Religions, Science and Technology in Cultural Contexts: Dynamics of Change

In current public and academic debates, the complex relationships between ‘religion’ and ‘science’ tend to be reduced into one between monolithic entities. By exploring historical and contemporary interactions between religions, science and technology, a more complex understanding may be reached of the areas and ways in which they overlap, correspond, challenge and conflict with each other.

This conference seeks to explore how religions, science and technology interact and generate change (progressive, reactive, regressive), particularly in relation to such issues as the environment and climate change; the economy; welfare; life expectancy; popular representation; and sexual equality.

Of particular interest are explorations of dynamic relationships between worldviews/cosmologies, socio-cultural practices and technologies; and of ‘the politics of change’, i.e. how different actors seek to convince the public of the benefits of their own approaches or of the detriment of ‘the others’ approaches.