HEIDI CAMPBELL
Campbell’s teaching and research centers on the social shaping of technology, rhetoric of new media, and themes related to the intersection of media religion and culture, with a special interest in the internet and mobile phones. Her books include Exploring Religious Community Online: We are one in the network (Peter Lang, 2005) looking at how members of online religious communities connect their online and offline social-religious networks and When Religion Meets New Media (Routledge, 2010) investigating Jewish, Muslim & Christian communities’ historic perceptions and contemporary use of media technologies. Here current research looks at how bounded communities domesticate the internet in light of their social values or core beliefs and the relationship between online religious authority and established, offline institutions and hierarchies.
DEBBIE HERRING
In 1992 Debbie began a distance learning degree course with Westminster College, Oxford, and obtained an Oxford University first class degree in June 1998. She has completed a PhD in “Contextual Theology in Cyberspace” at the Urban Theology Unit, which is the maverick colleague of the Sheffield University Biblical Studies Department. Debbie worked for UTU for several years, first as secretary then as part-time tutor and lecturer, and was recently appointed Senior Lecturer when she returned to full time work now that the PhD is finished. Debbie also tutors and writes module teaching material for Oxford Brookes University Distance Learning theology courses.
NOREEN HERZFELD
Noreen is Professor of Theology and Computer Science at St. John’s University. She holds degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from Penn State, an MA in Theology from St. John’s and a Ph.D. in Theology from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. Herzfeld teaches courses in both the department of computer science and the department of theology at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict, primarily in Ethical and Religious Issues in Computing, Islamic Spiritual Traditions, and Religion and Conflict.
Herzfeld is the author of In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit (Fortress, 2002) and Technology and Religion: Remaining Human in a Co-Created World (Templeton, 2009). She has also published numerous articles on such diverse topics as cyberspace as a venue for spiritual experience, embodiment as a sine qua non for personhood, the religious implications of computer games, and the prospects for reconciliation among Christians and Muslims in Bosnia.
TIM HUTCHINGS
Tim Hutchings is a sociologist of religion, media and culture. He received his PhD (“Creating Church Online”) from Durham University (UK) in 2010. He recently completed a 15-month fellowship at the HUMlab digital humanities research laboratory, Umeå University, Sweden, where his work included studies of digital research methods, online evangelism and new media storytelling. He is now based at CODEC, Durham, as a Research Assistant for the Lindisfarne Gospels Digital Arts Project. Dr Hutchings’ publications include articles in Information, Communication & Society, Online: The Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet and The Expository Times and chapters in a number of forthcoming edited volumes.
DR ATHINA KARATZOGIANNI
Dr Athina Karatzogianni holds a PhD in Politics from Nottingham, an MA in International Conflict Analysis from Kent, and a BA in International Relations with Politics from Lancaster. Athina is one of the earliest UK researchers on digital developments and their impact on media, politics and society and has carved a niche within the areas of new media theory and global politics, for the study of cyber conflict and the use of digital technologies by social movements, protest, and insurgency groups. Athina is a new media theorist with an international conflict analysis and political sociology background, which is often employed to investigate the impact of new technologies on social and political communication in a variety of settings (including the Iraq war protests, Chinese cyber-dissidents and the social media enabled uprisings in the Middle East).
LERONE MARTIN
Lerone A. Martin is the Assistant Professor of the History of American Religion and Culture at Eden Theological Seminary in Saint Louis, Mo. His research interests include: History of 19th and 20th Century American Religion and culture and African American cultural practices. Lerone received his PhD in American Religious Cultures at Emory University, his Master of Divinity Degree from Princeton Theological Seminary, and BA from Anderson University in Anderson, Ind.
PRAMOD K. NAYAR
Pramod teaches M.A. courses in Literary Theory, the English Romantics, the 17th Century, Cultural Studies (including celebrity studies and technoculture) at the Department of English, University of Hyderabad, India. He has interests in English colonial writings on India, travel writing, human rights narratives, posthumanism, postcolonial literature, literary & cultural theory and superheroes – a claim he makes justly, having published extensively in most of these areas.
PEDRO J. OIARZABAL
Pedro J. Oiarzabal was born and raised in Bilbao and has spent much of his life between the Basque Country, Ireland and the United States. He holds a PhD in Basque Studies-Political Science from the University of Nevada, Reno, a MPhil in Economics and Social Sciences from Queen’s University of Belfast (N. Ireland), and BA in History from the University of Deusto (Bilbao). He has been a Visiting Research Scholar at the University of Nevada, Reno from 2007 to 2009. Currently, he is a Research Scholar on International Migration at the University of Deusto, Bilbao.
DR. PETE PHILLIPS
With a background in New Testament teaching and research, Pete Phillips moved to CODEC in 2008 taking up the challenge to foster and develop a cutting edge digital theology research programme at St John’s College, exploring Biblical Literacy, Preaching, and Communication in a Digital Age. Passionate about the Bible and teaching, his interests also include postmodernism, theology and the arts, film and football.
BRENT WATERS
Dr. Brent Waters is Director of the Stead Center for Ethics and Values and the Jerre and Mary Joy Stead Professor of Christian Social Ethics at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Waters served as director of the Center for Business, Religion and Public Life at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and Director of the J.W. and Ida M. Jameson Center for the Study of Religion and Ethics at the University of Redlands. He received a Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry from Claremont School of Theology, and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford. He is the author and many articles and books, and has been invited to lecture at institutions worldwide.
