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MIT Reads is an all-MIT reading experience that aims to build community and foster understanding. Events and discussions are open to the entire MIT community.

Spring 2023 book selection – Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley

Work, Pray, Code: When work becomes religion in Silicon Valley by Carolyn Chen book cover
Our spring selection is: Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley by Carolyn Chen.

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Events

Author event – A conversation with Carolyn Chen

Join author Carolyn Chen in dialog with MIT student moderator Fatima Gunter-Rahman.

Date: Friday, Apr 28, 2023
Time: 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Location: MIT Room 2-190 and online
Registration: This event is free and open to all, but you must pre-register.

Discussion event

Join us for a small group discussion about Work Pray Code. Lunch will be provided.

Date: Thursday, May 4, 2023
Time: 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Place: The Nexus, Hayden Library, Room 14S-130
Registration: This event is open to the MIT Community, but you must pre-register.

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About the book

Work Pray Code explores how tech companies are bringing religion into the workplace in ways that replace traditional places of worship. This practice blurs the line between work and religion and changes the nature of spiritual experience in modern life.

Carolyn Chen spent over five years gaining unprecedented access to the tech world and conducting interviews. The result is a critical account of how work now satisfies workers’ needs for belonging, identity, purpose, and transcendence that religion once met. Chen argues that tech firms offer spiritual care to make their employees more productive. But our religious traditions, communities, and the public sphere are paying the price. Work Pray Code shows what can happen when work becomes religion and the workplace becomes the institution that shapes our souls.

This book was selected in partnership with the Addir Fellows Interfaith Dialogue Program.

MIT Reads is sponsored by the MIT Libraries and the MIT Press Bookstore.