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OP39


Medicine between Religion and Technology 
Convenor:
Léo Bernard (IFRIS-Cermes3)
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Format:
Panel
Location:
Theta room
Sessions:
Friday 8 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Vilnius

Short Abstract:

This open panel invites researchers who come from different disciplinary fields to conduct fine-grained studies of the relationship between religion and technology through the theme of medicine, which allows us to think of religion in and against technology.

Long Abstract:

This open panel argues that the complex relationship between religion and technology can be partly grasped through the study of the medical field, a field which intertwines these two phenomena.

On one hand, medicine can indeed be perceived as a field of application of religious and spiritual beliefs. Catholic physicians constitute a well-known topic of inquiries which illustrates this statement, but one could also think, for example, about the impact of esoteric currents on medical holism during the interwar period. Spiritual cosmologies and anthropologies often translate in medical theories and practices, even in Western countries during the modern period.

On the other hand, medicine is of course deeply related to technology. In the broadest sense, medicine is a technology. To cure diseases and to maintain health are practical goals which can be achieved, even on an industrial scale, through the application of a specific knowledge (either scientific or not). Moreover, artificial intelligence, robotics and other digital developments are becoming increasingly more important in the medical field and raise the issue of transhumanism; a question that has been addressed by numerous spiritual and religious thinkers.

Therefore, this panel invites researchers who come from different disciplinary fields (science and technology studies, religious studies, health studies, etc.) to conduct fine-grained studies of the relationship between religion and technology through the theme of medicine, which allows us to think of religion in and against technology. Examples of proposals may include the criticism of the pharmaceutical industry and laboratory medicine by qualified physicians (either Westerners or not) that hold religious or spiritual beliefs, but papers on the development of particular therapeutic techniques and the manufacturing of remedies or medical artefacts based on religious or spiritual knowledge during the modern period are also welcome.

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Friday 8 September, 2023, -