Deus in Machina : : Religion, Technology, and the Things in Between / / ed. by Jeremy Stolow.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Fordham University Press Complete eBook-Package Pre-2014
• MitwirkendeR: Abreu, Maria José A. de,; Boutros, Alexandra,; Durham Peters, John,; Ernst, Wolfgang,; Ginsburg, Faye,; Hamdy, Sherine F.,; Lardas Modern, John,; Pels, Peter,; Stolow, Jeremy,; Witte, Marleen de,; Ānanda Josephson, Jason,
• HerausgeberIn: Stolow, Jeremy,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Fordham University Press, , [2012]; ©2012
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (368 p.)

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Religion, Technology, and the Things in Between -- Equipment -- Calendar, Clock, Tower -- Ticking Clock, Vibrating String: How Time Sense Oscillates Between Religion and Machine -- The Electric Touch Machine Miracle Scam: Body, Technology, and the (Dis)authentication of the Pentecostal Supernatural -- The Spiritual Nervous System: Reflections on a Magnetic Cord Designed for Spirit Communication -- Bio-Power -- An Empowered World: Buddhist Medicine and the Potency of Prayer in Japan -- Does Submission to God’s Will Preclude Biotechnological Intervention? Lessons from Muslim Dialysis Patients in Contemporary Egypt -- The Canary in the Gemeinschaft? Disability, Film, and the Jewish Question -- (Re)Locating Religion in a Technological Age -- Thinking about Melville, Religion, and Machines That Think -- Amazing Stories: How Science Fiction Sacralizes the Secular -- Virtual Vodou, Actual Practice: Transfi guring the Technological -- TV St. Claire -- Notes -- List of Contributors