Contemplative Studies in Context

Contemplative Studies is an emerging academic field that blurs modern boundaries by bringing practices with religious roots into secular spaces like labs, classrooms, and workplaces. This thesis organizes the field into Contemplative Science and Contemplative Pedagogy, situating each within the broader contexts of modernity, American spirituality, science, and secularity. The analysis reveals previously unremarked nuances and paradoxes within the contemplative movement, showing how these practices challenge conventional distinctions between religious and secular domains.

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Abstract

Contemplative Studies is an emerging field within higher education and American culture that is blurring the boundaries of modernity by bringing seemingly religious practices in spaces such as scientific laboratories, classrooms and corporate workplaces, which are often understood as secular environments. This thesis studies the field of Contemplative Studies in higher education by organizing it into the two categories, Contemplative Science and Contemplative Pedagogy in order to situate them in their proper contexts. The paper, then, situates the discourses of Contemplative Science and Contemplative Pedagogy in the larger context of modernity, spirituality in America, science and secularity. In doing so, it brings to light a number of nuances and paradoxes within the contemplative movement that have heretofore been uncommented upon.