Religion and Technology

Catalog description

With the aid of virtual reality (VR) headsets, this course takes place mostly in VR, but also via Zoom and in person. VR headsets will be lent to those who need them. Course introduces students to the complex interaction of religion and technology. Possible topics include religions based on new technologies, religious early adopters of technology, religion-based resistance to technology, ideas of the human that technology challenges and enables, utopian and dystopian futurism, and the social and spiritual implications of Artificial Intelligence. Students attend lectures, discuss readings, go on field trips, and conduct independent research in virtual space. Students will also learn to build virtual spaces by doing it themselves.