I’m Texan, but living, teaching, and writing in New York City. I’m pretty sure that everyone loves robots, which is why I’ve written a book about them. People love games too, so I wrote another book. I’m also interested in the toadstool circles, the ancient temples, the soaring cathedrals of our religious imagination. Likewise, the dark tunnels of mining and rapid transit. I visit mountains, deserts, temples, laboratories, factories, virtual realities…the places where magic enters the world.
Thanks to a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Award, I spent 5 months at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, where I interviewed dozens of scientists in academia, industry, and hacker culture. The book has gone through peer-review and is in contract with Lexington Press (an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield). The book will offer new insights into contemporary India and into methodology in the study of religion, science, and technology.
In 2018-19, I will be back on sabbatical and back in India–once again under the auspices of a Fulbright-Nehru award. I will be affiliated with the National Institute of Advanced Studies, and I will be conducting research for a new project investigating the contemporary culture of traditional handcrafts.
Overall, my interest is in how we use technology to enchant and give meaning to the world. To study this, I use ethnographic fieldwork, literature (science fiction) studies, and the hodgepodge of methods that all of us in “religion and science studies” put to use. Within the study of religion and science, I am a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion.
