Hello all! I apologize for any inconveniences, but we just had a last minute room change for tomorrow's speaker event. Instead of Mary Gates Hall 241, we will now be in Mary Gates Hall 228. We will have signs in place at MGH 241, but I wanted to give you all the heads up. Thank you, and hope to see you tomorrow! Melody GUEST LECTURE SERIES ONLINE BUDDHIST COMMUNITY, AUTHORITY AND IDENTITY WHAT: CIS is hosting a monthly Guest Lecture Series, and this is the first Lecture in the series. The format will include a presentation by a UW researcher (faculty/staff/student) accompanied by two panel members from other disciplines. *WHERE: Mary Gates Hall 228* WHEN: January 14th, 2008, 4-5pm LECTURER: Laura Busch – Dept. of Communications TITLE: Online Buddhist Community, Authority and Identity: a case study on how the process of spiritualizing technology impact religious identity and authority in a Buddhist Web forum. ABSTRACT: This study analyzes the Buddhist message forum E-sangha, to analyze how this forum's founder and moderators 'spiritualized the Internet' using contemporary, narratives of global Buddhist community, and in doing so, provided these actors authority in determining the boundaries of Buddhist orthodoxy and identity. Through a qualitative structural and textual analysis of E-sangha Web space, this study demonstrates how religious community narratives provide Web producers and forum moderators the opportunity to frame Web environments as sacred community spaces, which inherently allows those in control of the site the authority to set the boundaries of religious identity and hence, who can take part in the community. PANEL MEMBERS: Gad Barzilai – Jackson School's Law, Societies, and Justice Program, Rucha Ambikar – Center for Information & Society Box 354985 Seattle, WA 98195 Tel 206.616.9101 Fax 206.616.5149 cisinfo@u.washington.edu www.cis.washington.edu -- Melody Clark MLIS Candidate 2010 - University of Washington Coordinator - Center for Information and Society mobile: 206.303.7910 email: melody.r.clark@gmail.com or melclark@u.washington.edu