More than 80 speakers and presenters from 23 countries will be part of the Media and Religion: the Global View conference at the University of Colorado Boulder Jan. 9-12.
CU-Boulder’s Center for Media, Religion and Culture (CMRC) will host the conference. All plenary sessions at the event are free and open to the public and will be held at the University Memorial Center, Eaton Humanities and Old Main Chapel on campus.
“Conference attendees will be able to explore how religion and spirituality are mediated across global networks,” said Nabil Echchaibi, assistant professor of journalism and mass communication and associate director of the CMRC. “Conference themes will include how religious identities are shaped and negotiated through a complex and creative use of the media in an increasingly global context.”
Scholars and experts at the conference will discuss topics ranging from religious community building in the domestic sphere to activism and social change in the religious context, and perceptions of death and post-mortality in digital games and gamer-generated content on YouTube.
Among the speakers will be Jane Little, who will give a keynote address on “The Coverage of Religion and its Discontents” on Jan. 9 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Old Main Chapel. Little originated the religion beat at BBC World Service as well as her current role of religion editor for Public Radio International’s The World program.
Jason Anthony, a senior editor at Time Inc., will be one of several panelists at the plenary session, “Religion and Digital Media: Scholarship, Journalism and the Spaces in Between,” on Jan. 11 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in room 250 of Eaton Humanities.
Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu will speak at a plenary session on Jan. 10 from 9 to 10:30 a.m. in the University Memorial Center, room 235. As a professor at Trinity Theological Seminary in Accra, Ghana, Asamoah-Gyadu’s teaching areas include non-western Christianity; Pentecostalism; religion, theology and media in Africa; and new religious movements in Africa.
Magali do Nascimento Cunha will speak at a plenary session on Jan. 10 from 6:15 to 7:45 p.m. in the University Memorial Center, room 235. She is a professor at the Methodist University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, who researches media and religion; religion and society; cultural studies and practical theology.
This will be the fifth in a series of international and interdisciplinary conferences presented by the CMRC, bringing together scholars, experts and the campus community to examine emerging issues in media and religion.
The Media and Religion conference is supported by the Henry Luce Foundation; CU-Boulder Journalism and Mass Communication; the University of Colorado President’s Fund for the Arts and Humanities; the Department of Religious Studies; the Multicultural Mosaic Foundation; CU-Boulder’s Center for Asian Studies; and CU-Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information initiative.
The conference Twitter hashtag is #cmrc2014. For more information about the Center for Media, Religion and Culture visit http://cmrc.colorado.edu/. For more information about the conference, including a complete schedule, visit http://cmrc.colorado.edu/cmrc-conferences/media-and-religion-conference-the-global-view/.
Jane Little. (Courtesy the Center for Media, Religion and Culture)
