Vivian is currently a PhD student at Durham University. She also has an MSc in Religious Studies from the University of Edinburgh. Her research is on the potentiality of video games to be contemporary mythology in popular culture. Her other research interests include personal and communal narratives, mythology, and religion and popular culture.
To honor May the Fourth, International Star Wars Day, please enjoy this compilation of classic Religious Studies Project interviews about Star Wars!
In this month's episode of Discourse!, Theo Wildcroft, Dan Gorman and special emergency guest Vivian Asimos discuss the US Supreme Court's relationship to Christianity, how the Independent dealt with criticism of a review of a book critical of paganism, and religion, abuse and the idea of a ‘witch hunt’ in yoga and academia. Oh and something called coronavirus?
Vivian Asimos, Chris Cotter, Time Hutchings and Suzanne Owen discuss the intersections of Media and the Study of Religion.
Vivian Asimos and Theodora Wildcroft took the opportunity to ask the delegates of BASR 2019 what inspired them about the conference theme, their opinion about major trends in the discipline, and how they were personally feeling about REF 2021.
In this podcast, Ross Downing discusses personal and communal narratives, online mythology and the grey areas between religion and media with Vivian Asimos. Miss Asimos' work has investigated the potentiality of video games as contemporary mythology in popular culture. In the broader context of BASR 2018, the overall theme of boundaries and categories is explored and the possible insights online movements can yield in the perception and application of theories of religion.
This 2017 mid-year special's game "Scrape My Barrel"—which has absolutely no connection to the popular BBC gameshow "Call My Bluff"—features two teams of religious studies scholars pitted against each other in a battle of definitions, pedantry, creativity, deception, performance and ‘wit’. Tune in to find out whether the 'established' scholars (George Chryssides, Dawn Llewellyn, and Paul-François Tremlett) or the ‘up-and-coming’ baristas... sorry, RS scholars (Vivian Asimos, Liam Sutherland, and Amy Whitehead) win bragging rights this year!
This roundtable, in association with the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, considers the impact of recent technological advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics on religion, religious conceptions of the world, and the human. It draws attention to how such advances push religion beyond how it has been commonly defined and considered.
By studying only video games, we impede ourselves and the progress which can be made; there are many aspects of video games which are affecting other elements of popular culture. The field of religion and video games is still new and forming. In its struggle to find itself, it simultaneously competes with a university’s traditional understanding of both education and culture, often involving Gregory Price Grieve’s comment that video games are perceived as “low brow” culture.
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