games requires gathering information on more than just the content of games. It includes truly exploring how religious content in games such as World of Warcraft and Halo are discussed and negotiated by the very people playing these games.

“For us the title ‘gameviroments’ captures this important and unique approach to studying religion and games,” suggests Zeiler, “We are interested in the actual discussion on religious content within a game by gamers, and other people interested in games.“

As the journal’s title implies, articles seek to provide a new understanding of both the technical and cultural environments of video games. This is unpacked in the inaugural issue which spotlights importance of researching ‘game environments’, or gamevironments, through so-called Let’s Plays. These are increasingly popular self-recorded gaming videos, where gamers narrate their strategies and are commented on by often tens of thousands of people. Studying Lets plays allows researchers unique insights into how gamers and audiences perceive gaming and discuss them.

Future issues will also take-up topics including games for education and religion and video games in Asia. The editors welcome contributions in these areas and on any other topic which addresses religion in diverse global video games and the gaming landscape. Their aim is to establish and maintain a critical dialogue on religion, gaming and culture, which include perspectives beyond regional contexts.

“Overall the journal demonstrates the key approaches and new frontiers of researching video games and gaming which strongly relate to religion, culture, and society from a global perspective . . . Work presented here will help widen the lens by drawing attention to research on the actors, that is gamers and people interested in playing and commenting on games,” said Zeiler.

The first issue gamevironments –titled “Video Gaming, Let’s Plays, and Religion: The Relevance of Researching Gamevironments”–was released for publication on December 31st, and is found at: http://www.gamevironments.com.

This summary of research also appears on Religion News Service at:http://pressreleases.religionnews.com/2015/01/28/new-journal-highlights-...


Al Nonymius - Tuesday, January 27, 2015 - 10:42

Digital Death: Mortality and Beyond in the Online Age, by editors Christopher M. Moreman and A. David Lewis provides a broad selection of essays revolving around the online behaviors that the living perform to congregate around, mourn, and memorialize the dead. The authors intend for Digital Death to serve as a primer to generate further inquiry into the interplay of the digital sphere and the practices the living enact in the commemoration of those that have died. In this regard, the book succeeds by introducing readers to several topics within this emergent discussion.

A section concerning social media and mourning includes chapters that examine the role and function of deceased users’ Facebook profiles, the changes such profiles undergo when they cease to be a representation of the user’s identity and are instead managed collectively by the Friends who visit the deceased’s profile. Other chapters in this section analyze the impact that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest have had on the ways that users experience and express, and make a spectacle of grief online.

The second part of the book explores memorialization online and questions surrounding ‘legacy.’ The authors of this section’s chapters broadly consider issues of space and place, permanence and temporality, animation and repose, commerce, vandalism, and socially sensitive design in online memorials and digital cemeteries.

The final section of the book focuses on what the editors offer as “Virtual Worlds beyond Death.” This section ventures into diverse and surprising territory. One chapter examines the purpose of and discourse within a fanfiction memorial on LiveJournal commemorating a deceased character, Laura Roslin, and Battlestar Galactica, the televisual universe that she inhabited. Another chapter explores works by Nabokov and Diderot that have anticipated or shaped our understanding of various relationships between biological mortality and media. Another chapter explores player character’s death in video games and its relation to progress loss, saving to retain progress, and the implications of permadeath—the permanent loss of a player’s character and progress. The final chapter of this section explores digital death of MMO’s by examining the rise and fall of massively multiplayer online games. Reflecting on his own experience as an MMO player and digital ethnographer, Bainbridge exposes the mortality of digital worlds which cannot be conserved in the ways that archives and libraries can retain books, recordings and conventional video games stored on discs and cartridges.

Moreman and Lewis do not simply provide an eclectic and accessible collection of essays concerning the myriad ways that mortality, grief, commemoration, and impermanence have shaped and been shaped by their interaction with the digital sphere; this collection provides a set of readings housed in a series of discussions that are already well underway. The work provides an accessible introduction to the subject with ample references to existing scholarship. While the book does not anticipate a well-informed reader, a scholar of digital religion will find a number of insights and questions for future research.


Heidi Campbell - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - 06:05

Buddhism has been uniquely affected by the digital revolution and integration of new media into its spiritual practices. Buddhism, the Internet and Digital Media: The Pixel in the Lotus offers a collective interdisciplinary exploration of the existence and nature of Buddhism in the digital and highly networked era we live in. This is the first book in the new Routledge Studies in Religion and Digital Culture series.

Editors Gregory Price Grieve, Associate Professor in Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, and Daniel Veidlinger, Associate Professor in Religious Studies at California State University-Chico, have compiled a collection of significant discussions that surfaced from a 2011 symposium on Buddhism and digital media. This collection provides the first collaborative and multi-disciplinary investigation of how Buddhism intersects with digital and online worlds.

“This volume aims to assess how digital media affect Buddhism and to help us understand what new forms of Buddhist practice, belief, and community are emerging within this digital nexus,” states Veidlinger.

Contributors suggest that digital and online media have now taken the place of oral communication and manuscripts as new conduits for religion. Turning their attention to Buddhism, they examine its relationship with digital media through concrete case studies, ethnographic research, cognitive psychology, historical investigation, and content analysis.

Veidlinger notes that while Buddhism’s relationship to digital media has been understudied there are in fact many important reasons to focus on this topic. For example, Buddhism speaks of notions such as the ideology of constant change, which features prominently in the ephemeral world of digital media as well. It is also a religion that is thriving in our current interconnected world, and practitioners are eagerly utilizing online virtual space for communication, practice and development of new religious communities.

“Rituals are being reconfigured for online virtual worlds and mobile apps, and communities that are spread out across the globe are communicating with each other in new and unprecedented ways,” says Veidlinger. “Buddhism’s authority structures are being challenged in some cases and upheld in others, its scholars are publishing important studies online, and the whole process is being recorded and commented on in innumerable blogs.”

The ten contributors from disciplines such as communication, sociology, Buddhist studies and comparative religion each bring with them diverse perspectives on methodological, historical and sociological approaches to digital Buddhism. Together they ultimately argue that the digital mediation of Buddhism has been an important and well-suited transition that expresses much of this religion’s ethos.
As Grieve notes, “for historic and conceptual reasons Buddhism meshes well with digital media’s affordances. In fact, digital media and Buddhism have shared an intimate link from the very beginning.”

By offering a comparative approach involving scholars from a number of different disciplines this book capture the unique effect new media has on Buddhist communities online and offline. It also shows how digital religion engages and is shaping non-western contexts.
Buddhism, the Internet and Digital Media: The Pixel in the Lotus was release this month, November 2014, by Routledge of the Taylor and Francis group, see: http://routledge-ny.com/books/details/9780415721660/.

This summary of research also appears on Religion News Service at:
http://pressreleases.religionnews.com/2014/11/24/new-book-explores-impac...


Heidi Campbell - Thursday, November 6, 2014 - 11:39

While media, religion and culture studies has emerged as an important area of research, few publications exist that provide a thorough comprehensive overview in the key questions and approaches taken. Jeffery Mahan, Ralph E. and Norma E. Peck Chair in Religion and Public Communication at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, new book Media, Religion and Culture: an Introduction provides a unique overview of the multidisciplinary perspectives taken in the emerging study of religion, media, and culture with his new publication. Media, Religion and Culture addresses a fundamental question that resides within the study of media and religion, that is the extent to which media, religion and culture are inseparably dependent and they ways the influence perceptions of religion in popular culture.

Mahan argues “people’s experience of the sacred and religion is thoroughly mediated” and so media spaces and cultures becomes important space to understand religious meaning-making. An important contribution of the book is his work highlight that studying religious intersection with digital media provides a fruitful way to explore broader question of religious community and identity in media culture. Mahan suggests that digital media serves as a metaphor through which people think about their own religious lives. Just as digital media are constructed of pixels of information which can be endlessly recombined, people see their religious identity as a something they construct from multiple sources, and which they are free to continue to edit and revise. “In the digital world, authority has become conversational. We can have interactions with those in power that we were never able to have in the past. This creates a very different power dynamic than the hierarchical model of authority in which someone stands at a high place and speaks down to a group of people,” said Mahan.

“Today religious authority is rooted in charisma, and being able to have rich ongoing conversation in which people are empowered to make choice.” While other publications exist seeking to provide an overview of general themes and specialized topics related to the study of media and religion Media, Religion and Culture combines overview essays with case studies from leading scholars in the field to illustrate the multidisciplinary approaches taken. For example, after the chapter key themes in the study of media, religion and culture Jeremy Stolow, Associate Professor of Communication at Concordia University, offers an overview on his study of “telegraphing the spirit” to show that communication technology since the telegraphy have often been regarded as religious mediums, able to mediate between human and spiritual realms so technology is seen as providing opportunities to interact with God. This case study illustrates that contemporary claims within

Digital Religion studies about the discourse and relationship between media technology and spirituality and their impact have a long history that needs to be considered. Combining these essays and case studies with discussion questions, highlighting key terms and an annotated bibliography of special topic readings means Media, Religion and Culture provides those interested in international and interdisciplinary conversations about media, religion and culture a vital and vibrant introduction “I hope that the book plays a role, in shaping the way that both for students and scholars that are new to the conversation, think about the topic, which will in turn hopefully shape the discourse,” said Mahan.

The book has already been recognized as in important resource, as Christopher Helland, Associate Professor at Dalhousie University, says “Understanding the complex relationship between religion and media is no easy feat. In this compelling and insightful volume we are provided with one of the most detailed and well-presented explorations of the intersections between the two. Mahan offers a truly multi-disciplinary approach that is both significant in its depth of study and broad in its range of topics. This book is a must read for anyone interested in exploring religion in contemporary society.”

For more information about Media, Religion and Culture: an Introduction, visit: www.routledge.com

This summary of research is provided by the Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies (http://digitalreligion.tamu.edu), which seeks to show how digital religion shapes our everyday lives and world.

Full Story also found at RNS website: http://pressreleases.religionnews.com/2014/10/29/new-book-offers-vital-o...


Heidi Campbell - Sunday, August 31, 2014 - 14:13

The following is a list of some of the current positions open for the 2015-2016 academic year of possible interest and relevance for scholars working in New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies. Deadlines and requirements for these jobs vary, so consult the ads carefully before applying.

TENURE TRACK POSITIONS

Assistant Professor in Media Studies
Department of Media Studies, University of Virginia
https://jobs.virginia.edu/applicants/jsp/shared/frameset/Frameset.jsp?ti...

Assistant Professor in Religion & Media
University of Toronto
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=49547

Professor of Visual and Digital Culture
Bournemouth University
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AJN264/professor-of-visual-and-digital-culture/

Lecturer in Media Studies (Digital Media Production)
Massey University,School of English & Media Studies
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AJM304/lecturer-media-studies-digital-media-pr...

Professor of Converged Communications
Florida State College at Jacksonville
http://www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/details.cfm?JobCode=175911033&Title=...

Associate or Full Professor
Department of Communication/Jacobs Institute, Cornell University
http://www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/details.cfm?JobCode=175892785&Title=...

Assistant/Associate/Full Professor - New Media History and Theory
University of California, Berkeley
http://www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/details.cfm?JobCode=175934440&Title=...

Assistant Professor in Digital Media
Xavier University
http://www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/details.cfm?JobCode=175944941&Title=...

Assistant/Associate Professor of Web Communication & Media Arts
Houghton College
http://www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/details.cfm?JobCode=175946062&Title=...

Assistant Professor in New Media
SUNY Purchase
http://www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/details.cfm?JobCode=175950460&Title=...

Open Rank Professor in Global Media and Technology
Texas A&M University
http://www.higheredjobs.com/details.cfm?JobCode=175931880

Dean of Media, Culture & Society
University of the West of Scotland
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AJM806/dean-of-media-culture-and-society/

Open-rank position in Interactive Media
Department of Communication at the University of Haifa
http://mass.icahdq.org/ohana/website/?p=54164295

Assistant Professor Position: Media Technology Innovation & Effects Research
School of Communication at Florida State University
http://jobs.fsu.edu/ (Job #37749)

Assistant Professor in Digital Communication
University of Calgary
https://prdcgw.ehs.ucalgary.ca/uc_cg.html?Page=HRS_CE_JOB_DTL&Action=A&J...

Assistant Professor of New and Emerging Media
School of Journalism and Media Studies at Univ. of Nevada-Las Vegas
https://hrsearch.unlv.edu/current_vacancies.asp (search for position 15252)

Assistant Professor of Culture and New Media
Institute of Communication, Culture, Information & Technology at the University of Toronto Mississauga.
https://utoronto.taleo.net/careersection/10050/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job...

Jointly appointed Assistant Professor in Digital Studies and Social Justice
University of Michigan’s Department of American Culture and the Residential College
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/ac/people/jobopenings/digitalstudies_ci

Assistant or Associate Professor, Communication Technology
Ohio State University
http://www.jobtarget.com/c/job.cfm?job=19857026&vnet=0&str=6&max=5&site_...

Assistant Professor of Communication-New Media
Wheaton College
http://www.jobtarget.com/c/job.cfm?job=19738054&vnet=0&str=16&max=5&site...

Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Communication in Digital Culture
University of Pennsylvania
http://www.jobtarget.com/c/job.cfm?job=18744136&vnet=0&str=16&max=5&site...

Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Religious Studies and Material/Visual Culture
Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania
https://facultysearches.provost.upenn.edu/postings/267

POSTDOCS

2015-2016 Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Religious Culture and the Arts
John Hopkins University
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=47378

Postdoctoral Fellowships at the Society of Fellows
Dartmouth College
http://www.dartmouth.edu/sof/

Pre- and Post-Doctoral Fellowships for Developing Teacher-Scholars from Diverse Backgrounds
Elon University
https://researchfunding.duke.edu/detail.asp?OppID=5540

John E. Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Cultures Postdoctoral Fellow
Rice University - Humanities Research Center
https://researchfunding.duke.edu/detail.asp?OppID=15287


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