Religion, Technology & Terrorism

CTheory Live symposium: Religion, Technology & Terrorism will take place at the Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture, University of Victoria on Thursday, October 19, 2006 at 2:30pm (PST). The symposium will be streamed live. View past lectures in the video archive.

The symposium will be followed by the electronic book launch of two new CTheory Book projects: LEFT BEHIND: TECHNOLOGY, RELIGION AND FLIGHT FROM THE FLESH by Stephen Pfohl, and BORN AGAIN IDEOLOGY:RELIGION, TECHNOLOGY, AND TERRORISM by Arthur Kroker.

Symposium speakers:

Andrew Wernick is a sociologist and historian of ideas as well as a cultural theorist and jazz pianist. He is the founder and director of Trent University's Institute for the Study of Popular Culture as well as the current chair of Trent's Cultural Studies Department. His interests focus on media theory and advertising, the place of religion in postmodernity, and the notion of time in contemporary culture. He is the author of _Promotional Culture: Advertising, Ideology, and Symbolic Expression_ (Sage, 1991) and co-editor of _Shadow of Spirit: Religion and Postmodernism_ (Routledge, 1992) and _Images of Ageing_ (Routledge, 1995).

Stephen Pfohl is Professor of Sociology at Boston College where he teaches courses on social theory; postmodern culture; crime, deviance and social control; images and power; and sociology and psychoanalysis. Dr. Pfohl is the author of numerous books and articles including _Death at the Parasite Cafe_, _Images of Deviance and Social Control_, _Predicting Dangerousness_, and the forthcoming volumes _Venus in Video_ and _Magic and the Machine_. A past-President of the Society for the Study of Social Problems and a founding member of Sit-Com International, a Boston-area collective of activists and artists, he is also co-editor of the 2006 book _Culture, Power, and History: Studies in Critical Sociology_.

Arthur Kroker is Canada Research Chair in Technology, Culture and Theory and Professor of Political Science at the University of Victoria, Canada. Co-editor of CTheory and Director of the Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture (www.pactac.net), he is the author of numerous books on technology and culture, including _The Possessed Individual: Technology and the French Postmodern_, _Data Trash: The Theory of the Virtual Class_ (with M. Weinstein), and _The Will to Technology and the Culture of Nihilism: Heidegger, Nietzsche and Marx_.