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UPCOMING EVENTS
24 June 2024 / 12pm-1pm (AEST)
UQ Studies in Religion Seminars and the Spirituality Wellbeing (SWell) Research Network present
How Internet Memes Become Implicit Communicators of Dis/Mis-information about Religion
Prof Heidi A Campbell (Texas A&M University)
University of Queensland, Rm E215 Forgan Smith Building (1)
Zoom https://uqz.zoom.us/j/89112442116?pwd=oZTva7F53RNAy5Ow6BS0baEE6Z7bPl.1
Password: please email Sam [email protected]
This presentation will explore Internet Memes and Memetic culture as a site of production and spread of religious bias and disinformation. Some of the most popular internet memes focused on religion often use meme characters, taken from digital media culture, and image templates that implicitly rely on historical stereotypes or explicit popular misrepresentations about core religious beliefs and practices. Also because memes use distinct forms of humor to communicate, such techniques may obscure to a broad general audience the stereotypes about religion memes spread and promote. By looking at examples of popular meme characters used to discuss Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism this talk illustrates how viral memes can be intentionally and unintentionally used to spread hate and religious misinformation.
Heidi A Campbell is a Professor of Communication, affiliate faculty in Religious Studies, and a Presidential Impact Fellow at Texas A&M University. She is also director of the Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies, and a founder of Digital Religion studies. Her award-winning research focuses on the intersection of technology, religion and digital culture, with emphasis on Jewish, Muslim & Christian media negotiations. She is author of over 100 articles a 13 books including When Religion Meets New Media (2010), Digital Religion (2013, 2nd edition 2021) and Digital Creatives and the Rethinking Religious Authority (2021). She has also been widely quoted in international news outlets such as ABC Radio-Australia, USA Today, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, and on the B
PAST EVENTS / RECORDINGS
RESEARCH NETWORK ON SCIENCE, RELIGION AND HEALTH WEBINAR SERIES
11 June 2024 / 10am – 11.30am (AEST)
#6 Spirituality, Science and Wellbeing in Australia and Brazil
Dr Cristina Rocha, Professor of Anthropology, Western Sydney University
Joshua Waters, Senior Research Fellow, Deakin University
Commentator: Dr Anna Halafoff, Associate Professor, Deakin University
Findings from current and recent Australian Research Council funded studies on spirituality, wellbeing and healing in Australia and Brazil. Indigenous studies scholar Joshua Waters speaks on Indigenous Australian expressions of spirituality across time, and anthropologist Cristina Rocha on holistic spirituality and its engagement with biomedicine in Australia and Brazil. Sociologist Anna Halafoff then convenes a discussion between the two speakers and the audience, focused on ‘science-spirituality’, how diverse spiritual persons, communities and movements are concurrently increasingly engaging with science to demonstrate the benefits of spiritual practices, and critiquing science for rational and at times (con)spiritorial reasons.
About the presenters:
Cristina Rocha is Professor of anthropology and the Director of the Religion and Society Research Cluster, Western Sydney University, Australia. She co-edits the Journal of Global Buddhism and the Religion in the Americas Brill series. Her research focuses on the intersections of globalisation, religion and (im)mobilities. She is the author of the award-winning book John of God: The Globalization of Brazilian Faith Healing
Joshua Waters is a First Nations K/Gamilaroi man, PhD candidate and Senior Research Fellow with the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University. His work explores the critical role of Indigenous Knowledges in higher education contexts. More specifically, Joshua’s current PhD research examines the notion of First Nations spiritualities within institutional settings and across mainstream ethics application processes in Australian universities. He is also a core member of Deakin University’s Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) Lab and a Director of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Collective (IKSC) where he supports a number of regional, national and international partnerships and research projects aimed at utilising Indigenous knowledges for global systems change.
Anna Halafoff is an Associate Professor in Sociology and a member of the Alfred Deakin Institute at Deakin University. She is also a Research Associate of the UNESCO Chair in Interreligious and Intercultural Relations – Asia Pacific at Monash University. Anna’s current research interests include: religious diversity; interreligious relations; young people and religion; preventing violent extremism; education about religions and worldviews; Buddhism and gender; and Buddhism in Australia.
Dr Emily McAvan (Deakin University) presented “The Transthropocene: Contagion, Pollution, Toxicity” where she talked about religiously inflected ideas of nature, climate change and transphobia. This was part of the Writing, Literature and Culture/Reading Writing seminar at Deakin University online Wednesday 1 May 2024.
Assoc Prof Anna Halafoff and Dr Hannah Gould presented a Buddhist Studies / sociology / anthropology paper at the University of Melbourne’s Swiftposium, opening Sunday 11th February. https://swiftposium2024.com/
Anna’s and Hannah’s paper on Taylor Swift’s song Karma was presented at the Swiftposium on Tuesday 13th February 2024.
Spirituality, Wellbeing and Risks Symposium, 22-23 June 2023, Deakin Downtown and Online.
This two-day symposium gathered scholars from The Spirituality and Wellbeing (SWell) Research Network arising from the Australian Research Association funded Discovery Project on Australian Spirituality: Wellness, Wellbeing and Risks (2023-2025).
The 2023 Symposium page contains all the recordings from the event.
(Dis)locating Coloniality: Lived and Digital Religious Flows across the Indian and Pacific Oceans, 9-10 June 2022, Deakin Downtown/Zoom.
This two-day workshop centred First Nations perspectives, and brought together local and international scholars and practitioners to critically reflect on the place, presence and infusion of coloniality in historical and contemporary religious experiences. It focused on transnational flows of religions across the Indian and Pacific Oceans, between Asia, Africa, Australia and the Pacific Islands.
The project website contains all recordings from the event.