Recorded on September 30, 2022, this Matrix “Author Meets Critics” panel focused on the book Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley, by Carolyn Chen, Associate Professor in the University of California, Berkeley Department of Ethnic Studies.

Work Pray Code explores how tech companies are bringing religion into the workplace in ways that are replacing traditional places of worship, blurring the line between work and religion and transforming the very nature of spiritual experience in modern life. Chen spent more than five years in Silicon Valley, conducting a wealth of in-depth interviews and gaining unprecedented access to the best and brightest of the tech world. The result is a penetrating account of how work now satisfies workers’ needs for belonging, identity, purpose, and transcendence that religion once met.

Professor Chen was joined in conversation by Arlie Hochschild, Professor Emerita in the UC Berkeley Department of Sociology, and Morgan Ames, Assistant Professor of Practice in the UC Berkeley School of Information and Associate Director of Research for the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society. The conversation was moderated by Marion Fourcade, Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley and Director of Social Science Matrix. The event was co-sponsored by the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion and the Berkeley Culture Center.