1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910453142503321

Titolo

Deus in machina [[electronic resource] ] : religion, technology, and the things in between / / edited by Jeremy Stolow

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : Fordham University Press, 2013

ISBN

0-8232-4981-6

0-8232-5248-5

0-8232-5024-5

0-8232-4983-2

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

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

Altri autori (Persone)

StolowJeremy <1965->

Disciplina

201/.66

Soggetti

Technology - Religious aspects

Medicine - Religious aspects

Religion and science

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references.

Nota di contenuto

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 Ānanda 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 José A. de Abreu.



Sommario/riassunto

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.