Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz is an assistant professor of religion and anthropology at Northeastern University, where she is also an affiliate faculty member in the women's, gender, and sexuality studies program. Before joining Northeastern University she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Recovering Truth: Religion, Journalism, and Democracy in a Post-Truth Era project at the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict (Arizona State University). She has a Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology from New York University. After completing an honors B.A. and M.A. in Religious Studies (American religions) at Missouri State University, she attended NYU to study and research religion and politics in the United States from an anthropological perspective. Along the way, she obtained a graduate certificate in Culture and Media (ethnographic filmmaking) and an M.Phil in Anthropology from NYU. Her research focuses on conservative politics, gender/sexuality, race, media worlds, and Orthodox Christianity.
A ubiquitous aspect of Eastern Orthodox devotionalism is the inclusion of icon corners in the hom... more A ubiquitous aspect of Eastern Orthodox devotionalism is the inclusion of icon corners in the homes of adherents. This study draws on data from ethnographic interviews with members of the Theotokos Unexpected Joy Orthodox Church in Ash Grove, Missouri, in order to highlight how practitioners employ icons and other devotional items in their socio-religious lives. Focusing on the complex relationships formed among humans, celestial beings, and things, this thesis demonstrates the ways that icons function as forms of communication, players in social dramas, and identifiers for adopted ethnic identity. Church members’ vibrant and dynamic relationships and practices convey salient ideas about the nature of vernacular religion, the formation of group and individual identities, the commodification of ancient Christian practices via new technologies, and the relationships among humans, divine figures, and holy objects.
The study of religion and digital technologies has recently become a point of growth in social sc... more The study of religion and digital technologies has recently become a point of growth in social sciences and humanities, reflecting on the dynamic ‘colonization’ of the digital terrains by different religions. The Orthodox segment of Runet, sometimes called ‘Ortho-net’, is shaped by half-hearted attempts undertaken by the Russian Orthodox Church to instrumentalise digital technologies in order to exercise a greater ascendance over society. In 1997 Patriarch Aleksii II blessed the world-wide web information technology as a new means for Orthodox missionary work. Today, believers have Orthodox church services, social networks, web-based dating services, information agencies, and virtual chapels. The present issue is the first academic study of how the digital technologies have been utilised and problematised by Russia’s biggest religious denomination – the Russian Orthodox Church (of Moscow Patriarchate). The authors analyse how the Orthodox Church has constructed public discourse claiming the position of an ultimate ethical judge in society. In spite of the extensive use of the internet for various religious purposes, the Church finds the internet often problematic. The contributors to the issue focus primarily on how Orthodox officials, intellectuals and ‘ordinary’ online users reflect upon the new challenges and possibilities offered by CMC. Within this research programme, the authors posit a series of specific questions: How does the ROC recycle its cultural and theological legacy in order to make sense of the CMC? What kind of new and original conceptualization of CMC could be developed, grounded in the Orthodox tradition of theology? How is the internet used for the purpose of raising ethical questions and staging moral panics? How is the internet shaped into a platform on which the ROC’s cultural hegemony in Russian society could be questioned or ridiculed from the secularist and atheist perspective? How does the internet enable dissenting voices of the religious heterodoxy?
The issue was guest edited by Mikhail Suslov (lead guest editor), Maria Engström and Greg Simons, and was prepared for publication by Andrew Chapman (lead editor), Pedro Hernandez, Gernot Howanitz, Natalia Konradova, Henrike Schmidt and Vlad Strukov.
A ubiquitous aspect of Eastern Orthodox devotionalism is the inclusion of icon corners in the hom... more A ubiquitous aspect of Eastern Orthodox devotionalism is the inclusion of icon corners in the homes of adherents. This study draws on data from ethnographic interviews with members of the Theotokos Unexpected Joy Orthodox Church in Ash Grove, Missouri, in order to highlight how practitioners employ icons and other devotional items in their socio-religious lives. Focusing on the complex relationships formed among humans, celestial beings, and things, this thesis demonstrates the ways that icons function as forms of communication, players in social dramas, and identifiers for adopted ethnic identity. Church members’ vibrant and dynamic relationships and practices convey salient ideas about the nature of vernacular religion, the formation of group and individual identities, the commodification of ancient Christian practices via new technologies, and the relationships among humans, divine figures, and holy objects.
The study of religion and digital technologies has recently become a point of growth in social sc... more The study of religion and digital technologies has recently become a point of growth in social sciences and humanities, reflecting on the dynamic ‘colonization’ of the digital terrains by different religions. The Orthodox segment of Runet, sometimes called ‘Ortho-net’, is shaped by half-hearted attempts undertaken by the Russian Orthodox Church to instrumentalise digital technologies in order to exercise a greater ascendance over society. In 1997 Patriarch Aleksii II blessed the world-wide web information technology as a new means for Orthodox missionary work. Today, believers have Orthodox church services, social networks, web-based dating services, information agencies, and virtual chapels. The present issue is the first academic study of how the digital technologies have been utilised and problematised by Russia’s biggest religious denomination – the Russian Orthodox Church (of Moscow Patriarchate). The authors analyse how the Orthodox Church has constructed public discourse claiming the position of an ultimate ethical judge in society. In spite of the extensive use of the internet for various religious purposes, the Church finds the internet often problematic. The contributors to the issue focus primarily on how Orthodox officials, intellectuals and ‘ordinary’ online users reflect upon the new challenges and possibilities offered by CMC. Within this research programme, the authors posit a series of specific questions: How does the ROC recycle its cultural and theological legacy in order to make sense of the CMC? What kind of new and original conceptualization of CMC could be developed, grounded in the Orthodox tradition of theology? How is the internet used for the purpose of raising ethical questions and staging moral panics? How is the internet shaped into a platform on which the ROC’s cultural hegemony in Russian society could be questioned or ridiculed from the secularist and atheist perspective? How does the internet enable dissenting voices of the religious heterodoxy?
The issue was guest edited by Mikhail Suslov (lead guest editor), Maria Engström and Greg Simons, and was prepared for publication by Andrew Chapman (lead editor), Pedro Hernandez, Gernot Howanitz, Natalia Konradova, Henrike Schmidt and Vlad Strukov.
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The contributors to the issue focus primarily on how Orthodox officials, intellectuals and ‘ordinary’ online users reflect upon the new challenges and possibilities offered by CMC. Within this research programme, the authors posit a series of specific questions: How does the ROC recycle its cultural and theological legacy in order to make sense of the CMC? What kind of new and original conceptualization of CMC could be developed, grounded in the Orthodox tradition of theology? How is the internet used for the purpose of raising ethical questions and staging moral panics? How is the internet shaped into a platform on which the ROC’s cultural hegemony in Russian society could be questioned or ridiculed from the secularist and atheist perspective? How does the internet enable dissenting voices of the religious heterodoxy?
The issue was guest edited by Mikhail Suslov (lead guest editor), Maria Engström and Greg Simons, and was prepared for publication by Andrew Chapman (lead editor), Pedro Hernandez, Gernot Howanitz, Natalia Konradova, Henrike Schmidt and Vlad Strukov.
The contributors to the issue focus primarily on how Orthodox officials, intellectuals and ‘ordinary’ online users reflect upon the new challenges and possibilities offered by CMC. Within this research programme, the authors posit a series of specific questions: How does the ROC recycle its cultural and theological legacy in order to make sense of the CMC? What kind of new and original conceptualization of CMC could be developed, grounded in the Orthodox tradition of theology? How is the internet used for the purpose of raising ethical questions and staging moral panics? How is the internet shaped into a platform on which the ROC’s cultural hegemony in Russian society could be questioned or ridiculed from the secularist and atheist perspective? How does the internet enable dissenting voices of the religious heterodoxy?
The issue was guest edited by Mikhail Suslov (lead guest editor), Maria Engström and Greg Simons, and was prepared for publication by Andrew Chapman (lead editor), Pedro Hernandez, Gernot Howanitz, Natalia Konradova, Henrike Schmidt and Vlad Strukov.