In writing Deities & Demigods (and its precursor, Gods, Demigods, & Heroes), James Ward exposed millions of role-players and curious readers to the study of comparative mythology.… Read more “Dungeons & Dragons as History of Religions”

In a whirlwind of great press (all publicity must be good publicity, right?), Google launched an AI ethics review board and–within just one week–disbanded it in the… Read more “Google, AI, Ethics, and Reality”

My Fulbright-Nehru project–to explore the communities formed through dialogue about sarees, particularly handwoven sarees, on social media–has me thinking a lot about how we conceptualize the terrain… Read more “Archeologies and Architectures of Technology”

I’m delighted to post that the folks at Lexington Books have given me permission to publish an excerpt of Temples of Modernity: Nationalism, Hinduism, and Transhumanism in… Read more “Available: sample chapter from Temples of Modernity”

In my recent book, Temples of Modernity, one of my arguments is that religion, science, & technology can be integrated as a form of nationalist rhetoric. I… Read more “Science, religion, national pride”

All right; in fairness, I’m not good about blogging. I don’t know that the content of my blogging is all that good and, on top of that,… Read more “Back to the Future”

There’s something to be said for scholarship in an era of political upheaval. If nothing else, the Trump era and its lead-up provoked in me a somewhat… Read more “Politics, perspective, and composition”

Thanks to the help of Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and others, we’re seeing an increasingly public conversation about Apocalyptic AI (the belief that machines will become transcendent… Read more “The AI apocalypse is catching on”

Recently, my 12-year old daughter read Ready Player One (a particularly fun read for gamers, Dungeons & Dragons players, children of the 80s, and the rest of… Read more “Home schooling with the Simulation Hypothesis”

With considerable delight, I report that the Fulbright Association, the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, and the Indian government have approved my latest research project for… Read more “Return to Sender”