How is religion depicted in the academic study of religion? How do private donors selectively privilege certain descriptions of religion, and to what ends? Do the practical needs of students align or conflict with the theoretical concerns of scholars? To what extent do answers to these questions reveal shared challenges or fault lines across the field of study? Previous volumes in the NAASR Working Papers series have made critical reflections on key domains such as theory, method, data, and categories. On the Subject of Religion takes a step back to consider syncretically how religion is imagined or invented through several lenses. On the Subject of Religion takes as its inspiration the work of the late Jonathan Z. Smith, who challenged scholars to be mindful of the ways in which they imagine religion and religious data. Building on this crucial insight, this book brings together a range of early-career and established scholars of religion to explore how various domains of society—the classroom, academic literature, public debates, and private fundraising—shape, and are shaped, by the contours of the academic study of religion.

How is religion depicted in the academic study of religion? How do private donors selectively privilege certain descriptions of religion, and to what ends? Do the practical needs of students align or conflict with the theoretical concerns of scholars? To what extent do answers to these questions reveal shared challenges or fault lines across the field of study? Previous volumes in the NAASR Working Papers series have made critical reflections on key domains such as theory, method, data, and categories. On the Subject of Religion takes a step back to consider syncretically how religion is imagined or invented through several lenses. On the Subject of Religion takes as its inspiration the work of the late Jonathan Z. Smith, who challenged scholars to be mindful of the ways in which they imagine religion and religious data. Building on this crucial insight, this book brings together a range of early-career and established scholars of religion to explore how various domains of society—the classroom, academic literature, public debates, and private fundraising—shape, and are shaped, by the contours of the academic study of religion.

By the early twenty-first century, Americans had embraced a holistic vision of work, that one's job should be imbued with meaning and purpose, that business should serve not only stockholders but also the common good, and that, for many, should attend to the "spiritual" health of individuals and society alike. While many voices celebrate efforts to introduce "spirituality in the workplace" as a recent innovation that holds the potential to positively transform business and the American workplace, James Dennis LoRusso argues that workplace spirituality is in fact more closely aligned with neoliberal ideologies that serve the interests of private wealth and undermine the power of working people. LoRusso traces how this new moral language of business emerged as part of the larger shift away from the post-New Deal welfare state towards today's global market-oriented social order. Building on other studies that emphasize the link between American religious conservatism and the rise of global capitalism, LoRusso shows how progressive "spirituality" remains a vital part of this story as well. Drawing on cultural history as well as case studies from New York City and San Francisco of businesses and leading advocates of workplace spirituality, this book argues that religion reveals much about work, corporate culture, and business in contemporary America.

By the early twenty-first century, Americans had embraced a holistic vision of work, that one's job should be imbued with meaning and purpose, that business should serve not only stockholders but also the common good, and that, for many, should attend to the "spiritual" health of individuals and society alike. While many voices celebrate efforts to introduce "spirituality in the workplace" as a recent innovation that holds the potential to positively transform business and the American workplace, James Dennis LoRusso argues that workplace spirituality is in fact more closely aligned with neoliberal ideologies that serve the interests of private wealth and undermine the power of working people. LoRusso traces how this new moral language of business emerged as part of the larger shift away from the post-New Deal welfare state towards today's global market-oriented social order. Building on other studies that emphasize the link between American religious conservatism and the rise of global capitalism, LoRusso shows how progressive "spirituality" remains a vital part of this story as well. Drawing on cultural history as well as case studies from New York City and San Francisco of businesses and leading advocates of workplace spirituality, this book argues that religion reveals much about work, corporate culture, and business in contemporary America.