Greenflame

Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture, photography and faith from the Aotearoa New Zealand

  • Anzac Day Collection – Collection | NZ On Screen

    NZ On Screen have a selection of Anzac Day short films available for viewing over on their web site:

    Anzac Day Collection – Collection | NZ On Screen

    From their overview:

    This collection brings together 24 titles covering Kiwis at war. Iconic documentaries and films tell stories of terrible cost, heroism and brotherhood. Each title raises fundamental questions about our identity. Dr Chris Pugsley muses, “It is sobering to think that in the first half of the 20th Century the big OE for most New Zealanders was going to war.”

  • Transhumanism and Transcendence

    Just had word that Transhumanism and Transcendence edited by Ron Cole-Turner is now being displayed on the Georgetown University Press web site. Looking forward to getting a copy later in the year.

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  • Mac OSX Finder Refresh

    Just one of those things that made life a whole lot easier:

    Mac OSX Finder Refresh – News – Shane’s Site

  • iPads in Tertiary Education

    So I’m looking at the ways in which new media stuff might work in teaching theology, so a report on a pilot project using iPads for teaching and learning at Trinity College at the University of Melbourne looked like it might be helpful. But it didn’t really have any substance, and in parts reads like an Apple commercial. The bibliography at the back with some research articles might be it’s redeeming feature. What I really wanted was some concrete examples or case studies on what they did with it, and whether they tried some of the same things on the Android and netbook platforms they also looked at.

    Anyway, you can find the report at: iPad Pilot Report 2011 v3.pdf – Powered by Google Docs.

    It did remind me to look at the Apple-focused ‘Wheels for the Mind‘ to see if there were any case studies of interest there.

    Update: This issue (New Technologies and New Approaches to Higher Education Pedagogy : 20/1 – 2008) of the journal ‘International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education‘ (noted in the report) looks interesting.

  • More religious science fiction

    Gabriel Mckee over at SF Gospel has a link through to the Eric James Stone’s “That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made,” published in the September 2010 issue of Analog. I went downtown in September/October to find a copy of this issue after seeing a note about it a blog somewhere. Didn’t end up finding the issue, so I’m glad I can read the story here for a while.

    (Found the blog link over at io9 – The key to presenting religion in science fiction)

  • Supervillains and Space Opera

    Having spent the last few months immersed in pop culture related to angels, vampires and wizards (see below), it’s time to return to the superhero and space opera genres. (If I have time later this year, then I’d been keen to whip out a paper on the theologies found in angel fiction).

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    In particular, I’ve been reading comic book related material that explores what happens when things turn to custard and the heroes don’t win. (Think Megamind (which I enjoyed) but with much, much darker overtones). Mark Waid’s writing explores this in several different ways – from the anarchy of unrestrained power in Kingdom Come, where the older heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman cease their roles, to the darkness in Empire with it’s triumphant villain, through to Irredeemable (which I’m currently readings) where the ‘Superman’ character goes rogue. All interesting explorations of power and its use and abuse.
    I’ve also picked up Austin Grossman’s novel ‘Soon I will be Invincible‘ which also looks like it will explore some of the same themes.
    And, when I’m done with that it’s a return to Neal Asher’s Polity universe with ‘The Technician’ and ‘The Gabble and other stories’.
    Should all be good for the train ride to and from work.

  • Facebook and church

    Clearing out random saved links from the web browser and came across these related posts:

    Experimental Theology: How Facebook Killed the Church

    Why Millennials are leaving church … you won’t believe this | Jesus Creed

  • Interview : Brooke Fraser

    Every year a bunch of students the Bible and Popular Culture class choose to write a biographical piece about someone who has integrated biblical/religious material with some form of popular culture. Often the markers get a bunch of essays about Brooke Fraser. So I imagine this year we’ll see this recent interview cited in the essays:

    Michele Hewitson Interview : Brooke Fraser – Religion and Beliefs – NZ Herald News

  • International Conference on Digital Religion 2012

    Hat tip to Heidi Campbell for this conference announcement.

    International Conference on Digital Religion 2012
    The Center for Media, Religion, and Culture at the University of Colorado-Boulder has announced an International Conference on Digital Religion, to be held 12-15 January 2012 in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

    ‘Digital Religion” today includes a myriad of examples: an evangelical mommy blogging community, a Jewish online dating service, a virtual pilgrimage of the Muslim ritual of Hajj, offering Poojas on an online Hindu Temple service, a YouTube series of an ex-Catholic nun, the invention of Kosher phones, playing “Al-Quraysh”, a Muslim video game, an Anglican Church on Second Life, or a religious iPhone app like iTalk to God. What is striking about the proliferation of this digital religious culture is not only the creative adoption of new technologies, but also the challenges and possibilities these technologies offer for religious meaning-making in modern society. Both individuals and religious institutions today vigorously appropriate interactive forms of media generating new religious deliberative spaces, religious publics and counterpublics, and competing sources of authority, and collapsing in the process old boundaries of what constitutes the religious realm.


    This international conference will bring together scholars of media and religion and producers of digital religion content from a variety of religious traditions to reflect on the implications of these developments. Papers and panels may address, but should not be limited to questions such as:

    Theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of digital religion ? Relationships between offline and online forms of religious practice ?The emergence of networked religious communities ?The cultivation of authority and legitimacy in digital religious spaces ?Digitization of religion and the implications for scriptural text dissemination and reception ? Mediatization of religion in digital spaces ? Technological mediation and religious authenticity ? Representations of religion in digital platforms ? Intersections of religion and the market ? Influence on the religious public sphere ? questions of mundane, “banal” or “implicit” religion ? Digital religious transnationalism ? Religious aesthetics and sensations in digital forms ? Religions and spiritualities in social networking ? Generational and demographic difference and issues

    Digital Religion is a conference of the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture. For more information or for the full CFP, contact: Stewart M. Hoover, Director: hoover@colorado.edu, or Nabil Echchaibi, Associate Director: nechchai@gmail.com.

     

  • Comic Book Literacy

    Has anybody seen this?

    Comic Book Literacy : A Documentary Film About Comics in the Classroom and Beyond

    Looks like it might be interesting.