BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT: Digital Jesus Hello AoIRers: I apologize for the self-promotion, but I wanted all my friends and colleagues in the AoIR community to hear that (after a long haul on this research) my book _Digital Jesus_ is finally available from NYU! As may be obvious, its about online religion (or religion online . . . maybe); but largely vetted by a more Religious Studies sort of crowd. Nonetheless, many members of this list have been a huge influence on my thinking in it; and I am thrilled to let you know it finally exists! Thanks to you all for blazing the trail of internet research! Order it at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Jesus-Christian-Fundamentalist-Alternative/dp/... Or you can save a dime by downloading the intro. for free from NYU through a link on the front of my homepage. With just the intro., will miss all the fantastic examples! But it has the basic point of course. http://rghoward.com Thanks for taking a quick look at it if you can! Rob -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digital Jesus: The Making of a New Christian Fundamentalist Community on the Internet "In the 1990s, Marilyn Agee developed one of the most well-known amateur evangelical websites focused on the “End Times”, The Bible Prophecy Corner. Around the same time, Lambert Dolphin, a retired Stanford physicist, started the website Lambert’s Library to discuss with others online how to experience the divine. While Marilyn and Lambert did not initially correspond directly, they have shared several correspondents in common. Even as early as 1999 it was clear that they were members of the same online network of Christians, a virtual church built around those who embraced a common ideology. Digital Jesus documents how such like-minded individuals created a large web of religious communication on the Internet, in essence developing a new type of new religious movement—one without a central leader or institution. Based on over a decade of interaction with figures both large and small within this community, Robert Glenn Howard offers the first sustained ethnographic account of the movement as well as a realistic and pragmatic view of how new communication technologies can both empower and disempower the individuals who use them. By tracing the group’s origins back to the email lists and “Usenet” groups of the 1980s up to the online forums of today, Digital Jesus also serves as a succinct history of the development of online group communications." Robert Glenn Howard is associate professor in the Department of Communication Arts and Director of Digital Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently he is also associate director of the Folklore Program at Wisconsin and editor of the journal Western Folklore." Robert Glenn Howard http://rghoward.com _______________________________ University of Wisconsin -- Madison Associate Professor, Department of Communication Arts Director, Digital Studies Associate Chair, Folklore Program Affiliated Faculty, Religious Studies and the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Culture Editor, Western Folklore