Diana Pasulka | University of North Carolina Wilmington (original) (raw)
Papers by Diana Pasulka
Church History and Religious Culture, 2015
Theology and Science, 2019
Tradition Innovations in Arts, Design, and Media Higher Education, 2023
Although popular media attention has suggested that recent advancements in AI image-making tools ... more Although popular media attention has suggested that recent advancements in AI image-making tools have threatened creative labor, this nascent medium is capable of research opportunities involving diverse academic fields which may not be readily apparent. Using a collaboration between an artist and scholar of religious studies as a case study, the ongoing “Noo Icons” media arts project, comprising images, video, animation, and installation, explores how AI image-making tools are well suited to reframe the visual history of the religious transcendent. Building on the scholarship of Hito Steyerl and Eryk Salvaggio, AI art’s usage as a diagnostic tool for deciphering internet biases is compared to the scholar of religious studies' theoretical method of redaction criticism. This article explores ways in which the training set data of Stable Diffusion can be refined to produce more accurate composite images, as well as the power for AI image-making tools to be used as visual aids in the creation of “imagined realities:” images for which we have credible eyewitness testimony, but which we do not have photographic evidence for. The ethics of AI image-making is primary to the methodology advanced in this interdisciplinary mode.
Living Folk Religions, 2023
Controlling the Lore: A Survey of UFO Folklore in the United States. A brief look at the history ... more Controlling the Lore: A Survey of UFO Folklore in the United States. A brief look at the history of misinformation and different versions of UFO contact events.
Loughborough University, Oct 9, 2019
![Research paper thumbnail of Introduction [Believing in Bits: Digital Media and the Supernatural]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/93214271/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Today religion and spirituality infuse digital and technological environments. These in turn prod... more Today religion and spirituality infuse digital and technological environments. These in turn produce new forms of religious and spiritual belief. As technologies that compute numbers, digital media apparently epitomize everything that is considered scientific and rational. Yet people experience the effects of digital devices and algorithms in their everyday lives through the lenses of magic and the supernatural. Algorithms are said to have the capacity to "read minds" and predict the future; Artificial Intelligence is seen as an opportunity to overcome death and achieve immortality through singularity; and avatars and robots are accorded a dignity that traditional religions restrict to humans. The essays in Believing in Bits advance 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 mind reading and spirit communications with digital technologies? Does the dignity ac...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 2016
Informed by cognitive science of film and virtual environments, this essay extends the concept of... more Informed by cognitive science of film and virtual environments, this essay extends the concept of the dispositif, or social technology, to North American mainstream films and digital productions about religion and the religious supernatural. Social technology, a concept that emerged within the discipline of film theory, has been used to describe relationships of power created and sustained by certain social institutions. Examples include prisons, professional disciplines, and cinema. This essay focuses on how cinematic and new media social technologies foster a unique form of spectatorship that influences belief in religion and the religious supernatural. While spectators of productions about the religious supernatural are consciously aware that they are watching a movie or other fictionalized narrative, cognitive science reveals that they are processing the narrative as real. Ethnographic research and the lore surrounding these productions confirm this assessment. This essay identifies these social technologies and examines implications for religious belief.
Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 23:2, 2007
The nineteenth century witnessed a proliferation of child hagiographies in the form of memoirs, ... more The nineteenth century witnessed a proliferation of child hagiographies in the form of memoirs, written mostly by evangelical Protestant women. Immensely popular at the time, the memoirs were used by religious tract societies and Sunday school publishers as a means of converting children and adults. Women memoirists were seldom recognized as authors in their day and current scholarship has ignored their cultural contributions. This article examines the ways in which these authors used the memoir form and the trope of child death, as well as specific rhetorical strategies, such as emphasizing visions of heaven, medium-ship, and intercession with spirits, to challenge and revise traditional Protestant views of the afterlife.
The Journal of Religion, 2013
Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief, 2008
In nineteenth-century United States the subject of Caihoiic devotional practices figured prominen... more In nineteenth-century United States the subject of Caihoiic devotional practices figured prominently in anti-Catholic polemical literature, To combat anti-Catholic sentiment the editors and illustrators of Catholic popular literature recast devotional practices through the lens of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution. Through images and narrative these authors forged connections between Catholic rituals and American practices of civil religion like the observance of national holidays and the veneration of the American flag. By recasting the practices like the veneration of relics, the lives of saints and devotions within the framework of an American civil religion, Catholics claimed that Americans engaged in similar practices and rituals. In this way Catholics naturalized their dogmas and interpreted them within a framework familiar to non-Catholic Americans, thus countering claims by detractors that they were superstitious and idolatrous.
The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 2005
Much of the scholarship that examines the connections between film and religion is based on the a... more Much of the scholarship that examines the connections between film and religion is based on the assumption that there is a clear distinction between film reality and the reality of everyday life. In other words, viewers suspend their belief structures while enjoying a film about the supernatural, but they always maintain a conscious separation between the film and reality. This assumption is complicated when considering the urban legends and stories surrounding films like The Exorcist and The Passion of the Christ. The discourse that surrounds these films, the urban legends, tales and folklore, reveal a realism with respect to the supernatural and religion that defies the assumption of the film’s status as fantasy. They literally bring the supernatural to life. In this way, they blur the assumed boundary between film reality and ordinary reality. In this sense they function much like a religious icon as used in popular devotional practices.
Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 2007
... 31. Although these are significant alterations in seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Calvinis... more ... 31. Although these are significant alterations in seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Calvinist theology, the ... of the lives of saints that are a traditional feature of many religions. ... 33. Works that address the construction of childhood innocence in the nineteenth century include Ariès ...
The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, 2009
Believing in Bits, 2019
The chapter examines how the visionary dream of connecting people’s minds wavered between religio... more The chapter examines how the visionary dream of connecting people’s minds wavered between religious cosmologies, media theories, and researches into human–computer interaction. It focuses on a series of historical case studies: the writings of Ramon Llull, a fourteenth-century Catholic lay missionary from Spain; the concept of noosphere as described by the Jesuit anthropologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin; Marshall McLuhan’s characterization of media as “extensions of man”; and research on telepathy or clairvoyance conducted at the Stanford Research Institute, a center where pioneering research into interactive computing led to the invention of the computer mouse in 1968. The authors argue that the beliefs, expressions, discourse, and spiritual framework that supported the development of digital media and the internet have been and still are largely religious, mythological, and enchanted.
The Routledge Companion to Death and Dying
Believing in Bits - Digital Media and the Supernatural, 2019
The chapter examines how the visionary dream of connecting people’s minds wavered between religio... more The chapter examines how the visionary dream of connecting people’s minds wavered between religious cosmologies, media theories, and researches into human–computer interaction. It focuses on a series of historical case studies: the writings of Ramon Llull, a fourteenth-century Catholic lay missionary from Spain; the concept of noosphere as described by the Jesuit anthropologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin; Marshall McLuhan’s characterization of media as “extensions of man”; and research on telepathy or clairvoyance conducted at the Stanford Research Institute, a center where pioneering research into interactive computing led to the invention of the computer mouse in 1968. The authors argue that the beliefs, expressions, discourse, and spiritual framework that supported the development of digital media and the internet have been and still are largely religious, mythological, and enchanted.
Tank, 2020
An essay about those who choose "no" religion, or are "spiritual, but not religious."
Human - technological engagement.
Historical precedents in the Western tradition for issues and themes in posthuman studies.
An examination of modern and historical ufo phenomena.
Church History and Religious Culture, 2015
Theology and Science, 2019
Tradition Innovations in Arts, Design, and Media Higher Education, 2023
Although popular media attention has suggested that recent advancements in AI image-making tools ... more Although popular media attention has suggested that recent advancements in AI image-making tools have threatened creative labor, this nascent medium is capable of research opportunities involving diverse academic fields which may not be readily apparent. Using a collaboration between an artist and scholar of religious studies as a case study, the ongoing “Noo Icons” media arts project, comprising images, video, animation, and installation, explores how AI image-making tools are well suited to reframe the visual history of the religious transcendent. Building on the scholarship of Hito Steyerl and Eryk Salvaggio, AI art’s usage as a diagnostic tool for deciphering internet biases is compared to the scholar of religious studies' theoretical method of redaction criticism. This article explores ways in which the training set data of Stable Diffusion can be refined to produce more accurate composite images, as well as the power for AI image-making tools to be used as visual aids in the creation of “imagined realities:” images for which we have credible eyewitness testimony, but which we do not have photographic evidence for. The ethics of AI image-making is primary to the methodology advanced in this interdisciplinary mode.
Living Folk Religions, 2023
Controlling the Lore: A Survey of UFO Folklore in the United States. A brief look at the history ... more Controlling the Lore: A Survey of UFO Folklore in the United States. A brief look at the history of misinformation and different versions of UFO contact events.
Loughborough University, Oct 9, 2019
Today religion and spirituality infuse digital and technological environments. These in turn prod... more Today religion and spirituality infuse digital and technological environments. These in turn produce new forms of religious and spiritual belief. As technologies that compute numbers, digital media apparently epitomize everything that is considered scientific and rational. Yet people experience the effects of digital devices and algorithms in their everyday lives through the lenses of magic and the supernatural. Algorithms are said to have the capacity to "read minds" and predict the future; Artificial Intelligence is seen as an opportunity to overcome death and achieve immortality through singularity; and avatars and robots are accorded a dignity that traditional religions restrict to humans. The essays in Believing in Bits advance 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 mind reading and spirit communications with digital technologies? Does the dignity ac...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 2016
Informed by cognitive science of film and virtual environments, this essay extends the concept of... more Informed by cognitive science of film and virtual environments, this essay extends the concept of the dispositif, or social technology, to North American mainstream films and digital productions about religion and the religious supernatural. Social technology, a concept that emerged within the discipline of film theory, has been used to describe relationships of power created and sustained by certain social institutions. Examples include prisons, professional disciplines, and cinema. This essay focuses on how cinematic and new media social technologies foster a unique form of spectatorship that influences belief in religion and the religious supernatural. While spectators of productions about the religious supernatural are consciously aware that they are watching a movie or other fictionalized narrative, cognitive science reveals that they are processing the narrative as real. Ethnographic research and the lore surrounding these productions confirm this assessment. This essay identifies these social technologies and examines implications for religious belief.
Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 23:2, 2007
The nineteenth century witnessed a proliferation of child hagiographies in the form of memoirs, ... more The nineteenth century witnessed a proliferation of child hagiographies in the form of memoirs, written mostly by evangelical Protestant women. Immensely popular at the time, the memoirs were used by religious tract societies and Sunday school publishers as a means of converting children and adults. Women memoirists were seldom recognized as authors in their day and current scholarship has ignored their cultural contributions. This article examines the ways in which these authors used the memoir form and the trope of child death, as well as specific rhetorical strategies, such as emphasizing visions of heaven, medium-ship, and intercession with spirits, to challenge and revise traditional Protestant views of the afterlife.
The Journal of Religion, 2013
Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief, 2008
In nineteenth-century United States the subject of Caihoiic devotional practices figured prominen... more In nineteenth-century United States the subject of Caihoiic devotional practices figured prominently in anti-Catholic polemical literature, To combat anti-Catholic sentiment the editors and illustrators of Catholic popular literature recast devotional practices through the lens of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution. Through images and narrative these authors forged connections between Catholic rituals and American practices of civil religion like the observance of national holidays and the veneration of the American flag. By recasting the practices like the veneration of relics, the lives of saints and devotions within the framework of an American civil religion, Catholics claimed that Americans engaged in similar practices and rituals. In this way Catholics naturalized their dogmas and interpreted them within a framework familiar to non-Catholic Americans, thus countering claims by detractors that they were superstitious and idolatrous.
The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 2005
Much of the scholarship that examines the connections between film and religion is based on the a... more Much of the scholarship that examines the connections between film and religion is based on the assumption that there is a clear distinction between film reality and the reality of everyday life. In other words, viewers suspend their belief structures while enjoying a film about the supernatural, but they always maintain a conscious separation between the film and reality. This assumption is complicated when considering the urban legends and stories surrounding films like The Exorcist and The Passion of the Christ. The discourse that surrounds these films, the urban legends, tales and folklore, reveal a realism with respect to the supernatural and religion that defies the assumption of the film’s status as fantasy. They literally bring the supernatural to life. In this way, they blur the assumed boundary between film reality and ordinary reality. In this sense they function much like a religious icon as used in popular devotional practices.
Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 2007
... 31. Although these are significant alterations in seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Calvinis... more ... 31. Although these are significant alterations in seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Calvinist theology, the ... of the lives of saints that are a traditional feature of many religions. ... 33. Works that address the construction of childhood innocence in the nineteenth century include Ariès ...
The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, 2009
Believing in Bits, 2019
The chapter examines how the visionary dream of connecting people’s minds wavered between religio... more The chapter examines how the visionary dream of connecting people’s minds wavered between religious cosmologies, media theories, and researches into human–computer interaction. It focuses on a series of historical case studies: the writings of Ramon Llull, a fourteenth-century Catholic lay missionary from Spain; the concept of noosphere as described by the Jesuit anthropologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin; Marshall McLuhan’s characterization of media as “extensions of man”; and research on telepathy or clairvoyance conducted at the Stanford Research Institute, a center where pioneering research into interactive computing led to the invention of the computer mouse in 1968. The authors argue that the beliefs, expressions, discourse, and spiritual framework that supported the development of digital media and the internet have been and still are largely religious, mythological, and enchanted.
The Routledge Companion to Death and Dying
Believing in Bits - Digital Media and the Supernatural, 2019
The chapter examines how the visionary dream of connecting people’s minds wavered between religio... more The chapter examines how the visionary dream of connecting people’s minds wavered between religious cosmologies, media theories, and researches into human–computer interaction. It focuses on a series of historical case studies: the writings of Ramon Llull, a fourteenth-century Catholic lay missionary from Spain; the concept of noosphere as described by the Jesuit anthropologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin; Marshall McLuhan’s characterization of media as “extensions of man”; and research on telepathy or clairvoyance conducted at the Stanford Research Institute, a center where pioneering research into interactive computing led to the invention of the computer mouse in 1968. The authors argue that the beliefs, expressions, discourse, and spiritual framework that supported the development of digital media and the internet have been and still are largely religious, mythological, and enchanted.
Tank, 2020
An essay about those who choose "no" religion, or are "spiritual, but not religious."
Human - technological engagement.
Historical precedents in the Western tradition for issues and themes in posthuman studies.
An examination of modern and historical ufo phenomena.
Situated at the theoretical interface between media studies and religious studies, this edited bo... more Situated at the theoretical interface between media studies and religious studies, this edited book will unveil the multiple ways in which new media intersects with the supernatural.
The Preface to the forthcoming book American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, and Technology, with Oxford ... more The Preface to the forthcoming book American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, and Technology, with Oxford University Press.
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