Dear Student
Join us for a conversation with leading academics exploring how religion is being transformed, expressed, and contested in a world shaped by algorithms, AI, digital platforms, and emerging technologies.
Positioned at the intersection of the study of religion and the African Digital Humanities, this session considers how religious communities across the continent are engaging digital tools—through online worship, religious apps, WhatsApp sermons, TikTok preaching, digital pilgrimages, and data-driven forms of influence and authority.
Together, we will reflect on how machines and digitalisation are reshaping religious identities, rituals, knowledge production, and ideas of the sacred and the profane, while also raising urgent ethical and political questions about surveillance, power, exclusion, and representation in digital spaces.
Ultimately, the discussion highlights why Religious Studies remains deeply relevant today: not only as the study of tradition and belief, but as a critical lens for understanding society, culture, and meaning-making in contemporary life. The session will also offer an opportunity to engage with scholars from the Department of Religious Studies and Arabic and learn more about their module offerings.
