Call for papers
We are pleased to invite you to contribute to the new Special Issue of Poligrafi dedicated to the material dimension of online religious practices and how they are shaping the ways both religion and digital media are perceived and addressed in our hypermediated society.
Nowadays, digital religious expressions have become an accepted and common research practice among scholars, challenging the conceptions of the digital context as a mere ‘information tool’ while proving its potential for more interactive and participatory performances where lived religion can also take place (Helland 2000). Such convergence with the digital was clearly seen during the COVID-19 lockdown, where several religious communities embraced computational media in order to compensate for the constraints on physical interaction (Evolvi 2021, Mosavel et al. 2022). Since then, it is possible to notice how almost all world religions have an active presence online.
This consideration of virtual environments as affordable media for a ‘lived religiosity’ requires an exploration of how religious materiality manifests in digital media. Religion is, intrinsically, a material phenomenon that cannot rely solely on a textual dimension (Meyer and Houtman 2012). As Morgan assures, religious traditions exhibit “the corporeal nature of human existence, which means that religions consist of feeling, sensation, implements, spaces, images, clothing, food, and all manner of bodily practices regarding such things as prayer, purification, ritual eating, corporate worship, private study, pilgrimage, and so forth" ([2009] 2019)[1]. Therefore, we need to pay attention to things, environments, their use, and their valuation as something that is not simply added to a religion but, instead, is inextricable from it (Meyer et al. 2010, 299). When it comes to the digital context, it is not enough to focus on the religious content appearing on social media; rather, one must consider how a given platform allows the embodied articulation of individuals as well as the interactions that emerge in return. In other words, to understand what religion is today, we need to pay attention to how religion is done online, including not only the spatial and bodily affordances of virtual platforms, but also the dynamics and strategies that users develop with others and with the media itself.
The forthcoming special issue of Poligrafi invites contributions from diverse fields, including religious studies, sociology, anthropology, media studies, theology, philosophy, and semiotics. Papers are invited that address one or more of the following areas of research:
- Digital methods for expressing the embodied dimension of a given religion.
- Media platforms and their affordances for religious practices.
- The ways in which digital religious experiences are impacting the perception of religion and what religion is considered to be.
- How users react to digital platforms when performing religious performances.
- Reflections on the notion of material religion.
- How community and authority are reconfigured and manifested in lived religion online.
- Posthumanism and the interrelationship between religious traditions and the machine other.
- Religious experiences and the merging of the online and offline contexts.
- How communal gatherings and celebrations of religious events are manifested online.
- Sacred spaces and their virtual reconfiguration.
- Metaverse’s potentialities for religious performances.
- Extended realities and the future of the church.
The submission of articles for Poligrafi is open until July 15th 2024 and should be submitted to barbara.bradaspremrl@zrs-kp.si.
Completed papers should follow the journal guidelines, which can be found in the following address: http://ojs.zrs-kp.si/index.php/poligrafi/information/authors.
All articles are subject to double-blind reviews. Articles published by Poligrafi journal are assigned doi numbers. The journal is indexed by: Scopus and The Philosopher’s Index. You can find out more about the journal here. All technical questions can be further addressed to Barbara Bradaš Premrl, MA.
We welcome your valuable contributions.
Victoria Dos Santos, Ph.D
[1] Extract from David Morgan’s paper on thejugaadproject.pub/home/the-material-culture-of-lived-religions-visuality-and-embodiment [12 February 2023].
