The embeddenness of the internet in our everyday lives increasingly influences our social, cultural and even religious perceptions and practices. From facilitating virtual pilgrimage and worship in cybertemples to religious blog and social networking that serve as alternative sources of information, the Internet provides new outlets for spiritual experience and meaning making in contemporary culture
The Digital Religion symposium explores how new media is shaping our understanding of religion in a networked society. Key interdisciplinary scholars from a forthcoming collection, Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds (Routledge 2012) will discuss the internet’s influences aspects of religious ritual, identity and authority online and how these are shaping perceptions about very nature of religion.
Symposium Schedule:
8:45 |
Coffee |
| 9:15 |
Welcome and Introductions |
| 9:30 |
Understanding Digital Religion (Heidi Campbell) |
| 9:45 |
Approaching Ritual Online (Christopher Helland) |
| 10:30 |
Framing Religious Identity through the Internet (Nabil Echchaibi) |
| 11:15 |
Coffee |
| 11:30 |
Negotiating Religious Authority Online (Pauline Hope Cheong) |
| 12:15 |
Panel Discussion on Current Trends in Digital Religion |
| 1:00 |
Lunch |
Guest Speakers Include:
Christopher Helland, Associate Professor of Sociology of Religion at Dalhousie University, will provide a survey of how religious rituals—especially in Christian, Buddhist and Hindu contexts--have been studied online and how meaning is negotiated by between online and offline sources in such acts.
Nabil Echchaibi, Assistant Professor of Mass Communication at University of Colorado-Boulder, will speak on the Islamizing of New Media and how Alt-Muslim.com in its attempt to function as an alternative to conventional authority and identity in Islam and in its claim to create a counterculture for Muslims around the world.
Pauline Cheong, Associate Professor of Communication at Arizona State University, will discuss how traditional religious authority is being both challenged and empowered through new media technologies, and what frameworks are needed to understand what constitutes a source of authority in a networked society.
Research Workshop:
A workshop on “Studying Digital Culture” will also be held from 2:30-4pm in the Glasscock Center Library. This is open to students and faculty interested in learning about the ethical, theoretical and methodological challenges related to conducting research in various online environments. This even is also free, but reservations are requested.
For more information or to make reservation please contact Heidi Campbell, Department of Communication, heidic@tamu.edu, 979-847-9474
Sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Program in Religious Studies; the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research; Department of Communication; the Initiative for Digital Humanities, Media and Culture; and the Race and Ethnic Studies Institute at Texas A&M University.
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