After Earth? Religion and Technology on a Changing Planet

International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture Conference

February 2-5, 2023 @ Arizona State University and Beyond

Thanks to everyone who joined us in person or online for our 2023 conference in Tempe, Arizona!

Conference Program

View Online Only Conference Program Here

 Registered Participants Only — Access Online Sessions

Keynote Speakers

Sylvester A. Johnson is Assistant Vice Provost for the Humanities and Executive Director of the “Tech for Humanity” initiative at Virginia Tech. He is the founding director of Virginia Tech’s Center for Humanities, which is supporting human-centered research and humanistic approaches to the guidance of technology. Johnson’s research has examined religion, race, and empire in the Atlantic world; religion and sexuality; national security practices; and the impact of intelligent machines and human enhancement on human identity and race governance. In addition to co-facilitating a national working group on religion and US empire, Johnson led an Artificial Intelligence project that developed a successful proof-of-concept machine learning application to ingest and analyze a humanities text. He is the author of The Myth of Ham in Nineteenth-Century American Christianity (Palgrave 2004), a study of race and religious hatred that won the American Academy of Religion’s Best First Book award; and African American Religions, 1500-2000 (Cambridge 2015), an award-winning interpretation of five centuries of democracy, colonialism, and freedom in the Atlantic world. Johnson has also co-edited The FBI and Religion: Faith and National Security Before and After 9/11 (University of California 2017); and Religion and US Empire: Critical New Histories (NYU Press 2022). He is a founding co-editor of the Journal of Africana Religions. He is currently producing a digital scholarly edition of an early English history of global religions and writing a book on human identity in an age of intelligent machines and human-machine symbiosis.

Mary-Jane Rubenstein is Professor of Religion and Science in Society at Wesleyan University, and is affiliated with the Philosophy Department and the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program. She holds a B.A. from Williams College, an M.Phil. from Cambridge University, and a Ph.D. in from Columbia University. While her early work investigated the disavowal of wonder in phenomenology and deconstruction, her more recent writing has moved into the metaphysical underpinnings of cosmology, astronomy, and space travel, general relativity and quantum mechanics, and nonlinear biology and ecology. Rubenstein is the author of Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race (University of Chicago, 2022); Pantheologies: Gods, Worlds, Monsters (Columbia University Press, 2018); Worlds without End: The Many Lives of the Multiverse (Columbia University Press, 2014), and Strange Wonder: The Closure of Metaphysics and the Opening of Awe (Columbia University Press, 2009). She is also co-editor with Catherine Keller of Entangled Worlds: Religion, Science, and New Materialisms (Fordham University Press, 2017) and co-author with Thomas A. Carlson and Mark C. Taylor of Image: Three Inquiries in Technology and Imagination (University of Chicago, 2021).

Conference Activities

Participants at the in person 2023 ISSRNC conference will also have the opportunity to participate in a number of exciting activities.

Conference Banquet:

On Saturday, February 4th, we will host our Banquet and Awards Ceremony. This is a semi-formal dinner for registered guests where we recognize travel grant awardees and give out our Graduate Student Paper and Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Conference Fieldtrip:

To conclude the 2023 After Earth? Conference, we will travel to Oak Flat, the site of a struggle over a proposed copper mine near the town of Superior, AZ. Called Chi’chil Bilgagoteel in Apache, this site is currently controlled by the U.S. Forest Service, which was mandated in a controversial addendum to a 2014 defense spending bill to trade the land to Resolution Copper in exchange for less valuable land elsewhere. The proposed copper mine would be one of the largest in the United States and would desecrate a place sacred to Apache people, disrupt public recreation, and damage local hydrological systems. This land swap has not yet been finalized and faces legal and political challenges from Indigenous advocacy groups and environmental protection organizations, including an appeal to the Supreme Court on religious freedom grounds. But the movement to stop the proposed mining operation faces an uphill battle. At the Oak Flat campground, we will meet with and learn from representatives of Apache Stronghold, the Native organization leading the fight to protect this beautiful place.

Art Exhibition:

“River Biographies” – An experiential art exhibition presented by Christer Lundahl and Martina Seitl 

River Biographies is an odyssey into the geology of the body as well as of the land, emphasizing that which is not human but of which you are a part. Taking the form of an hour-long session where an audience of 30 people explore embodiments of natural elements of stone and water to form a river collectively, the artwork exists somewhere between performance and a space for healing and repair. Like the life of a river is a measure of the health of a local ecosystem, River Biographies are living artworks where the shifting collective ability of the group passes through the artworks score. Each half of the group embodies the qualities of water and stone, respectively, to physically explore their relationship; the way in which stone affects the flow of the water and how water forms the topography of rock and stone, directing the water’s flow, and how both affect each other’s temporalities. See some of their work here. ISSRNC will host two sessions of Lundahl & Seitl’s “River Biographies” during the conference.

Accommodations and Conference Hotel:

Arizona State University’s Tempe campus has a variety of nearby hotel and Air B&B options. We encourage you to book your accommodations early, as rates during the conference dates may be high.

ISSRNC conference participants can use the following code (ASUISSRNC) to reserve a room at the Sonesta Select Tempe Downtown for the discounted conference group rate of $110/night + tax. Rooms are limited, so reserve your room as soon as possible.

Travel Information:

As you consider when to arrive and leave, please know that our conference will officially begin on Thursday afternoon with a Keynote, and panels will run through mid-day Sunday. The conference will officially end after our field trip Sunday afternoon, around 6:30pm.

If you are flying to Tempe, the closest airport is Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (located about 10 miles West of campus). From the airport, you can take an Uber, Lyft, or taxi directly to campus. You can also get to Tempe and the campus from any of the terminals by taking the free shuttle to the 44th and Washington St. Light Rail Station, and then taking the eastbound train (toward Mesa). Ride 5 stops to Veterans Way/College Ave and then walk for about 2 minutes, and you will arrive on the Northwest side of campus.

ISSRNC Refund Policy:

The deadline for registered, in-person, participants to receive a refund for conference participation is 5pm EST on Friday, January 6, 2023. No refunds will be issued for online conference registration. If you are an in-person conference participant and can no longer attend the conference, we will arrange for you to participate virtually via Zoom in your scheduled conference panel. No reimbursements will be given for cancellations made within 72 hours of the conference for any reason. This includes cancellations for the Conference Banquet and Field Trip.