Diana Walsh Pasulka is an American writer and professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Education

Pasulka has a B.A. from University of California, Davis, an M.A. from Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. from Syracuse University.[1]

Career

Her research focuses on religion and technology. Her books include Heaven Can Wait, which discusses purgatory's location and materiality, and American Cosmic, which explores belief in UFOs and extraterrestrial life and how it has changed traditional religions.[2][3][4] Regarding the initial development of her work on ufology, Pasulka has stated that she first expected to treat UFO sightings and contact reports as simple modern variants on perennial mystical experiences, but after delving deeper, "I had to consider that these things are actually real."[5] She has argued that there is a base reality (however obscure in nature) to both UFO sightings and the Abduction phenomenon.[6]

Sean Illing at Vox described American Cosmic as not "so much about the truth of UFOs or aliens as it is about what the appeal of belief in those things says about our culture and the shifting roles of religion and technology in it. On the surface, it's a book about the popularity of belief in aliens, but it's really a deep look at how myths and religions are created in the first place and how human beings deal with unexplainable experiences."[7] Foreword Reviews states, "American Cosmic is a superb investigation into the birth and rise of a new religion".[8] Kirkus Reviews wrote that "Pasulka makes a reasonable case that the spirits, angels, divine messengers, manifestations of God, aliens or their spaceships that humans have been reporting since the dawn of history are too numerous to be entirely delusional".[9]

Pasulka was principal investigator for the Teaching American History Grant which ran for three years from 2009. She also acts as a consultant for movies about the Catholic and religious supernatural (such as The Conjuring). She was Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Carolina Wilmington from 2015 until 2019, where she is currently professor of religious studies.[10][11]

Personal life

While on Lex Fridman's podcast in 2020, Pasulka revealed that she is a practicing Catholic, yet grew up in a secular family in California with a Jewish mother and Irish Catholic father.[12] She is the mother of five teenagers.[13]

Publications

Books

  • Heaven Can Wait: Purgatory in Catholic Devotional and Popular Culture. Oxford University Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0195382020.
  • American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology. Oxford University Press, 2019. ISBN 978-0190692889
  • Encounters: Experiences with Non-Human Intelligences, St. Martins Essentials, 2023. ISBN 978-1-250-87956-1

Co-edited anthologies

  • Posthumanism: the Future of Homo Sapiens. Schirmer, 2018. Edited by Pasulka and Michael Bess. ISBN 9780028664484.
  • Believing in Bits: Digital Media and the Supernatural. Oxford University Press, 2019. Edited by Pasulka and Simone Natale. ISBN 978-0190949990.[14]

References

  1. ↑ "Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka, Professor". uncw.edu. Retrieved 2021-02-12.
  2. ↑ "Heaven Can Wait: Purgatory in Catholic devotional and popular culture". The Tablet. Retrieved 2021-02-12.
  3. ↑ Pasulka, Diana Walsh (20 February 2019). American Cosmic. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190692889.
  4. ↑ Loncar, Samuel (27 July 2019). "A Quest for the Holy Grail: On D. W. Pasulka's "American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2021-02-12.
  5. ↑ "In Conversation with Diana Walsh Pasulka [2]". Daughter's Grimoire. Retrieved 2023-11-27.
  6. ↑ "In Conversation with Diana Walsh Pasulka [1]". Daughter's Grimoire. Retrieved 2023-11-27.
  7. ↑ Illing, Sean (4 June 2019). "The new American religion of UFOs". Vox. Archived from the original on 5 July 2023. Retrieved 2021-02-12.
  8. ↑ Patterson, Eric (January 2019). "American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology". Foreword Reviews. Archived from the original on 30 November 2021. Retrieved 16 August 2023.
  9. ↑ "American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology". Kirkus Reviews. 1 February 2019. Archived from the original on 2 June 2021. Retrieved 16 August 2023.
  10. ↑ "Author Information". Oxford University Press. 1 February 2019. Archived from the original on 7 June 2023. Retrieved 16 August 2023. Author Information: D.W. Pasulka is a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion. Her current research focuses on religious and supernatural belief and practice and its connections to digital technologies and environments. She is the author and co-editor of numerous books and essays, the most recent of which are Believing in Bits: New Media and the Supernatural, co-edited with Simone Natalie and forthcoming from Oxford University Press, and Posthumanism: the Future of Homo Sapiens, co-edited with Michael Bess (2018). She is also a history and religion consultant for movies and television, including The Conjuring (2013) and The Conjuring II (2016). She has been the principal investigator for numerous grants, including the Federal grant program Teaching American History, which supported middle school and high school teachers in their efforts to teach religious and American history to public school students throughout North Carolina.
  11. ↑ "Diana Walsh Pasulka". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2021-02-12.
  12. ↑ Fridman, Lex. "Diana Walsh Pasulka: Aliens, Technology, Religion & the Nature of Belief - Lex Fridman Podcast #149". YouTube. Lex Fridman. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  13. ↑ Daughtry, Griffin (16 August 2023). "UNCW professor garners international attention for UFO research". North State Journal. Archived from the original on 17 August 2023. Retrieved 16 August 2023.
  14. ↑ Natale, Simone; Pasulka, Diana, eds. (13 March 2020). "Believing in Bits: Digital Media and the Supernatural". Neural. Retrieved 2021-02-12.


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