Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian HistoryMain MenuGet to Know the SiteGuided TourShow Me HowA click-by-click guide to using this siteModulesRead the seventeen spatial stories that make up Bodies and Structures 2.0Tag MapExplore conceptsComplete Grid VisualizationDiscover connectionsGeotagged MapFind materials by geographic locationLensesCreate your own visualizationsWhat We LearnedLearn how multivocal spatial history changed how we approach our researchAboutFind information about contributors and advisory board members, citing this site, image permissions and licensing, and site documentationTroubleshootingA guide to known issuesAcknowledgmentsThank youDavid Ambaras1337d6b66b25164b57abc529e56445d238145277Kate McDonald306bb1134bc892ab2ada669bed7aecb100ef7d5fThis project was made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Religion and Technology
12019-11-27T22:31:10-05:00Evan Dawley7a40080bd5bb656cee837d5befaa3ea8e7a2ac44351A Subsidiary of Sacred Geographyplain2019-11-27T22:31:10-05:00Evan Dawley7a40080bd5bb656cee837d5befaa3ea8e7a2ac44As I compared this module with other modules, it became clear that religion and technology function in similar ways. In the module on aerial routes over Manchuria, by Sakura Christmas, technology essentially becomes a religion in the way that people put their faith in it without really knowing how it works, and because it offers the illusion of being all-knowing and all-seeing. That is, it allows for a god’s-eye view (see the pathways on “Navigation” and "Header Maps"). Technology also provides a means to more precisely demarcate territory, at least in the minds of its acolytes, much as the movement of a deity through physical space demarcates that terrain in the minds of the god’s adherents. Moving to the level of everyday life, the doctors at the center of Maren Ehlers’s module, and the networks of scientists addressed by Mitch Aso, (NB: re-read these modules!!), intervene in the lives of individuals much as deities intervene—or are asked to intervene—in the lives of the faithful: with a near mystical power to diagnose and cure. In all cases, the boundary between sacred and profane becomes blurred.