Hello!

We wanted to remind you that CIS is kicking off it’s first lecture in our new lecture series this Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 4pm in Mary Gates Hall 241.  There will be intellectual stimulation, snacks, and coffee/tea, so please join us, and feel free to bring a friend or two!

Hope to see you soon!
Melody

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



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 241
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