Welcome,
I am currently a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow based at the Centre for Sociological Research at KU Leuven, as well as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Toronto.
My research focuses on cultural and institutional change in liberal democracies since the 1960s – with a focus on the spheres of religion, morality, work, and politics. In my scholarship, I attempt to combine the tools of cultural sociology with philosophical reflection, reviving what the late Robert Bellah referred to as “social science as public philosophy.”
My first book, The Spiritual Turn: The Religion of the Heart and the Making of Romantic Liberal Modernity, to be published by Oxford University Press in Spring 2022, examines the social and political implications of the shift from "religion" to "spirituality," which has, in recent years, transformed the religious landscape of the West.
Secularization theorists argue that “spirituality” lacks institutional support and a shared tradition, thereby evincing religious decline. Meanwhile, critical commentators contend that the spiritual turn embodies all of the ills of post-1960s liberal democracies—be it, the ascent of irrationality and subjectivism, the triumph of narcissism and the weakening of community, the imperialism of the market, the corrosion of civic membership, and the emergence of novel forms of social control. The Spiritual Turn challenges these popular misconceptions. Combining cultural sociology with intellectual history and political philosophy, and drawing from first-hand interview and fieldwork data, along with discourse analysis of best-selling books, the book shows that rather than reflecting religious decline, the spiritual turn marks the rise of an enduring cultural structure in Western modernity—the religion of the heart. Tracing the rise of the religion of the heart to the 1960s, the book illuminates its elective affinities with the romantic liberal social imaginary that crystallized in popular consciousness during this era, and transformed the institutional spheres of Western liberal democracies, eventually giving birth to a new social order—which I call romantic liberal modernity. Then, inspired by the Durkheimian tradition, it presents case studies of three sites where the religion of the heart is institutionalized in a specific discursive form—a Twelve Step group, a neo-Pentecostal church, and a Toastmasters public speaking club. The Spiritual Turn concludes that while critics may have reason to disparage both “spirituality” and romantic liberal modernity more generally, the reality is far more complex than their criticisms suggest—and more importantly, far less hopeless.
Since completing this project, I have turned my attention to investigating the changing meanings of “work,” “home,” and “success” among urban university-educated professionals and managers, as well as non-university-educated workers based in rural areas in Canada.
I have published academic articles in journals such as American Journal of Cultural Sociology, Religion, and European Journal of Social Theory, and regularly contribute to media outlets such as The Conversation. Check out some of my articles on my Publications page.
Please feel free to browse my website. And should you require any further information, don’t hesitate to contact me.
Click here for my CV.
I am currently a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow based at the Centre for Sociological Research at KU Leuven, as well as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Toronto.
My research focuses on cultural and institutional change in liberal democracies since the 1960s – with a focus on the spheres of religion, morality, work, and politics. In my scholarship, I attempt to combine the tools of cultural sociology with philosophical reflection, reviving what the late Robert Bellah referred to as “social science as public philosophy.”
My first book, The Spiritual Turn: The Religion of the Heart and the Making of Romantic Liberal Modernity, to be published by Oxford University Press in Spring 2022, examines the social and political implications of the shift from "religion" to "spirituality," which has, in recent years, transformed the religious landscape of the West.
Secularization theorists argue that “spirituality” lacks institutional support and a shared tradition, thereby evincing religious decline. Meanwhile, critical commentators contend that the spiritual turn embodies all of the ills of post-1960s liberal democracies—be it, the ascent of irrationality and subjectivism, the triumph of narcissism and the weakening of community, the imperialism of the market, the corrosion of civic membership, and the emergence of novel forms of social control. The Spiritual Turn challenges these popular misconceptions. Combining cultural sociology with intellectual history and political philosophy, and drawing from first-hand interview and fieldwork data, along with discourse analysis of best-selling books, the book shows that rather than reflecting religious decline, the spiritual turn marks the rise of an enduring cultural structure in Western modernity—the religion of the heart. Tracing the rise of the religion of the heart to the 1960s, the book illuminates its elective affinities with the romantic liberal social imaginary that crystallized in popular consciousness during this era, and transformed the institutional spheres of Western liberal democracies, eventually giving birth to a new social order—which I call romantic liberal modernity. Then, inspired by the Durkheimian tradition, it presents case studies of three sites where the religion of the heart is institutionalized in a specific discursive form—a Twelve Step group, a neo-Pentecostal church, and a Toastmasters public speaking club. The Spiritual Turn concludes that while critics may have reason to disparage both “spirituality” and romantic liberal modernity more generally, the reality is far more complex than their criticisms suggest—and more importantly, far less hopeless.
Since completing this project, I have turned my attention to investigating the changing meanings of “work,” “home,” and “success” among urban university-educated professionals and managers, as well as non-university-educated workers based in rural areas in Canada.
I have published academic articles in journals such as American Journal of Cultural Sociology, Religion, and European Journal of Social Theory, and regularly contribute to media outlets such as The Conversation. Check out some of my articles on my Publications page.
Please feel free to browse my website. And should you require any further information, don’t hesitate to contact me.
Click here for my CV.