SPIRITUALITY IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE: WHAT COULD ‘SPIRITUALITY’ EVEN MEAN?
INAUGURAL FACULTY LECTURE BY DR. JON KEUNE

The word “spirituality” may mean many different things: a Christian
orientation within the world, a counter-religious mode of self
cultivation, an orientalist imagination of “Eastern” cultures contrasted
with the materialist West, a holistic concern in healthcare to bring a
patient to wellness, and so on. Given this ambiguous word’s deep
Christian and Western roots, is it even possible to think about
“spirituality” on a global scale, in cultures, languages, and traditions
that understand the cosmos and humans’ place in it very differently?
This talk explores some pitfalls for envisioning spirituality globally
and suggests ways that spirituality studies may be respectful of and
even illuminated by cultural diversity.

Jon Keune is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at MSU, focusing on religion
and social history in Asia. His recent book Shared Devotion, Shared Food: Equality and
the Bhakti-Caste Question in Western India explores a long-running tension between
caste hierarchy and spiritual equality in bhakti traditions. He is currently researching
transnational Buddhism and Dalit migration and co-directing a digital humanities
project, the Bhakti Virtual Archive (BHAVA).

SPONSORED BY THE FOGLIO ENDOWED CHAIR OF SPIRITUALITY, DEPARTMENT OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES, MSU ASIAN STUDIES CENTER
msuspiritualityspeakerseries.org