Department of Religious Studies

Resume/CV

Jacob Boss is a doctoral candidate in Religious Studies at Indiana University. He is writing his dissertation on religion and grassroots transhumanism. Jacob teaches widely, serving as instructor of record or associate instructor in the Department of Religious Studies, the School of Education, the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, and the Collins Living-Learning Center. He is an editorial assistant for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and the co-founder of the Human Augmentation Research Network, hosted by the Center for Religion and the Human at Indiana University. HARN supports graduate students and junior faculty researching transhumanism and human augmentation. Jacob serves on the steering committee for the Emerging Technologies Unit and the Human Enhancement and Transhumanism unit of the American Academy of Religion. He is the author of “Punks and Profiteers in the War on Death,” Body and Religion 2022; “Human Augmentation” with Sharday Mosurinjohn and Jeremy Cohen, 2022; “For the Rest of Time They Heard the Drum,” Theology and Westworld, 2020, and “The Harmony of Metal and Flesh: Cybernetic Futures,” Spiritualities, Ethics, and Implications of Human Enhancement and Artificial Intelligence, 2020.            

Some of his activities as a graduate student include: 

• Designing and teaching an array of original courses: Religions of Asia (2018), “Come Hell or High Water,” Religion, Ethics, and Public Life (2019), “Hacking the World,” Introduction to Critical Theory (2020), The Transhuman Condition (2021), Happiness (2021), Foundations of College (2022), Unlocking Your Creativity (2023), and Social Informatics (2023).
• Working as a National Science Foundation outside auditor for health informatics programming at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering.
• Serving as the Associate Director of the Global Living Learning Community for 2022, the international studies themed dormitory at Indiana University.
• Being commissioned by the School of Religion at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, to consult on redesigning their introductory graduate seminar in the study of religion, and their teacher training program.
• In 2019, with the generous support of the Department of Religious Studies, the Devonia and Steven Stein Fellowship, the Greenburg Albee Fellowship, and the Society for the Anthropology of Religion, traveling around the United States and Canada to conduct research and to present material from his dissertation work on the do-it-yourself human augmentation movement.
• Publishing a groundbreaking study of technological immortality, grassroots science, and punk theory in Body and Religion.
• Publishing a book chapter about HBO’s Westworld, Babylonian Gods, and Robots in Theology and Westworld.
• Publishing a book chapter about cybernetic anxieties in Spiritualities, Ethics, and Implications of Human Enhancement and Artificial Intelligence.
• Reviewing Black Transhuman Liberation Theology, and Unsettling Science and Religion for Reading Religion.
• Organizing HARN, the Human Augmentation Research Network, a new research community for scholars of human augmentation, transhumanism, medical devices, and biohacking, hosted by the Center for Religion and the Human at Indiana University.
• Contributing a series of entries to the Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence
• In 2022, he received an award for excellence in teaching from the Student. Academic Center at Indiana University.
• In 2021, he received the Teaching Excellence Award from the Department of Informatics.
• In 2020, he received the Carl Ziegler teaching award from the Collins Living-Learning Center and the Department of Religious Studies Graduate Award for Teaching Excellence.
• In 2018, he received the Indiana University Bloomington Department of Religious Studies Graduate Award for Teaching Excellence.
• Providing research, design, conference organizing, and technical support for the Being Human in the Age of Humans project.
• Studying Cybernetics, Biohackers, and Transhumanism with a $5000 fellowship generously provided by the Luce Foundation funded Politics of Religion at Home and Abroad project.
• Speaking about microchips and implantable technology on WFIU-NPR Noon Edition.
• Serving as Vice-President of GQ, a campus-wide organization dedicated to supporting LGBT graduate students.
• Working as a Research Assistant for the Politics of Religious Freedom project.
• Writing for the Forum of the Consortium for the Study of Religion, Ethics, and Society, where you can find his article “At Least Do No Harm” about the recent RFRA firestorm in Indiana.
• In 2017, he received the Devonia and Steven Stein Fellowship in the Study of Religion.

In 2023, Jacob delivered two papers to the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, “Gods of Blood and Salt” and “Transhumanism is for Punks.” He was interviewed by AI and Faith for his work on human flourishing and technology. Jacob participated in an invited roundtable at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, and will be delivering at talk to the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is teaching “Unlocking Your Creativity” at the School of Education, merging traditional arts with digital design, popular culture, political theory, culinary arts, and religious studies to empower students to see opportunities for creative exploration in all career paths and areas of life. He has multiple publications on religion, artificial intelligence, algorithmic processes, and what he is calling “AI Obscurantism” forthcoming this year.

In 2022, Jacob published “Punks and Profiteers in the War on Death” in Body and Religion, a long-awaited ethnographic study of competing economic, spiritual, and sociotechnical forces at technology conferences and conventions. He also published, with Sharday Mosurinjohn and Jeremy Cohen, “Human Augmentation Research Network and Transhumanism” at the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network. His “Happiness” class, an original version of “Religion and Popular Culture” for undergraduates, introduced students to festival and performance based theses on happiness around the world. Jacob spoke about course design and success in teaching at the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. He had several interesting work opportunities this year, serving as a program auditor for the school of informatics, and as associate director for the international studies themed dormitory. While evaluating the informatics program he employed his experiences with ethnography to interview participants and generate reports. As the associate director of the global living learning community he assumed responsibility for one hundred undergraduate residents and their program events, including leading a field trip to Chicago to visit a wide range of cultural archives. Hired by the Student Academic Center and the School of Education, Jacob designed and taught a 13-week course on the Foundations of College. Jacob designed the course to identify and address fundamental personal, interpersonal, and institutional challenges for undergraduates. The impact of the class was recognized with a reward for teaching excellence from the Student Academic Center. He delivered papers at the Royal Anthropological Institute, two papers at the American Academy of Religion, and a paper for the Society for the Social Studies of Science.

In 2021, Jacob successfully competed for the opportunity to teach a second original course at the Collins Living-Learning Center. The 16-week “The Transhuman Condition” course was based on Jacob’s dissertation research into transhumanism and designed to introduce undergraduates to the world of grassroots and DIY science. Jacob delivered a paper to the American Academy of Religion entitled “Dying in the Meat: Grassroots Transhumanism on the Engines of Immortality,” and chaired the “Identity and Infinity in Technofuturism” panel. He was interviewed by DIGETHIX about his work on DIY science and biohacking. His work for the Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence came to print, as well as his book review of Black Transhuman Liberation Theology.

In 2020, Jacob received a dissertation completion fellowship from the College of Arts and Sciences, this $25,000 award supports dissertation writing in Fall 2020 – Spring 2021. He began serving on the steering committee for the Human Enhancement and Transhumanism Unit of the American Academy of Religion. He taught a 16-week course introducing critical theory to undergraduates, with the subtitle “Hacking the World.” The course was offered through the Collins Living-Learning Center and designed to empower undergraduates to work with even the densest academic thinking and writing. He received the Carl Ziegler Teaching Award for “Hacking the World,” and the Graduate Prize for Teaching Excellence from the Department of Religious Studies. He also helped to redesign the curriculum and materials for the Social Informatics course in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering.  

In 2019, Jacob gave a paper entitled, “The Steel Cocoon” to the Society for the Anthropology of Religion, at Victoria University, Toronto, Canada. He also designed and taught his own version of our religion and ethics course, which he renamed “Come Hell or High Water,” focusing on human extinction and technologically facilitated transcendence. He continued leading a workshop series in our department on alternative approaches to grading, using his experience as instructor of record to explore the importance of narrative self-evaluation in the classroom. He delivered a paper to the Annual Conference on South Asia in Madison, Wisconsin in October entitled “Virtual Asuras and Ascetic AI: Digital Media Arts and Pedagogy for the South Asian Religions classroom." He also delivered a paper at the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in San Diego, California, entitled “Punks and Profiteers in the War on Death.”

In 2018, Jacob gave a paper entitled, “Transhumanist Ethics in the Anthropocene” at the Religious Perspectives and Alternative Futures in an Age of Humans conference. He designed and taught his own version of the core intro class, “Religions of Asia.” He also led a workshop series for his department on alternative approaches to grading and evaluation.

In 2017, Jacob gave a paper, “The Harmony of Metal and Flesh: Ecotheology and Cybernetics,” to the Midwest Region conference of the American Academy of Religion. Also in 2017 he gave a paper, “Artificial Beings, Natural Feelings: Rudolph Otto's Phenomenology of Religion and Robots,” at the religious studies conference hosted by Indiana University Bloomington.

In 2015, Jacob founded and lead the Graduate Religious Studies Association of the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University. In October of 2014 he gave a paper at the Annual Conference on South Asia hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison entitled, “Public Performances of Dissatisfaction: Looking Beyond Nation-States in Maharishi Vedic City.” His trip to Madison was supported by a generous grant from the Dhar India Studies Program. He also served as department representative to the Graduate and Professional Student Government for the 2014-2015 school year.