In-person November Annual Meeting 2026 Program Book

This paper considers the possibility of AI being employed to improve moral character from the perspective of an account of virtues that is psychologically realistic and informed by a Christian agapeic ethic oriented toward creaturely well-being goods that ground right action. While Part I briefly presents such an account of the virtues, Part II explores three ways that advancing AI may impact virtue formation, each of which is conceivable but has significant limitations and drawbacks. Part III argues that recognizing the social character of virtue formation requires recognizing the importance of extending the rule of law to AI. The effectiveness of rule of law in the face of advancing AI, however, will depend on Niebuhrian virtues of moral vigilance that recognize the ease with which the loftily stated ideals sometimes associated with AI coexist with other aims.

 As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly pervasive in healthcare, the incentives for technical innovation and financial gain driving efficient AI healthcare automation often interfere with patient care and increase health inequity. However, bio- and AI ethical frameworks remain inadequate for guiding this transformation, especially at the speed and scale in which autonomous decision-making is embedded within healthcare. Incorporating compassionate care into AI systems focuses moral attention onto patient suffering and flourishing (eudemonic well-being), translating ethical insights into an AI framework that can be operationalized within current and near-term AI system development. I argue that compassionate AI in healthcare requites modeling multiple dimensions of human suffering and health agency in support of phronetic attention and compassionate response, and that eldercare provides both a rich context and urgent test case.

Artificial intelligence and augmented reality are transforming healthcare technologies, including the development of virtual autopsy systems that reconstruct the human body using high-resolution imaging and three-dimensional visualization. While these technologies may reduce the need for invasive postmortem examinations, they also introduce new bioethical questions concerning bodily integrity, digital representation, and the moral status of postmortem data. This paper examines how religious ethical traditions—including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shamanism—interpret emerging technological practices surrounding death investigation. Some religious communities may view virtual autopsy technologies as more acceptable alternatives to invasive procedures because they preserve bodily integrity. However, AI-generated digital reconstructions of the deceased body raise new ethical concerns about postmortem dignity, privacy, and the governance of digital bodily data. Drawing on perspectives from religious bioethics, this paper argues that religious traditions provide important ethical resources for addressing emerging questions about death, technology, and the future of healthcare.

This paper investigates the dynamics of ritual failure in Hong Mai's twelfth-century collection Yijian zhi, situating its anecdotal narratives within the socioreligious context of the Song dynasty. Drawing on Ronald Grimes's taxonomy of ritual "infelicities" and Edward Schieffelin's distinction between procedure- and outcome-oriented failure, the study identifies two categories of failed rites. The first encompasses performance-centered breakdowns—flawed petitions, impure personnel, and procedural errors—that Grimes's framework diagnoses effectively. The second, however, resists such explanations: rituals that are correctly performed yet catastrophically rejected. To account for these cases, the paper introduces the concept of "cosmological invalidation," whereby a ritual's efficacy is nullified not by human error but by a higher moral-bureaucratic order governing karmic debts and underworld adjudication. The paper argues that narratives of inevitable retribution served a theodical function in a period of political instability, challenging the universality of performance-centered and strategic-negotiation models of ritual theory.

This paper examines ritual failure through the practice of jiaobei (珓杯, moon-block divination) in Daoist and local ritual contexts in central Hunan. Jiaobei are routinely cast there at critical moments of ritual performance to confirm divine permission for a ritual to proceed. When divinatory results fail to meet ritual expectations, it produces a publicly visible moment of uncertainty.

Rather than signalling ritual breakdown, such moments initiate a process of negotiation. Drawing on ongoing fieldwork, this paper analyses how ritual masters respond to unfavourable jiaobei results by modifying bodily techniques, e.g. mudras and mantras, and ritual pacing in order to “urge” the divination (cui gua 催卦). These practices reflect a structured compromise between gods and ritual specialists grounded in Daoist ritual logics.

I argue that jiaobei-mediated ritual failure is an anticipated and productive condition that reaffirms relational authority between gods, ritual masters, and the ritual community, rather than undermining ritual efficacy.

Drawing on late imperial steles from southern Shanxi, this study examines a form of ritual failure that emerged when the infrastructural and organizational conditions sustaining ritual life broke down. The inscriptions record recurring disruptions, including failures to enforce festival calendars and service obligations, disputes over offerings and exactions, and the appropriation of temple property, which generated missed or failed rites. This article argues that ritual efficacy depended less on divine responsiveness than on the functioning of coordination mechanisms that allowed ritual to operate across communities. Local ritual was experienced as effective not through greater splendor, but through stable, low-friction routines grounded in predictable rules, manageable costs, clear resource boundaries, and workable inter-community coordination. When these conditions collapsed, officials and local elites intervened, claiming to bring ritual back under governance through regulation and documentation, thereby reorganizing local authority in the name of repairing efficacy. Ritual failure thus provides a window onto local power dynamics.

This paper investigates the dynamics of ritual failure in Hong Mai's twelfth-century collection Yijian zhi, situating its anecdotal narratives within the socioreligious context of the Song dynasty. Drawing on Ronald Grimes's taxonomy of ritual "infelicities" and Edward Schieffelin's distinction between procedure- and outcome-oriented failure, the study identifies two categories of failed rites. The first encompasses performance-centered breakdowns—flawed petitions, impure personnel, and procedural errors—that Grimes's framework diagnoses effectively. The second, however, resists such explanations: rituals that are correctly performed yet catastrophically rejected. To account for these cases, the paper introduces the concept of "cosmological invalidation," whereby a ritual's efficacy is nullified not by human error but by a higher moral-bureaucratic order governing karmic debts and underworld adjudication. The paper argues that narratives of inevitable retribution served a theodical function in a period of political instability, challenging the universality of performance-centered and strategic-negotiation models of ritual theory.

This paper examines ritual failure through the practice of jiaobei (珓杯, moon-block divination) in Daoist and local ritual contexts in central Hunan. Jiaobei are routinely cast there at critical moments of ritual performance to confirm divine permission for a ritual to proceed. When divinatory results fail to meet ritual expectations, it produces a publicly visible moment of uncertainty.

Rather than signalling ritual breakdown, such moments initiate a process of negotiation. Drawing on ongoing fieldwork, this paper analyses how ritual masters respond to unfavourable jiaobei results by modifying bodily techniques, e.g. mudras and mantras, and ritual pacing in order to “urge” the divination (cui gua 催卦). These practices reflect a structured compromise between gods and ritual specialists grounded in Daoist ritual logics.

I argue that jiaobei-mediated ritual failure is an anticipated and productive condition that reaffirms relational authority between gods, ritual masters, and the ritual community, rather than undermining ritual efficacy.

Drawing on late imperial steles from southern Shanxi, this study examines a form of ritual failure that emerged when the infrastructural and organizational conditions sustaining ritual life broke down. The inscriptions record recurring disruptions, including failures to enforce festival calendars and service obligations, disputes over offerings and exactions, and the appropriation of temple property, which generated missed or failed rites. This article argues that ritual efficacy depended less on divine responsiveness than on the functioning of coordination mechanisms that allowed ritual to operate across communities. Local ritual was experienced as effective not through greater splendor, but through stable, low-friction routines grounded in predictable rules, manageable costs, clear resource boundaries, and workable inter-community coordination. When these conditions collapsed, officials and local elites intervened, claiming to bring ritual back under governance through regulation and documentation, thereby reorganizing local authority in the name of repairing efficacy. Ritual failure thus provides a window onto local power dynamics.

Ruha Benjamin contends that “we are living in the imagination of AI evangelists” who promise “ to guide us into the Future™” while “positioning themselves as Guardians of the Galaxy, even as they engineer the crises against which we must guard” (2024).  As these “AI evangelists” advance an eschatological and redemptive vision for their technology—while obscuring its dystopian propensities— Jamaican Revival Zion practitioners are troubling the exclusionary logics of “algorithms,” “artificial intelligence,” and even the very constitution of “science” and “technology.” Revivalists, and practitioners of other Africana religions, have long grappled with dystopian worlds not made for them, even as they are used as fungible resources from which to create these imperialist futures.  The paper offers Revivalists’ use of TikTok as a digital balmyard, mediated by copresences and seemingly divinatory algorithms, as a case study in the contentious world-building potentialities and “technologies of spiritual refusal” housed within Africana religions (Stewart 2022). 

This paper highlights the prominent role of digital technology among next-generation African diaspora Christians. From the moment one enters All Nations Church in New Jersey (ANCNJ) , the pervasive presence of digital media is unmistakable. Large, cinema-like screens evoke the immersive atmosphere of Times Square, while high-quality live-streaming reflects sophisticated, often unseen technological infrastructures. ANCNJ actively engages across multiple social media platforms, aligning its ministry with the digital habits of emerging generations. Spoken word is used as an embodied form of religious expression, and the digital space is engaged with as a cyber sanctuary.  Participants narrate their spiritual journeys, voice communal concerns, and translate doctrinal themes into embodied and culturally resonant expressions. Spoken word becomes a liturgical act and a process of identity formation, serving as a new practice of gospel proclamation. Drawing on participant observation and semi-structured interviews, this paper examines how second-generation migrants appropriate popular culture to express faith and identity. 

This paper examines religion as an affective, digital, and political practice through which young Ghanaians attempt to navigate economic precarity and global inequality. Focusing on Christian youth in Accra, ages 18-35, the study interrogates how spirituality mediates psychic life and how religious practices and spaces function as modes of survival and social networks, as places of belonging, identity, and ethical formation. As Africa’s youth population rapidly expands, this research examines youth as a social category formed through technological ambiguities, structural failures, and uncertain futures, global ecological pressures, and declining mental health. To make sense of Africa’s religious landscape, the research introduces the language of “warped intimacies” and argues that Ghanaian youth’s high religiosity reveals a reconfiguration of social relations toward religious figures and institutions. This project aims to unearth the material and affective consequences of transnational economic and theological forces on the lives of young Ghanaians.