Public Theologies of Technology and Presence

Books:

Stephen Asma, The Emotional Mind: The Affective Roots of Culture and Cognition (with Rami Gabriel), Harvard University Press

Stephen Asma, Friendship in the Age of Social Distancing (in preparation)

Ilia Delio, The Hours of the Universe: Reflections on God, Science, and the Human Journey, Orbis Books

Ilia Delio, Re-Enchanting the Earth: Why AI Needs Religion, Orbis Books

Margarita Guillory, Africana Religion in the Digital Age, Routledge Studies in Religion and Digital Culture Series (forthcoming)

Kevin Healey, Ethics and Religion in the Age of Social Media: Digital Proverbs for Responsible Citizens (with Robert H. Woods), Routledge
*Winner of the 2020 Book of the Year Award from the Religious Communication Association (RCA)

Stuart Ray Sarbacker, Tracing the Path of Yoga: The History and Philosophy of Indian Mind-Body Discipline, Suny Press (forthcoming)

Devin Singh, Decentered Sovereignties and Spectral Transactions: Cryptocurrency, Public Theology, and the Ethics of Presence, Brill (forthcoming)

R. John Williams, Futurology, Oxford University Press (forthcoming)

R. John Williams, World Presence, University of Chicago Press (forthcoming)

Book Chapters:

Stephen Asma, “Music and Embodied Cognition,” in Evolutionary Perspectives on Imaginative Culture

Ilia Delio, “Whither Thou Go O Universe? Why Evolution and Religion Belong Together,” in Science, Deep Past and Religion, Routledge (forthcoming)

Ilia Delio, “Transhumanism: An Overview,” in Cambridge Companion to Religion and AI, Cambridge University Press (forthcoming)

Ilia Delio, “Religion and the Posthuman Life: Teilhard’s Noosphere,” in Becoming Digital Natives, Lexington Books

Gregory Price Grieve, “Buddhism in the Age of Digital Reproduction,” in Religion in the Age of Digitization–Spirituality and Human Interaction

Gregory Price Grieve, “An Ethnographic Method for the Digital Humanistic Study of Buddhism,” in Mediatized Religion in Asia: Studies on Digital Media and Religion

Gregory Price Grieve, “Good, Evil Religion and Video Games,” in Oxford Handbook of Digital Religion, Oxford University Press (forthcoming)

Gregory Price Grieve, “Digital Religion,” in The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, WileyOne Scholar (forthcoming)

Kevin Healey, “The Ethics of Augmentation: A Case Study in Contemplative MR,” in Augmented and Mixed Reality for Communities, CRC Press

Noreen Herzfeld, “Surrogate, Partner, or Tool: How Autonomous Should be Technology Be?” in The Robot Will See You Now: Theological, social and ethical implications of AI and robotics, SPCK (forthcoming)

Beverley McGuire, “Instant Karma and Internet Karma: Karmic Memes and Morality on Social Media,” in Believing in Bits, Oxford University Press (forthcoming)

Devin Singh, “Economics and Public Theology,” in Bloomsbury Handbook for Public Theology (forthcoming)

Academic Articles:

Stephen Asma, “Mythopoetic Cognition: a New Phylogeny and Ontogeny,” in Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture (forthcoming)

Amy Bix, “‘Remember the Sabbath:’ A History of Technological Decisions and Innovation in Orthodox Jewish Communities,” in History and Technology

Ilia Delio, “Religion and Posthuman Life: A Note on Teilhard de Chardin’s Vision,” in Toronto Journal of Theology

Ilia Delio, “Is Artificial Intelligence ‘Artificial?’” in Researcher: European Journal of Humanities and Social Science 

Ilia Delio, “The Posthuman as Complex Dynamical Personhood: A Reply to Hyun-Shik Jun,” in Social Epistemology

Ilia Delio, “Suffering and Sacrifice in an Unfinished Universe: The Energy of Love,” in Religions

Gregory Price Grieve,“Paradise Lost: Value Formations as an Analytical Concept for the Study of Gamevironments,” in Gamevironments

Gregory Price Grieve, “Video Game Development in Asia: Voices from the Field,” in Gamevironments

Kevin Healey, “From Cage to Coltrane: (Un)popular Music as Contemplative Practice,” in the Journal of Contemplative Inquiry, special five-year anniversary print edition

Kevin Healey, “Contemplative Photo-collage in Media Studies Pedagogy,” in The International Journal of Creative Media Research

Kevin Healey, “Dreaming the Virtual: How Lucid Dream Practice Can Inform VR Development,” in the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research

Noreen Herzfeld, Do We Image God On-line? The Opportunities and Challenges for Authentic Relationships in Cyberspace,” in Theology and Sexuality

Noreen Herzfeld, “AI: A New Neighbor or a Divisive Force?” in Studies in Science and Theology

Beverley McGuire, “A Student-Centered Framework for Digital Privacy, Digital Ethics, and Digital Literacy,” in The AAEEBL ePortfolio Review 

Beverley McGuire, “Gaming and Grieving: Digital Games as Means of Confronting and Coping with Death,” in Journal of Religion, Media, and Digital Culture (forthcoming)

Beverley McGuire, “Buddhist-Inspired Self-Tracking Apps: Tracking Emotions and Values in a Digital Era,” in Journal of Japanese Associations for Digital Humanities (forthcoming)

Stuart Ray Sarbacker, “Nirmāṇa-citta in the Pātañjalayogaśāstra: Yogic Constructed Minds and the Philosophy and Ethics of Artificial Intelligence,” in the Journal of Dharma Studies (forthcoming)

Stuart Ray Sarbacker, “Buddhist Meditation and the Ethics of Human Augmentation,” in the Journal of the Japanese Association for Digital Humanities (forthcoming)

R. John Williams, “The Yin and Yang of G. Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form,” in ALPHABETUM III

Popular Articles:

Stephen Asma, “This Friendship has been Digitized,” in The New York Times 

Stephen Asma, “Does the Pandemic have a Purpose?” in The New York Times

Stephen Asma, “Ancient animistic beliefs live on in our intimacy with technology,” in Aeon

Gregory Price Grieve and Beverly McGuire, “Meditation Apps Might Calm You—But Miss the Point of Buddhist Mindfulness,” in The Conversation

Liz Kineke, “Learning to Contemplate the News,” in Tricycle (featuring Kevin Healey)

Liz Kineke, “Buddhists with Physical Disabilities Access Digital Dharma,” in Tricycle

Liz Kineke, “Together Alone: Online Sanghas in the Age of Social Distancing,” in Tricycle

Sigal Samuel, Can You Beat Anxiety by Playing a Game on Your Phone?” in Vox

Sigal Samuel, “Robot Priests Can Bless You, Advise You, and Perform Your Funeral,” in Vox (featuring Ilia Delio)

Sigal Samuel, “How Your Brain Invents Morality,” in Vox

Sigal Samuel, “China is Installing a Secret Surveillance App on Tourists’ Phones,” in Vox

Sigal Samuel, “Are We Morally Obligated to Meditate?” in Vox

Sigal Samuel, “The Witches of Baltimore,” in The Atlantic (featuring Margarita Guillory)

Stuart Ray Sarbacker, “Tune in, Turn on, Turn up: Second-wave Psychedelic Ethics,” in The San Francisco Chronicle

Devin Singh, “COVID-19 is Exposing Market Fundamentalism’s Flaws,” in The Washington Post

Media Outputs and Interviews:

Stephen Asma,  “Loyalty, Loving and Distance,” on ABC Australia’s Counterpoint (host, Amanda Vastone)

Gregory P. Grieve and Beverly McGuire, “How Much Actual Buddhism Is There In Your Mindfulness App?” (host, Tim Peterson)

Gregory P. Grieve, “Virtual Tibet” (with Dr. Helland, Dr. Schaeffer and Dr. Singh)
*Details on the project can be found in Buddhism, the Internet, and Digital Media: the Pixel and the Lotus

Gregory P. Grieve (featured), “The Mindfulness Business is Thriving on Our Anxiety,” (by Sarah Todd)

Margarita Guillory, ROAD: Religions of the African Diaspora Mobile App (forthcoming)

Kevin Healey, “A Virtous Walk in the College Woods: An Exercise,” in Contemplative Photojournalism for Anti-Oppression Pedagogy

Kevin Healey,“Digital Proverbs in Response to Silicon Valley’s Moral Catechism,” on Christianity and Communications Studies Network (host, Robert Woods)

Kevin Healey, Instagram Mobius Machine, Arts-based project supported through the UNH Innovation Lab

Devin Singh, “Economy,” in The Immanent Frame: Universe of Terms

Lectures and Forums:

Stephen Asma, “As-if We Were Friends: Pretend Intimacy and Artificial Intelligence,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

Stephen Asma, “Axial Age Friendship for the Digital Age?” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2018)

Amy Bix, “The Crock-Pot, Sabbath Elevator, KosherSwitch, and Shabbos App: The History of Innovation and Controversy in Orthodox Judaism,” at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of History (September, 2020)

Amy Bix, “Time/Machine and Sacred Pauses for Meaning: Religion, Work and the Quest for Control Amidst Chaotic Technological Pressures,” at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (November, 2019)

Amy Bix, Technology and Time in Tension: Interpreting Social, Political, Personal, and Religious Implications of Modern Connectivity, Through Kranzberg’s Laws,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

Amy Bix, “Have the Time of Your Life: ‘Technology Sabbath’ and the Quest for Control,”at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2018)

Sheila Briggs, “What Will Make Us Human in 2050?” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

Sheila Briggs, “Imagined Bodies, Real Lives: Technology and Intimacy,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2018)

Ilia Delio, “Considering Options: Is Artificial Intelligence ‘Artificial?’” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

Ilia Delio, “Is AI Human? Exploring the Relationship Between Nature and Techne,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2018)

Gregory Price Grieve, “Cosmic Pollution: The Manchester Cathedral, Video Games, and Religion,” Forum on Cosmic Pollution: The Manchester Cathedral, Video Games, and Religion at the University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, the Berkley Forum (August, 2019)

Gregory Price Grieve, “Darkrim: Vanilla and Transgressive Ways of Being Evil Online,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

Gregory Price Grieve, “The Confession: Video Games, Violence, and the Problem of Evil,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2018)

Margarita Guillory, “Playing with Voodoo Dolls: Race, Africana Religion, and representation in Digital Games,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

Margarita Guillory, “Virtual ROAD to Intimacy: Using an Africana Religious Mobile App to Foster Relationships,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2018)

Kevin Healey, “Digital Proverbs for Responsible Citizens: Lockdown Edition,” at the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (May, 2020)

Kevin Healey, “Contemplative Reading: Pedagogy and Practice” at the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (November 2019)

Kevin Healey, “Digital Proverbs for Responsible Citizens,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

Kevin Healey, “Contemplative Photo-mapping and Media Ethics Pedagogy,” at the New England Humanities Consortium (August, 2019)

Kevin Healey, “Contextual Integrity in Data and Beyond,” at UNH Manchester Sidore Lecture Series (October, 2018)

Kevin Healey, “Arts-Based Research and Contemplative Media Pedagogy,” at the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (October, 2018)

Kevin Healey, “Being Digital Citizens: Mindful Media from Tweets to Big Data,” at the the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (October, 2018)

Kevin Healey, “Dream Yoga and the Ethics of Virtual Reality,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2018)

Natasha Heller, “Technology, Presence, and the Hong Kong Protests,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

Natasha Heller, “Self-Watchfulness and Other-Watchfulness,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2018)

Noreen Herzfeld, “Surrogate, Partner, or Tool? Are Lethal Autonomous Weapons Just?” at the Religious Philosophy Between Humanism and Posthumanism Conference (November 2020)

Noreen Herzfeld, “Surrogate, Partner, or Tool? How Autonomous Should Technology Be?” at the Center got Theology and Natural Science (September, 2020)

Noreen Herzfeld, “AI: A New Neighbor or a Divisive Force?” at the Fuller Theological Seminary (September, 2020)

Noreen Herzfeld, “AI: A New Neighbor or a Divisive Force?” at Chautauqua Institute (July, 2020)

Noreen Herzfeld, “Ghosts or Zombies: On Separating Body and Mind,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

Noreen Herzfeld, “Cybernetic Enhancement and the Problem of the Self,” at St. Mary’s University Scotland (April, 2019)

Noreen Herzfeld, “Can a Computer Love Me? Can I Love It?” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

Liz Kineke, “Contemplative Practices for Digital Natives,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

Liz Kineke, “Looking for God in the Machine: Can virtual reality really change how we understand ourselves and others in the real world?” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2018)

Beverley McGuire, “Promoting Empathy through Digital Games and Social Media,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

Beverley McGuire, “What Counts as Morally Salient?” Moral Attention in Chinese Religion,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2018)

Sigal Samuel, “What does Big Tech owe us? The Ethics of Algorithmic Accountability,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

Sigal Samuel, “Five Different Types of Tech/Religion Coverage,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2018)

Stuart Ray Sarbacker, “Tracing the Path of Yoga: Four Facets of Mind-Body Discipline,” at the Oxford University Center for Hindu Studies, (Fall, 2020)

Stuart Ray Sarbacker, “Staying Grounded During the 2020 Election Season: A Pedagogy of Kindness” at the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion Teaching Forum, Oregon State University (Fall, 2020)

Stuart Ray Sarbacker, “Buddhist Meditation and the Ethics of Human Augmentation,” Buddhism & Technology: Historical Background and Contemporary Challenges, (Fall, 2019)

Stuart Ray Sarbacker, “Turn on, Tune in, Step Up: Contemplative Ethics and ‘Awakened Futures,’” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2018)

Stuart Ray Sarbacker “Śramaṇa Ethics and Human Augmentation,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

Devin Singh, “Currency and the Form of Life: Implications for the Digital Age,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

R. John Williams, “Technology, Memory, and Our Sense of Time,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2019)

R. John Williams, “The Spiritual Technologies of the Here and Now,” at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (October, 2018)

Public Theologies of Technology and Presence involves a central focus on teaching and pedagogy. The program supports the development of powerful and effective ways of teaching about technologies’ human impacts for use within university departments of religion and theological institutions. These themes are of particular importance for today’s students who, as all of us, are navigating a world in which technologies exert profound, but confusing and understudied, impacts on their senses of self and on their relationships with others. In the COVID-19 era particularly, technologically-mediated contact has become ubiquitous, and students—as all of us—are hungry for frameworks that explore these experiences and impacts in deep, reflective, stimulating, new, and useful ways. Religion scholars are well-positioned to provide these frameworks and to support these explorations.

In what follows, Dr. Bradley Onishi hosts a series of interviews with PTTP grantees about the courses on these subjects that they have developed and are currently teaching at universities and theological institutions across the U.S. The grantees hail from a wide variety of academic traditions and disciplines, and they study a wide variety of religious traditions. Each interview is paired with links to syllabi for the courses that the grantees are discussing.

Together, these interviews and syllabi provide a significant resource for university and theological institution teachers who or would like to teach about these themes in meaningful and dynamic ways.

Introduction by Dr. Bradley Onishi

Interview with Dr. Stuart Ray Sarbacker

Stuart Ray Sarbacker is an Associate Professor in the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion at Oregon State University. His research and teaching center on the relationships between the Indian religious and philosophical traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

He discusses the implications of emerging technology on human relationships by examining how the philosophical and contemplative traditions of yoga and of Buddhism address the effect of human augmentation on interpersonal relationships. He explains how yoga and Buddhist traditions view the disciplining of mind and body as producing extraordinary modes of perception and action that have profound, but morally ambiguous, implications on human relationships.

Syllabus: HumanTechEnhancement

Interview with Dr. Sheila Briggs

Sheila Briggs is Associate Professor of Religion and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California.

Briggs discusses her approach to research and pedagogy at the intersection of sexuality, technology, and modernity. According to Briggs, sexuality shapes the full range of our interpersonal relationships. We are present to one another not only as friends and lovers but also as citizens, workers and consumers. The impacts of technology in one area of our lives affect us in others: one cannot isolate our interpersonal relationships from how we are economic and political actors. To think about how technological innovation is affecting our sexuality, we need to go beyond a discussion of social media and dating apps.

Interview with Dr. Gregory Price Grieve

Gregory Price Grieve is Professor and Head of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His current research uses video games to explore the category of evil in contemporary life.

Grieve discusses how video games differ from other media such as film and printed literature, because they do not merely represent evil as an audio/visual layer, or tell about evil as narrative, but simulate immersive worlds in which players dwell. Because of such immersion, video games reveal the ways in which digital technologies reshape human relationships.

Syllabus: REL 207 Evil and Video Games

Syllabus: HSS 206 Religion and Video Game

Syllabus: REL 207 Digital Religion

Interview with Dr. Amy Bix

Amy Sue Bix is Professor of History at Iowa State University and director of ISU’s Center for Historical Studies of Technology and Science. Her 2013 book ‘Girls Coming to Tech!’: A History of American Engineering Education for Women (MIT Press) won the 2015 Margaret Rossiter Prize from the History of Science Society.

She discusses her research and teaching surrounding the phenomenon of “tech sabbaths,” the religious, social, and popular meanings of the twenty-first-century movement encouraging people to adopt regular breaks from smartphone and Internet use.

Syllabus: History of Technology

Interview with Dr. Kevin Healey

Kevin Healey is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of New Hampshire. His work focuses on the ethical and religious dimensions of digital culture. Kevin’s latest book, co-authored with Robert H. Woods, Jr., is Ethics and Religion in the Age of Social Media: Digital Proverbs for Responsible Citizens (Routledge).

He discusses his multi-faceted approach to teaching in contemplative media studies, relatively new field that integrates empirical social-science research (neuroscience, medicine, psychology, psychiatry) with insights derived from first-person contemplative practices (mindfulness training, meditation, yoga, arts and music therapy).

Syllabus: Contemplative Media Studies

Interview with Dr. R. John Williams

Dr. R. John Williams is Associate Professor at Yale University where he teaches in the departments of English and Film and Media Studies. He is the author of The Buddha in the Machine: Art, Technology and the Meeting of East and West (Yale University Press, 2014), which examines the role of technological discourse in the development of Asian religious experience in the United States and Europe.

Here he discusses his courses on modernity, time, human presence, and “futurology” as ways to understand how human relationships with technology have changed in the modern era.

Syllabus: Modernity, Presence, Time

Interview with Dr. Beverley McGuire

Beverley McGuire is an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. As a historian of religion specializing in Chinese Religions, McGuire examines the impact of digital technology on moral attention—the capacity to discern and attend to the morally salient features of a given situation. Although most scholars associate moral attention with Western philosophers, Chinese religious traditions describe various means of facilitating moral attention, including Confucian techniques of moral cultivation, Daoist practices of “fasting the mind,” and Buddhist meditation.

This project considers ways in which digital technologies can distract us from other people and disrupt our moral attention, and ways in which digital technologies might enhance our interpersonal relationships and develop our moral attention.

Syllabus: Asian Religions

Syllabus: Mindfulness and Racial Injustice

Interview with Dr. Stephen T. Asma

Dr. Stephen T. Asma is Professor of Philosophy and Founding Fellow of the Research Group in Mind, Science and Culture at Columbia College Chicago. Asma is the author of ten books, including Why We Need Religion (Oxford University Press, 2018), The Evolution of Imagination (University of Chicago Press, 2017), On Monsters: an Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears (Oxford, 2009), and The Gods Drink Whiskey (HarperOne, 2005). He writes regularly for the New York Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Aeon.

He discusses how his recent book, The Emotional Mind: The Affective Roots of Culture and Cognition (with Rami Gabriel), (with Rami Gabriel) informs his approach to teaching at the intersection of philosophy, religion, technology, and monsters. Yes, monsters.

Syllabus: Philosophy of Religion

Syllabus: Philisophical Issues in Film

Syllabus: Monsterology

Interview with Dr. Noreen Herzfeld

Noreen Herzfeld is the Nicholas and Bernice Reuter Professor of Science and Religion at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict. She holds degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from the Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in Theology from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. Herzfeld is the author of In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit (Fortress, 2002), Technology and Religion: Remaining Human in a Co-Created World (Templeton, 2009), The Limits of Perfection in Technology, Religion, and Science (Pandora, 2010), and editor of Religion and the New Technologies (MDPI, 2017).

A leading voice on the relationship between religion and technology, Herzfeld discusses her approaches to teaching ethical issues in robotics, AI, and computing.

Syllabus: Ministering in a Technological World

Syllabus: Ethical Issues in Computing

Interview with Dr. Ilia Delio

Ilia Delio, OSF holds the Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University. She is the author of eighteen books and numerous articles. She lectures nationally and internationally on various topics in Science and Religion, including religion and evolution, consciousness and complexity, integral ecology, and artificial intelligence. Her most recent book is The Hours of the Universe: Reflections on God, Science, and the Human Journey (Orbis).

She discusses her research and teaching, focusing on a number of core questions: How did we arrive at a level of technological dependence? Where are we going with our technologies? What is the human person? What do we hope for as persons and as community? Can technology help us create a more unified world?

Syllabus: Technology and the Human Person

Syllabus: Posthumanism, Transhumanism, and the New Materialisms

Interview with Dr. Devin Singh

Devin Singh is Associate Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College, where he teaches courses on modern religious thought in the West, social ethics, and philosophy of religion. He is the author of Divine Currency: The Theological Power of Money in the West (Stanford 2018), as well as of articles on religion and money appearing in Implicit Religion, Political Theology, and The Huffington Post.

He discusses his research and approach to teaching “Religion and Technology” by interrogating the following questions:
In what ways is technology a response to the difficulties of labor and work, the biological limitations of bodies and lifespans, or the unpredictable forces of nature, for instance? What do Western religious and philosophical traditions have to say about such forms of augmentation of life capacities and processes? What promises and perils arise from technological progress? Why is the problem of technology seemingly central to the question of modernity, and how does religion fit in, if at all?

Syllabus: Religion and Technology