Professor Michal Pagis

The Self is on the Spot Light

Contemporary society expresses intense interest in interiority. This interest leads to new fascinating intersections between religion and psychology. Religious embodied techniques, such as meditation, are reinvigorated and turn into self-exploration tools; spirituality enters public institutions such as hospitals; even conservative and anti-liberal religious communities, such as the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, find ways to integrate the individualistic spirit of self-help.

As a sociologist of culture and religion, I study social spheres in which religion, spiritually and popular psychology intersect, revealing the social dimensions of contemporary self culture.

My book, Inward: Vipassana Meditation and the Embodiment of the Self (2019, University of Chicago Press) utilizes the growing popularity of meditation practice to investigate the complex relations between physical selves, emotional selves and our social worlds.