UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Carolyn Chen, professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), will deliver the 2024 Harshbarger Lecture in Religious Studies at 5:00 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 26, in Paterno Library’s Foster Auditorium on Penn State’s University Park campus. The lecture is free and open to the public; those wishing to attend virtually can join via Zoom.
Chen’s research focuses on religion, spirituality and work in the new economy, as well as Asian American religions. She is the author of “Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley,” published by Princeton in 2022, which examines how tech companies are bringing religion into the workplace in ways that are replacing traditional places of worship — thereby blurring the line between work and religion and transforming the very nature of spiritual experience in modern life. “Work Pray Code” reveals what can happen when work becomes religion and when the workplace becomes the institution that shapes our souls.
Chen is also the author of “Getting Saved in America: Taiwanese Immigration and Religious Experience,” published by Princeton in 2008, and co-editor of “Sustaining Faith Traditions: Religion, Race and Ethnicity among the Latino and Asian American Second Generation,” published by New York University in 2012. In addition to her faculty appointment, Chen serves as the co-director of the UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion and is the executive director and a founding member of the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative, a scholarly community committed to the advancement of public knowledge of Asian Pacific American religions.
The Harshbarger Lecture is an annual lectureship made possible by a generous donation in honor of the late Luther H. Harshbarger, who was once professor and head of the former Penn State Department of Religious Studies in the Penn State College of the Liberal Arts. The event is co-sponsored by the Penn State Humanities Institute.