We are pleased to announce the launch of Reverberations, a new digital forum on prayer produced in conjunction with the SSRC’s New Directions in the Study of Prayer initiative. Reverberations will serve as a hub for communication among participants in the New Directions in the Study of Prayer project, a platform for a broader set of academic and public engagements, and a space within which a wide range of resources and materials related to the practice of prayer will be compiled, curated, studied, and explored. The forum will host a prayer blog authored by a diverse group of scholars and journalists and will publish original longer-form writing, interviews with researchers and journalists studying prayer, and a range of other essays & exchanges.
Reverberations is live and humming, and we invite you to explore the new forum by reading Steven Barrie-Anthony’s interview with Tanya Marie Luhrmann, “Prayer, Imagination, and the Voice of God—in Global Perspective” or spending time with “The Materiality of Prayer,” Anderson Blanton’s debut “portal” into the forum’s unfolding compendium of resources related to the study of prayer.
In Essays & Exchanges, read Courtney Bender’s introductory essay asking, “What Can the Study of Prayer Tell Us?” and Elizabeth McAlister’s reflections on “Studying Prayer as Practice.”
On The Prayer Blog, recent contributions include Robert Orsi on “The Higher Power”; Charles Hirschkind on “Prayer and Worldmaking”; and Christine Wicker on “What Prayer Can and Cannot Do.” John Lardas Modern riffs on studies of prayer and the manufacture of religion; and Emma-Kate Symons wonders, “Who Can Pray in the Streets?”
And don’t miss Diane Winston on “Digital Communication and Spiritual Progress”; Peter van der Veer on the ritual location of prayer; Peter Manseau on prayer as “All Things to All People”; Shira Gabriel on navigating the dual identities of experimental social psychologist and person of faith; and more.
Check in regularly with Reverberations and follow us on Twitter at @rvrbs.