Board

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF   

Kerstin Radde-Antweiler
is professor of Religious Studies at the University of Bremen, Germany. Her research focuses on mediatized religion, mediatization theory, video gaming, Christian traditions and ritual studies. She authored several articles and co-edited several volumes and special journal issues, including Journalism, Media and Religion: How News Media Ascribe Meanings to the Terms “Sacred”, “Secular” and “Authority” (JRMDC 2018), Handbook of Journalism and Religion (Routledge 2020), Mediatized Religion in Asia (Routledge 2019), and Methods for Researching Video Games and Religion (Routledge 2018). She is founding member of the International Academy for the Study of Videogaming and Religion (lASGAR).

Xenia Zeiler
is professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She holds a Ph.D. in Cultural and Religious History of South Asia from the South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg in Germany. Her research and teaching are situated at the intersection of digital media, culture and society, specifically as related to India and the global Indian community. Her research foci are video games and gaming in India, digital religion (especially Hinduism), global Hinduism, and Tantric traditions. She also researches and teaches aspects of (Global) Digital Humanities and popular culture, especially as related to India.

 

MANAGING EDITOR

Dom Ford (from 01.04.2023)
is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Religious Studies and Related Didactics at the University of Bremen and a member of the ZeMKI Media and Religion lab. He received his PhD from the IT University of Copenhagen in 2022 for the dissertation Mytholudics: Understanding Games As/Through Myth, in which he proposed a method for analysing games through a framework of myth. His postdoctoral project focuses on the negotiation between players, game developers and the games themselves in the formation of a community surrounding a game, seen through a framework of communual mythmaking. His research interests also include spatiality, monsters, nostalgia, and the respresentation of history in games.

 

Lisa Kienzl (parental leave)
is a researcher in the area of media, religion and culture at the Institute of Religious Studies and Related Didactics at the University of Bremen. She is a member in the lab media and religion at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) and part of the interdisciplinary and collaborative research platform Worlds of Contradiction (WoC). She holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology and in Religious Studies. Her research interests include religion and identity formations in digital media, visual material culture in contemporary and historic settings, qualitative methods, such as digital anthropology, and the transformations of religion, gender as well as the notion of the nation in popular and gaming cultures.

 

SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR

Kathrin Trattner
is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for the Study of Religion and Related Didactics at the University of Bremen. Her primary research interests are religion, culture, and digital media, in particular video gaming. She is currently conducting a research project entitled “Gaming the Nation: An Intersectional Investigation of Nation, Identity, and Video Gaming”, funded by the University of Bremen’s Central Research Development Fund.

 

Samira Ghozzi (parental leave)
is a research assistant and doctoral candidate for Religious Studies at the University of Bremen, Germany. Her research focuses on mediatized religion. She received her bachelors’s degree in islamic theology at the University of Tubingen and finished her master’s degree in religious studies in media with a focus on othering and racism in the adventures of tintin at the University of Bremen.

 

BOARD MEMBERS

Stef Aupers
is a cultural sociologist and professor of ‘media culture’ at the Institute for Media Studies, University of Leuven. He published widely on religion, spirituality, magic and conspiracy theories in modern ‘secular’ society and, particularly, on the affinity between religion and ICT. He was co-applicant and postdoc researcher in the NWO project ‘Cyberspace Salvations: Computer Technology, Simulation and Modern Gnosis’ (2003-2007; with Peter Pels, Leiden University, and Dick Houtman, Erasmus University Rotterdam).

John W. Borchert
is a Lecturer in the Religious Studies Department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro having received his PhD from Syracuse University in 2021. He is interested in how religious practices and media technologies intersect across American religious histories, particularly their impact on embodiment and death. He teaches on American religion, embodiment, death, Christianities, and religion and media/technology. John is Co-Chair of the Religion and Media Workshop of the American Academy of Religion and you can follow him on Twitter @JohnWBorchert.

Gregory Price Grieve
is a Professor at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. He researches and teaches at the intersection of Asian religions, media, and theory. Specifically, he is a leader in the field of digital religion, and a pioneer in the emerging field of religion in digital games. He publishes books and articles and present internationally on these subjects.

Chris Helland
completed his doctorate examining early forms of online religious activity. He was heavily influenced by the writings of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson and has been an avid gamer (both online and offline) since his teenage years. His current research is examining the transfer of the sacred into cyberspace. In particular he is exploring the wiring of sacred pilgrimage sites and online ritual activities. He is also working closely with diaspora religious groups as they develop internet technology to help maintain their religious identities. He has a number of influential publications examining religion on the Internet and was one of the pioneering researchers in this developing field of study.

Lissa Holloway-Attaway
is an Associate Professor in Media Arts, Aesthetics, and Narration in the Division of Game Development within the School of Informatics at the University of Skövde (Sweden). She is the leader for the Media, Technology and Culture research group, and she teaches in the games education. Her background is in theatre performance, literature studies, and digital culture/media studies, and she works across many digital media forms, from digital art, to electronic literature, experimental audio/video, and games. Her creative and critical work has been published, exhibited and performed in a number of international venues. Her current research is focused on emergent media (AR/VR/MR), experimental narrative, digital cultural heritage games, and environmental posthumanities.

Vit Sisler
is an Assistant Professor of New Media at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague. His research deals with the information and communication technology in the Middle East and educational and political video games. He has published extensively in issues related to ICT, the Middle East and video games and his work has appeared in the Communication Yearbook; European Journal of Cultural Studies; Information, Communication & Society and the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication. He is managing editor of CyberOrient and a lead designer of Attentat 1942, a serious game on contemporary history (https://attentat1942.com/).

Rachel Wagner
is Associate Professor of Religion at Ithaca College. She has published numerous articles and chapters on the intersection between religion and media, especially religion and film, and religion and gaming. Her first book, Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality (Routledge, 2012) explores the theoretical intersection between religion and video games. She is currently working on a second book called God, Games, and Guns, which considers the transformation of apocalypticism in contemporary visual media and video games.

Michael Waltemathe
is Akademischer Oberrat (Senior Lecturer) at the Department of Protestant Theology at Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany. He researches and teaches at the intersection of theology, religious education and media studies. For several years he has been working in the area of computer games and religion, especially in the use of computer games in religious education. His theoretical interests include constructivist reflections on religious education and the opportunities to learn in and from religious plurality by incorporating New Media.