Technology, Religion, Spirituality & the Sacred

Stephen Petrina and Franc Feng, Principal Investigators
How does the technological enter into the spiritual? How does the spiritual enter into the technological? Or is it already there, as Latour contends, preserved in premodern consciousness and cosmology, always already manifest? Conventional, specialized treatments of technology, religion, spirituality and the sacred allow for in-depth exploration but do not account for recent transformations. Hence, we acknowledge a new imperative for re-mapping of technology, religion, spirituality and the sacred rooted in what Heidegger and Arendt might call our techno-onto-theo-eco-logical condition— to include everyday encounters with technopaganism, transcendental materialism, technosecularism, technoexistentialism and technosectarianism. There are various dimensions to these encounters, indicating coexistence, continuities and continua rather than oppositions. This research project is generative, providing in-depth analyses of specific trends accented by and through technology, religion, spirituality, and the sacred.