Brown Bag Seminar: AI and Religious Mediation

This presentation by Feeza Vasudeva (Academy Research Fellow at the Study of Religions, University of Helsinki) introduces a concept of synthetic sacred – a configuration in which generative systems co-produce devotional, mythological, and heritage content that circulates as religiously effective media. The talk uses two empirical sites – conversational ‘Godbots’ and AI-generated religious imagery – to ask how such objects can be studied when they exist simultaneously as cultural forms, socio-technical systems, and sites of mediated meaning.

The Methodological unit at the Helsinki Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (Uni Helsinki) organizes a recurrent Brown Bag Seminar to highlight novel methodological approaches in the humanities and social sciences. The idea of the meetings is to introduce methodological innovations and cutting-edge research in various disciplines in an easily accessible manner and have an interdisciplinary discussion in an easy-going atmosphere over lunch.

There will be a 20-minute introduction to the methodological theme, followed by an open discussion of 40 minutes. The seminars are open to everybody and welcome a multidisciplinary and methodologically curious audience. The language of the meetings can be Finnish or English.

This is a hybrid event taking place at the University of Helsinki, Fabianinkatu 24 A, 5th floor, room 532. For remote participation, use this link.

More information is available on the event site.