Deus in machina : religion, technology, and the things in between / edited by Jeremy Stolow.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Stolow, Jeremy, 1965-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Technology--Religious aspects.

Technology.

Medicine--Religious aspects.

Medicine.

Religion and science.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 354 p. ) ill. ;

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Fordham University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The essays in this volume explore how two domains of human experience and action—religion and technology—are implicated in each other. Contrary to commonsense understandings of both religion (as an “otherworldly” orientation) and technology (as the name for tools, techniques, and expert knowledges oriented to “this” world), the contributors to this volume challenge the grounds on which this division has been erected in the first place.What sorts of things come to light when one allows religion and technology to mingle freely? In an effort to answer that question, Deus in Machina embarks upon an interdisciplinary voyage across diverse traditions and contexts where religion and technology meet: from the design of clocks in medieval Christian Europe, to the healing power of prayer in premodern Buddhist Japan, to 19th-century Spiritualist devices for communicating with the dead, to Islamic debates about kidney dialysis in contemporary Egypt, to the work of disability activists using documentary film to reimagine Jewish kinship, to the representation of Haitian Vodou on the Internet, among other case studies.Combining rich historical and ethnographic detail with extended theoretical reflection, Deus in Machina outlines new directions for the study of religion and/as technology that will resonate across the human sciences, including religious studies, science and technology studies, communication studies, history, anthropology, and philosophy.

Contents:

Religion, technology, and the things in between / Jeremy Stolow

Calendar, clock, tower / John Durham Peters

Beating clock, oscillating string : vibrating time-sense between religion and Machine / Wolfgang Ernst

The electric touch machine miracle scam : body, technology, and the (dis)authentication of the pentecostal supernatural / Marleen de Witte

The spiritual nervous system : reflections on a magnetic cord designed for spirit communication / Jeremy Stolow

An empowered world : Buddhist medicine and the potency of prayer in Japan / Jason Ananda Josephson

Does submission to God's will preclude biotechnological intervention?

Lessons from Muslim dialysis patients in contemporary Egypt / Sherine F. Hamdy

The canary in the Gemeinschaft? disability, film, and the Jewish question / Faye Ginsburg

Thinking about Melville, religion, and machines that think / John Lardas Modern

Amazing stories : how science fiction sacralizes the secular / Peter Pels

Virtual vodou, actual practice : transfiguring the technological / Alexandra Boutros

TV St. Claire / Maria Jose A. de Abreu.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

0-8232-4981-6

0-8232-5248-5

0-8232-5024-5

9780823250240

0-8232-4983-2

OCLC:

819379514