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Beauty At WorkAuthor: Brandon Vaidyanathan
Beauty at Work expands our understanding of beauty: what it is, how it works, and why it matters. Sociologist Brandon Vaidyanathan interviews scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, and leaders across diverse fields to reveal new insights into how beauty shapes our brains, behaviors, organizations, and societies--for good and for ill. Learn how to harness the power of beauty in your life and work, while avoiding its pitfalls. Language: en-us Genres: Science, Society & Culture Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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Barriers to Cosmic Connection with Dr. Galen Watts (Part 7 of Symposium on Spiritual Yearning in a Disenchanted Age)
Tuesday, 21 January, 2025
Send us a textWhat are the barriers to pursuing our spiritual yearnings in a disenchanted age? Dr. Galen Watts addresses this question in this final presentation from our international symposium held at McGill University in November 2024.Galen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo. His research focuses on cultural and institutional change in liberal democracies, with particular attention to religion, morality, work, and politics. He is the author of The Spiritual Turn: The Religion of the Heart and the Making of Romantic Liberal Modernity (Oxford University Press, 2022), which explores the shift from "religion" to "spirituality" and its social and political implications in the West. Currently, his work investigates the cultural dimensions of the "diploma divide," analyzing how symbolic boundaries and cultural practices shape distinctions between urban university-educated professionals and rural nonuniversity-educated workers in Canada and the U.S. Galen has published extensively in leading academic journals, including American Journal of Cultural Sociology, Sociology of Religion, Civic Sociology, European Journal of Social Theory, and The Sociological Review. He also writes for public audiences, bridging academic insights with broader cultural conversations.In his talk, Galen addresses the following themes:Why cosmic connection may be harder to achieve todayThe impact of cultural and institutional change on spiritual yearningThe decline of the humanities and the loss of deep formative experiencesThe "secular sacred canopy" and its barriers to transcendenceThe paradox of ethical progress alongside increasing spiritual disorientationCan modernity be reconciled with cosmic connection?To learn more about Dr. Watts, you can find him at:Website: https://www.galenwatts.com/Linked: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/galen-watts-a8877a212Book: The Spiritual Turn Buy hereThis episode is sponsored by:John Templeton Foundation (https://www.templeton.org/)Templeton Religion Trust (https://templetonreligiontrust.org/)Support the show