The Urgency of Public Literacy on Religion in the Digital Age

For assistance, please view our video walkthrough. You can adjust the playback speed on the video next to the closed caption icon. If you still have questions, please contact us.

Panelists

Andrew Henry is a scholar of ancient Mediterranean religion, with a particular focus on popular religion, magic, and demonology in Late Antiquity. He has worked at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, excavated in Athens with the American School of Classical Studies, and served as an Educational and Cultural Affairs research fellow at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. He was also a postdoctoral research fellow at the American Research Center in Egypt, where he researched Coptic iconography in late antique Egypt.

Ruth Tsuria is an associate professor at Seton Hall University’s Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts. Her research, which investigates the intersection of digital media, culture, and feminism, has been published in various prestigious academic outlets, such as the International Journal of Communication and Social Media + Society. She is the recipient of the inaugural Digital Religion Research Award for her contributions to the field of digital religion and the 2023 Researcher of the Year Award for her impressive publication record, which includes twenty-three articles and book chapters and two edited books. Her book Keeping Women in Their Digital Place: Exploring Jewish Online Discourse on Gender and Sexuality (Penn State University Press) will be published in the summer of 2024. In addition, Tsuria is the editor-in-chief of the Journal for Religion, Media and Digital Culture.

Andrew Aghapour is a scholar, storyteller, writer, and artistic producer living in Durham, NC. Andrew was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina by a Muslim, Iranian father and a Christian, British mother. Andrew’s search to understand his own identity led him to study religion and science. Andrew received a Masters and a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from UNC-Chapel Hill. He went on to work as the Consulting Scholar of Religion and Science for the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, where he helped develop the “Discovery and Revelation,” exhibition and co-author the exhibit book. As a freelance writer and editor, Andrew has covered stories about religion and science for outlets including Slate, On Being, Religion Dispatches, and the Revealer. He was the co-founder, with Michael Schulson, of The Cubit, the managing editor of Harvard Divinity School’s Cosmologics magazine, and a consulting producer for the Ministry of Ideas podcast’s Illuminations series.

Thorn Mooney is a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My dissertation project considers the blurry boundaries around religion, science, and secularism, especially as more and more people identify as “spiritual but not religious” or else eschew religious language entirely in favor of secular identities. I’m conducting a multi-site ethnography of paranormal communities in the United States, as these spaces provide us with a fruitful landscape for considering how Americans are defining and redefining their relationships with both religion and science. Prior to pursuing a PhD, I worked as a Title I English and history teacher in Charlotte, NC. My experience working with at-risk students deeply shaped my commitments as an educator and has led me to prioritize public scholarship.

Moderator

Harold Morales is Professor in the department of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Morgan University.  Dr. Morales’ research focuses on the intersections between race and religion and between lived and mediated experience. He uses these critical lenses to engage Latinx religions in general and Latino Muslim groups in particular. He is now focusing on developing public scholarship initiatives through his research on mural art and social justice issues in the city of Baltimore and through the Center for the Study of Religion and the City for which he received a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. Harold serves as the Co-Chair of the AAR Section: Religion and Cities.