iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Maria Farrell @mariafarrell.eurosky.social · 25/08/2026

Loved her singing, loved her songs, loved every amazing and unsung thing she did. But especially that she kept on being herself through literally decades of being thought of as the kind of joke only a woman could be.

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Steve Peers @stevepeers.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The banality of media evil

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Ipsita Chatterjea (she/her) @ichatterjea.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

The long debunked -junk-science maven at Ghent? In sending that video out in the aftermath of Dr. Arday's death he was asking the Right-Wing-Techno sphere for funding, he was stating out loud "look what a successful junk yard dog I am for whiteness - fund me, be my patron i'll be your bitch."

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Dean Buckley @deanbuckley.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

I'd like to compare how Irish commentators wrote about Jason Arday with how they wrote about Brian Lucey, the Irish academic who had several papers retracted earlier this year because he had been corruptly peer reviewing his own work, but literally no Irish commentators wrote about it

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Six key messages from Exeter UCU. The upshot is that these proposed cuts are unnecessary and damaging. We must stop them. Please amplify these messages if you can!

Exeter Uni’s finances are strong. We’ve large cash reserves (£200m in 24/25). Never had a budget deficit. This ‘crisis’ is manufactured.
Executive pay at Exeter is out of control. If just the 16 highest-paid execs capped their salary at £120k, we’d save more money than all the cuts to Archeology & History!
No meaningful consultation, but a confused mess: faulty and insufficient data, no real discussion, and an impossible, anxiety-inducing and unreasonable timetable to push this through over the summer.
An all-staff meeting of 600 staff resoundingly voted no confidence in Vice Chancellor Lisa Roberts (whose pay and benefits are pushing £400k). We believe this is the biggest single vote by any uni staff in the history of UK HE.
Redundancies are a management choice, not a financial necessity. They even have alternative costed plans with no cuts, but think it’s easier to go for job losses.
Exeter is a fantastic uni, with world-class research, creative and inspiring teaching, and a caring, thoughtful and imaginative community of staff and students. Let’s keep it that way.

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Stephen H. Jones @stphnhwrdjns.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

The personal consequences are the most important thing here, but it is worth mentioning that Exeter is a major hub for Arabic/Islamic studies. Following on from Lancaster, Kent and Nottingham, our country's ability to talk intelligently about religion is being erased as religious prejudice rises.

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Larry the Cat @number10cat.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

If rumours are to be believed I'll be living with a seventh different Prime Minister shortly. If it carries on like this I'm going to stop making the effort to learn their names.

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Anupama Ranawana @msamrc.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Does anyone remember the pandemic? When so many Sikh communities were doing food parcels and mutual aid? Certainly done more for the community than Nigel farage ever will.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

👇 @davidfeltmate.bsky.social (you'll really enjoy this I think, but also something to potentially pass on to Sarah).

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Our final session is a critical conversation between Dr George Gonzalez and @drfstewart.bsky.social on the topic of "Doing Research in Challenging Times" exploring how one navigates the current climate in academia, how one finds & grows community, how one navigates the need to have a multi job life.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Our second paper for the panel is by @drfstewart.bsky.social who is speaking on "Challenging Disability Narratives: Implicit religion, DIY Punk and Healthcare Outcomes." As that is me, I can't live post it - not quite at that stage of multi-tasking.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Through the framework of implicit religion, care as resistance reflects intensive concerns with extensive effects. The labour of supporting others demands deep emotional, physical, and moral investment while shaping broader communal identities and systems of meaning.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Formal systems consistently fail to meet the needs of those living with chronic illness, shifting the burden of everyday care onto individuals /communities. In the absence of reliable infrastructure, care is built from what is available. They actively construct ways of surviving within it. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Implicit religion allows us to examine systems of commitment. Integrating foci and intensive concerns with extensive effects in this community care in this context becomes a structure of devotion, of obligation, of continuity, and of meaning making. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Traditional biomedical discourse tends to interpret chronic illness through the lens of individual pathology and personal responsibility. Many dominant bioethical frameworks prioritise autonomy, informed consent, and this notion of the rational moral decision maker. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Care is not an isolated or a bounded event. It is diffuse, unfolds across time, relationships, places. It is ongoing, collective, & embedded in everyday life and necessitate navigating a healthcare shaped by historical extraction, provider shortages, environmental harm, economic instability.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Panel 3 begins with a presentation by Sarah Obenauer, who is speaking on "The Three Rs of Care: Chronic illness and Implicit Religion in Central Appalachia." #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

We now have a workshop being delivered by @davidfeltmate.bsky.social on demistifying the publication process. Dr Feltmate is the editor in chief of the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture: www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/j... Workshops are not live posted as people are working on live projects.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

For Bailey, religion has not retreated from public life, but has become so seamlessly woven into daily practices that often goes unrecognised. AI may listen, respond, & affirm in ways that are programmed to be 'secular', yet simultaneously cultivate effective states that resemble devotional forms.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

AI mediated affections can be emergent forms of implicit religion as they foster relational vulnerability in ways reminiscent of devotional practice. Although algorithmically produced, the emotional practices surrounding the relationship can be ritualized, morally significant & transformative.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Rather than interpreting these relationships merely as an expression of social dysfunction, she is using Bailey's framework of Implicit Religion to recognise how these intimacies can cultivate structures of devotion and emotional vulnerability that closely resemble religious forms of attachment.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

She is asking can affection directed towards an artificial entity engineered to stimulate emotional responsiveness still be considered real? Furthermore, if intimacy is no longer grounded in mutual human reciprocity or autonomous agency, can it still retain emotional and moral significance? #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Next up we have Amanda Furiasse who is speaking on "Digital Devotions: Implicit Religion and the Ethics of AI Romance."

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

These reflect the specific struggles of a minority community. Their healing practices are a response to the structural violence as much as an expression of faith. It also represents the complexity of lived religious identity beneath the service of formal community boundaries.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

In such Pentecostal churches, healing sits at the very centre of the worship. It is where congregants encounter the divine and make sense of their suffering. So healing here is physical, emotional, economic, and relational all at once. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

What do we learn about how narratives, authority and belongingness is built when religion and everyday struggles are closely tied together? When a formal religious institution organises itself around the concerns of everyday life? EG, getting a job or visa, having a child, paying off debt? #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Day 2 begins with the second panel of speakers. Opening this panel is Simran Sidhu who is speaking on "Healing, Testimony and Authority in a Pentecostal Church in Punjab."

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University of California Press @ucpress.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

To coincide with this week's @implicitreligion.bsky.social US conference, the "Journal of Religion and Popular Culture" is offering a selection of articles free to read for a limited time—exploring religion across media, fandom, digital culture, and everyday life. www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/j...

ucpress.edu

"Journal of Religion and Popular Culture" Offers Select Free Content during Implicit Religion Conferences

We've removed the paywall from a selection of articles from JRPC in conjunction with IR UK and US.

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Clive Lewis MP @labourlewis.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

1/4 Senior figures and members in Reform UK have repeatedly vilified Muslims, pushed Islamophobic tropes, and used Muslim communities as political scapegoats. This isn’t free speech – it’s dangerous and divisive rhetoric.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Our first workshop for the Implicit Religion US conference is being run by @ichatterjea.bsky.social of @soraaad.bsky.social which focuses on "Manage the narratives that intersect with your research." We do not live post this as it people working live together on figuring out aspects of their work.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Audiences are expected and trained to consume and to receive and to move with the plot toward a predictable ending. So a good narrative in 2026 largely means a narrative that is good for capital and good for profits. Narrative in its present form has become not only economic but fatal. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Narrative as it is currently practiced, has been wholly captured by the economic realm. There is a distinction between human storytelling, & what we currently are experiencing as a narrative in the increasingly mid 21st century. What we are experiencing or being sold is a monomythic structure.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

The entirety of our lives, including & explicitly the political realm, has been wholly captured by the economic realm. This realm of unpredictable futures being made together in mutual solidarity has been completely subsumed by the idea of yielding predictable results that yield a profit. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

For Arendt, politics indicates chiefly difference without violence, communication without coercion. When we devote time to the economic realm, we get predictable results. When we devote time to the political realm, we build a shared life together characterised by unpredictability & mutuality.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

The way in which we engage with narrative matters deeply, both morally & ethically. Narrative is not a solution to our problems, either narrative as a practice or narrative as a reformed set of practices within a larger cultural scheme. Narrative has become the problem we need to solve. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Our next speaker is David Dault, who is speaking on "Challenging Narratives: Carrier Bags, Queer Temporalities, and the Politics of Failure."

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Implicit religion offers a way to think through these complexity & contradictions. IR does not reduce people to fixed categories or abstract identities. It asks what individuals are committed to, how those commitments are expressed in everyday life, & how they shape behavior under pressure. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Like Dachau, moral injury does not fit neatly into widely recognized medical or psychological categories. Physical wounds can be seen directly, while trauma often becomes visible only afterward, through its effects on a person's identity, relationships, and understanding of the world. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

The liberation of Dachau forces us to confront not only the horrors of the Holocaust, but also the fragility of moral restraint under conditions of extreme violence and human suffering. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

American soldiers entered Dachau on April 29th, 1945, & encountered the reality of concentration camp system. 2 documented incidents of surrendered SS men being shot by U.S. forces. This represents a war crime that happened in part because the men had no concept of what they were walking into.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Our first panel speaker for the Implicit Religion US conference is Octavio Carrasco who is speaking on "After Liberation: Moral injury and the Dachau Reprisals." #IRUS26

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University of California Press @ucpress.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Attending the @implicitreligion.bsky.social conference? Don't miss "Journal of Popular Culture" Editor @davidfetlmate.bsky.social's session demystifying the journals publishing process on May 29.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

In the wake of Trump's first election, several mosques were targeted by far right extremists and white supremacist nationalists with vandalism and often fatal violence across the globe. Part of the challenge of challenging narratives is that this work is long, arduous, and often exhausting.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

The protest poster of the woman draped in an American flag relied on narratives about Muslims that seem to believe the very ethos & intentions behind the progressive politics of the women's march: Islam is foreign & worthy of fear, a Muslim woman must be draped in an American flag to be included.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Trump's 2016 MAGA campaign relied on anti-Muslim vitriol, on demonising communities of colour, on patriarchy & misogony, and denigration of immigrants from the Global South. Paradoxically, Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric also saw a conspicuous increase in representations of Muslims. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Dominant narratives can be interrogated, they can be identified. The results of those dominant narratives can be called out, they can also be challenged through naming, critiquing, and re-centering. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Muslimness has been juxtaposed historically to whiteness, & also divorced from Blackness through anti-Black logics. Early Muslim migrants often categorized as Turks, Arabs or Asians, & outside the statutory whiteness required for citizenship. Many had go before a judge and prove their whiteness.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Discourse about Islam and Muslims in the US is often framed from the lens of immigration. But the first critical mass of Muslims in the United States came not as immigrants, but as enslaved black Africans. Many of the stories of these enslaved individuals were covered up or not shared for years.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Discourse often did not centre or pay enough attention to Black Muslim voices, challenges, and experiences. Saad Abdul Kabir notes Muslim identity in the United States has often taken on the characteristic of foreign, subordinate, and brown - deeply conflated with Arab and South Asian ethnicities.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Black Muslim communities also face anti Muslim racism and Islamophobia within non Muslim Black communities and within society writ large. And these forces are often rooted in orientalist and Islamophobic discourses, in post 911 war on terror logics, securitization policies, and racist logics.

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