CFP: God(s) and the Digital

God(s) and the Digital.  

Theological Perspectives and Religious Metaphors.

ed. by Gemma Serrano and Alessandro De Cesaris

The Interdisciplinary “Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society” (JRAT) is an interdisciplinary, international, online open-access journal with a double-blind peer-review process. It was established in 2015, since 2019 it is published with BRILL. Every issue has a distinct thematic focus which is approached from different disciplines. The journal aims at investigating the contribution of religions to the cultural, political, juridical, and aesthetic dynamics in present-day pluralistic societies. Vice versa, it examines the influence of the contemporary processes of social transformation on religions and religious expressions.

Call for Papers:

The relationship between technology and culture has become one of the most relevant topics in the field of Humanities. Philosophers, theologians, historians, anthropologists and sociologists have interpreted the so-called Digital Turn as a major cultural revolution. Of course, this paradigm shift has also affected religions and spirituality throughout the world. Religious studies have been studying for decades how the social implementation of digital media has affected our way to experience transcendence, rituals, spiritual communities and beliefs. However, theology and religious culture can also provide cultural and theoretical tools to further understand technology, and provide original points of view on the meaning of the changes we are facing and ways to analyse our human-technology relations on a deeper level.

In some way, it looks like the way our cultures have conceptualized the divine in their history is also useful in order to speak about technology and our relationship with it. Various religious metaphors are embedded in the language we use to talk about digital technologies. Many philosophers of technology – such as Jacques Ellul, Ivan Illich, Emanuele Severino, Günther Anders, Martin Heidegger and Norbert Wiener among others – provide their analyses based on a clearly theological background. Theological and religious traditions can help us develop an intercultural understanding of the meaning of technology, of our desires, hopes and fear concerning it and of the socio-technical imaginaries that structure our social spaces.

In this issue of JRAT, we will not focus on how the Digital Turn has affected religion and spirituality, but rather on how theology and religious cultures can help illuminate some aspects of technology in general, and of the Digital Turn in particular. Therefore, we welcome contributions focusing on these topics:

·         Theology of Technology. Theological perspectives on the nature of (digital) technology.

·         Anthropology of Technology. Theological perspectives on the human-technology interface in the Digital Age.

·         Interdisciplinary perspectives on the History of Digital Technologies.

·         Religious sources in the History of Philosophy of Technology (with particular reference to digital technologies and ICTs).  

·         Interreligious and inter-theological perspectives about the digital turn.

·         Other topics focused on how theology and religious studies can help understanding technology, its history and the human condition in the Digital Age.

Contributes by female scholars, as well as by scholars belonging to ethnic and cultural minorities, are particularly welcome.

The present issue of JRAT is part of a research conducted at the Department “Humanisme numérique” at the Collège des Bernardins (Paris). 

Proposal: Anyone interested should send a proposal for a title, an abstract (not more than 300 words) and a CV (not more than 150 words) to [email protected] (E-Mail) not later than September 30th, 2020. Authors of proposals invited to submit an article will be notified in October 2020.

Submission: The article (in English) will be due on April 1st, 2021. It should be no longer than 40.000 characters, footnotes, bibliography and spaces included. JRAT uses online submission only. Authors should submit their manuscript online via the Editorial Manager online submission system at: editorialmanager.com/jrat/. Please find the author’s instructions here:

https://brill.com/fileasset/downloads_products/Author_Instructions/JRAT.pdf

Queries regarding content may be directed to (E-Mail). For any questions or problems relating to your manuscript, please contact the editorial team ([email protected]) or Stephan Kopsieker ([email protected]). For questions about Editorial Manager, authors can contact the Brill EM Support Department: [email protected].