Science, Technology, and Religion Unit

The Science, Technology, and Religion Unit is soliciting proposals on the following topics:

• Can religious or theological assumptions make a difference for scientific practice? What concrete examples can illustrate this?
• Does science have an implicit metaphysics? If science is not disenchanted, then how should one characterize it instead?
• For possible co-sponsorship with the Bioethics and Religion Unit: we invite papers that interrogate matters of religion, spirituality, or the philosophy of religion as they intersect with brain-machine interfaces, neuroprosthetics, and neuroenhancement and related technologies and enhancement processes through discursive or somatic modes. We especially welcome proposals that address these matters in light of the 2024 AAR Presidential theme which considers violence, nonviolence, and marginality.
• Science and violence: in response to the conference theme, we welcome panels that consider the ways violence is manifested in scientific inquiry
• The relationship between science policy and religion, with a focus on the necessity and potential form of ethical guidelines in science.
• Imagination as a bridge between science and religion. Different (especially non-western) social imaginaries of technology.
• Bruno Latour as a resource for thinking about “science and religion”.
• The durability of scientific knowledge
• Finally, STR is always open to paper proposals or panels that do not fit any of these particular parameters.