[Commlist] New book: Believing in Bits: Digital Media and the Supernatural

It's my pleasure to announce the publication of the book "Believing in 
Bits: Digital Media and the Supernatural," edited by Simone Natale and 
Diana Pasulka and published by Oxford University Press.

Believing in Bits advances the idea that religious beliefs and practices 
have become inextricably linked to the functioning of digital media. How 
did we come to associate things such as mindreading and spirit 
communications with the functioning of digital technologies? How does 
theinternet’s capacity to facilitate the proliferation of beliefs blur 
the boundaries between what is considered fiction and fact? Addressing 
these and similar questions, the volume challenges and redefines 
established understandings of digital media and culture by employing the 
notions of belief, religion, and the supernatural.

“Human beings and their technological creations, including and 
especially their modern digital technologies, reflect, express, and 
intensify their fundamental strangeness. Scholars have long known that 
the history of religions is intimately related to the history of 
technology, from the ancient practices of agriculture, writing, the 
domestication of the horse, and the forging of iron, to the more recent 
invention of the printing press and the telegraph and telephone. This 
book takes that key insight into the present and near future, to the 
cell phone in your pocket, the computer game on your screen, and the VR 
system strapped around your skull. This book takes that key insight into 
the human-techno cyborg that is you.”

Jeffrey J. Kripal, author ofSecret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in 
the History of Religions

“Believing in Bitsis a guide to why media technologies are magical: they 
create beliefs, manipulate thoughts, make us see things. After reading 
this wonderful collection of essays, you realize why the most natural 
thing about media is that they are supernatural. This book is full of 
media archaeological joys and insightful contemporary readings.”

Jussi Parikka, Professor of Technological Culture & Aesthetics, 
University of Southampton

Simone Nataleis a Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at 
Loughborough University, UK.

Diana Pasulka is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of 
North Carolina, Wilmington,and chair of the Department of Philosophy and 
Religion.


More information here:
<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/believing-in-bits-9780190949990?q=believing%20in%20bits&lang=en&cc=ro#>
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/believing-in-bits-9780190949990



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