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Deus in Machina: Religion, Technology, and the Things in Between

Online ISBN:
9780823252480
Print ISBN:
9780823249800
Publisher:
Fordham University Press
Book

Deus in Machina: Religion, Technology, and the Things in Between

Jeremy Stolow (ed.)
Jeremy Stolow
(ed.)

Associate Professor of Communication Studies

Concordia University
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Published online:
23 May 2013
Published in print:
14 November 2012
Online ISBN:
9780823252480
Print ISBN:
9780823249800
Publisher:
Fordham University Press

Abstract

Drawing upon a wide range of historical and ethnographic examples, this book approaches the study of religion and technology from an interdisciplinary perspective, synthesizing recent work in the anthropology and history of religion, media studies, and science and technology studies. The book comprises eleven original case studies plus an introduction that critically assesses the existing literature on religion and technology, and suggests future paths of scholarly inquiry. Discussions range across different religious traditions (including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Spiritualism, Buddhism, and Vodou) in different regions of the world (including Western Europe, United States, Ghana, Brazil, and Japan), and with regard to an array of technologies and technological procedures (including clocks and other timekeeping devices, magically empowered cables, belts, and talismans, kidney dialysis machines, and Internet-mediated commercial transactions). The fundamental operating premise of the book is that religion and technology do not refer to two mutually exclusive realms of knowledge, practice, and experience, but rather to a continuum of relationships between and among diverse material and immaterial entities, forces, and actors. Each chapter offers a concrete case study, attending to the things that lie “in between” religion and technology as they are commonly divided, and on that basis provides new analytical insight into the very construction of these categories in scholarly as well as non-academic discourses.

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