G Watts
Biographic Data
| ID | 53349 |
|---|---|
| NAME | G Watts |
| GIVEN NAMES | G |
| FAMILY NAME | Watts |
| SIGNATURE | WATTS G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Waterloo |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4080-253X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 64 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
After Culture Wars—Rethinking Cultural Conflict in the Twenty-first Century
If you’re an egalitarian, how come you’re so woke? On “wokeness,” inequality, and (cultural) sociology
Reading Jeffrey C. Alexander, Part II
In ‘Part II’ of this two-part article, we provide a general schematic with which to introduce the Alexanderian vision of sociology. This vision comprises the following five commitments: (a) a commitment to structural voluntarism and the moral dimension of human action; (b) a commitment to multidimensionality; (c) a commitment to the centrality of meaning in social life, and thus to culture's autonomy; (d) a commitment to a postpositivist concepti…
Reading Jeffrey C. Alexander, Part I
For nearly half a century Jeffrey C. Alexander has devoted himself to the sociological vocation − first as a general (‘grand’) theorist, and then as the iconic leader of a set of global research programmes − a life lived for sociology. In ‘Part 1’ of this two-part article, we make the case for Alexander's canonization as a classical theorist. We do so by reconstructing and periodizing his life and intellectual development, narrating his transform…
Warring Expressivisms
The Secular Sacred Canopy
This article revisits and revises the secularization paradigm in light of late-stage secularization. Whereas secularization theory, influenced by Peter Berger, holds that structural differentiation, rationalization, pluralism, and individualization erode religious authority, we argue that these same processes facilitated the emergence of a secular sacred canopy. Drawing from recent developments in cultural sociology, we demonstrate how scientific…
Peter L. Berger on Religion
The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism. Matthew McManus. London
Between Description and Evaluation
We argue that the philosophical distinction between the “good” and the “right” is helpful in discerning the plurality of normative stakes in sociological accounts. Our argument stands in contrast to other approaches to the question of normativity in sociology on several grounds. Primarily, we locate the normative content of sociological accounts in their actual explanatory, descriptive, or interpretative empirical models, rather than in their dee…
Civil society IV
A defining feature of what Alexander calls Civil Society (CS) III is its separation-analytic and empirical-from the putatively non-civil spheres of the family, schools, and associational forms which lack public communicative intent and comprise CS I. While critical to the progress of CST as a research program, with this separation and delimited conception, civil sphere theorists may miss a key insight of CS I regarding the mutual interdependence …
Seeing Others from here and there
Repertoires of Comparison
Comparison is ubiquitous in social life, yet some comparisons are far more common, institutionalized, and influential than others. Building on work in cultural sociology, we call these repertoires of comparison (RoCs). Institutionalized across one or more social fields, RoCs are employed at different levels of society (local, national, global) and across myriad social contexts (sports clubs, city offices, the media). For example, horrific events …
The Weak(ening) Link Between Religiosity and Morality
Previous research has often found a strong link between religiosity and morality. Specifically, high religiosity results in more restrictive moral positions, and the tendency toward absolutism. In this paper, we use the World Values Survey (WVS) to show a weakening link between three morality scales and religiosity over time in five Western countries (Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand). The exception to this general t…
The Spiritual Turn and 'Feminization
Although women and men identify as 'spiritual' in similar numbers, far more women participate in the holistic milieu. We seek to solve this 'gender puzzle' by fleshing out the gender scripts the holistic milieu fosters, and their varying relationships to the wider gender order. Surveying existing scholarship, we show that, for women, participation serves to naturalize a script of postfeminist femininity that combines gender essentialism with poli…
The specter of authenticity
In a long-forgotten essay, Alvin Gouldner defended the distinctive contributions of Romantic social science. Today, half a century later, very few would risk making a similar plea. Owing to its deconstruction, the discourse of Romanticism has increasingly fallen out of favor in the social sciences, meaning social scientists have progressively come to see Romanticism as less a resource for critique than a bourgeois ideology warranting critical scr…
Beyond Doubt
Symbolic Pollution and Religious Change
In this article, we advance a cultural sociological approach to religious change that foregrounds the role of symbolic pollution and shifting religious imaginaries. Leveraging interviews with 50 Anglo-Canadian Millennials who identify as spiritual but not religious, and ethnographic research at three field sites, we sketch a religious imaginary comprising four discourses of 'religion.' According to our informants, 'religion' is (1) anti-modern; (…
Purification or Pollution? The Debate over ‘Workplace Spirituality’
The commentary on ‘workplace spirituality’ is deeply polarized. Among advocates, the integration of spirituality and work is hailed as the ultimate cure-all for the problems facing the modern work organization. Conversely, critics see it as yet another form of capitalist appropriation. This article advances a neo-Durkheimian cultural sociological analysis of these polarized responses. Proponents espouse a schema of purification, which holds that …
Religion, Spirituality, and Secularity Among Millennials
Journal Article Religion, Spirituality, and Secularity among Millennials: The Generation Shaping American and Canadian Trends, by SARAH WILKINS-LAFLAMME Get access Religion, Spirituality, and Secularity among Millennials: The Generation Shaping American and Canadian Trends, by Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme. New York: Routledge, 2023, 182 pp.; $48.95. Galen Watts Galen Watts KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium [email protected] Search for other works by thi…
Capital and distinction or goods and traditions? Toward a post-Bourdieusian cultural theory
Debating Critical Religion
Interpreting Robert Bellah
The spiritual turn and the disenchantment of the world
There is little question that organized religion as embodied in the Christian churches has not fared well in recent decades. Yet, precisely the period when the decline of organized religion hit its stride - the 1960s and 1970s - also witnessed the rise of what Ernst Troeltsch referred to as 'mystic religion', only now it goes by 'spirituality'. Indeed, recent empirical studies suggest that, in addition to secularization, we are also witnessing a …
The Spiritual Turn
Increasingly, North Americans and Western Europeans identify as “spiritual but not religious.” But what does “spirituality” actually mean? And what does this recent “spiritual turn” reveal about the nature of twenty-first-century liberal democracies? Secularization theorists argue that “spirituality” lacks institutional support and a shared tradition, thereby evincing religious decline. Meanwhile, critical commentators contend that the spiritual …
Situating Spirituality
It is by now well-established in religious studies that the field’s central concept—religion—is contingent, contested, and controversial. There is so little agreement over how (and whether) to define or delimit it that the study of religion can seem a scholarly world without coherence or common ground. Yet, compared with the study of spirituality, the study of religion nearly resembles a case of Kuhnian normal science. Indeed, so lacking in conse…
The religion of the heart
On the Politics of Self-spirituality
In the last quarter century, a steadily increasing number of North Americans, when asked their religious affiliation, have self-identified as "spiritual but not religious" (SBNR). Charles Taylor argues that the popularity of "spirituality" is the result of the "massive subjective turn of modern culture"; while Paul Heelas has deemed this new religious form, "self-spirituality." Many scholars have taken a critical stance toward this recent cultura…
Are you a neoliberal subject? On the uses and abuses of a concept
A spate of social scientific literature gives the impression that societies in the twenty-first century are overrun with 'neoliberal subjects'. But what does it actually mean to be a neoliberal subject? And in what ways does this concept relate to 'neoliberalism', more generally? In this article, I distinguish between four common ways of thinking about 'neoliberalism': (1) as a set of economic policies, (2) as a hegemonic ideological project, (3)…
Can Critical Religion Play by Its Own Rules? Why There Must Be More Ways to Be “Critical” in the Study of Religion
According to some of the most vocal proponents of Critical Religion (CR), taking CR seriously entails accepting that religion as an analytic category leads to reification and naturalization and is unduly normative, thus critical scholars of religion should abandon it and restrict ourselves to studying discursive battles over the uses of religion. In this article, we build on the case for alternative critical proposals by offering an immanent crit…
The spiritual turn and the disenchantment of the world
There is little question that organized religion as embodied in the Christian churches has not fared well in recent decades. Yet, precisely the period when the decline of organized religion hit its stride - the 1960s and 1970s - also witnessed the rise of what Ernst Troeltsch referred to as 'mystic religion', only now it goes by 'spirituality'. Indeed, recent empirical studies suggest that, in addition to secularization, we are also witnessing a …
The Spiritual Turn and 'Feminization
Although women and men identify as 'spiritual' in similar numbers, far more women participate in the holistic milieu. We seek to solve this 'gender puzzle' by fleshing out the gender scripts the holistic milieu fosters, and their varying relationships to the wider gender order. Surveying existing scholarship, we show that, for women, participation serves to naturalize a script of postfeminist femininity that combines gender essentialism with poli…
Making sense of the study of spirituality
In this article I offer a meta-theoretical mapping of spirituality studies and its many controversies. I begin by distinguishing between two projects that together constitute the field: the study for and the study of spirituality. I argue a good deal of the confusion surrounding ‘spirituality’ is the result of scholars failing to make this distinction. Next, I outline the few areas of agreement within the study of spirituality in order to illumin…
Between Description and Evaluation
We argue that the philosophical distinction between the “good” and the “right” is helpful in discerning the plurality of normative stakes in sociological accounts. Our argument stands in contrast to other approaches to the question of normativity in sociology on several grounds. Primarily, we locate the normative content of sociological accounts in their actual explanatory, descriptive, or interpretative empirical models, rather than in their dee…
Symbolic Pollution and Religious Change
In this article, we advance a cultural sociological approach to religious change that foregrounds the role of symbolic pollution and shifting religious imaginaries. Leveraging interviews with 50 Anglo-Canadian Millennials who identify as spiritual but not religious, and ethnographic research at three field sites, we sketch a religious imaginary comprising four discourses of 'religion.' According to our informants, 'religion' is (1) anti-modern; (…
Older adults and “scams”
Purpose The issue of financial abuse is highlighted in the Care Act (2014). One category of financial abuse is consumer fraud or “scams.” Evidence suggests that scams are becoming increasingly ubiquitous, yet how scams impact older adults remains under-researched. The purpose of this paper is to report data from 80 older adults’ written responses to a Mass Observation Archive Directive, commissioned in autumn 2015, which focused on scams. Design/…
Religious Studies and the Spiritual Turn
This article surveys the range of positions from which religious studies scholars have generally responded to the spiritual turn. We classify these as: the sociology of religion approach, the critical religion approach, and the practical study for spirituality by professional fields like business, education, and healthcare. In light of recent cultural sociological and historical scholarship on the emic folk category “spirituality” we argue that, …
Recovering enchantment
This article illuminates the nature of ‘spirituality’ as it relates to addiction in modernity. It does so by using philosopher Charles Taylor’s conception of the malaise of modernity and the meta-narrative he presents in A Secular Age as theoretical starting points. It then draws from qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews and ongoing ethnographic fieldwork conducted with Canadian millennials who self-identify as ‘spiritual…
Repertoires of Comparison
Comparison is ubiquitous in social life, yet some comparisons are far more common, institutionalized, and influential than others. Building on work in cultural sociology, we call these repertoires of comparison (RoCs). Institutionalized across one or more social fields, RoCs are employed at different levels of society (local, national, global) and across myriad social contexts (sports clubs, city offices, the media). For example, horrific events …
The Weak(ening) Link Between Religiosity and Morality
Previous research has often found a strong link between religiosity and morality. Specifically, high religiosity results in more restrictive moral positions, and the tendency toward absolutism. In this paper, we use the World Values Survey (WVS) to show a weakening link between three morality scales and religiosity over time in five Western countries (Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand). The exception to this general t…
Beyond Doubt
Interpreting Robert Bellah
Investigation of an 18th-century English shipwreck in Bermuda
‘Of’ and ‘For’
Only since the latter half of the twentieth century has it become relatively common to self-identify as ‘spiritual’ in contrast to ‘religious’. Emerging from this cultural sea-change came the idea that spirituality is a topic of study categorically distinct from ‘religion’ and therefore worthy of its own field. The nascent ‘spirituality studies’ holds both promise and potential, yet there remain important methodological and normative issues surro…
On the Politics of Self-spirituality
In the last quarter century, a steadily increasing number of North Americans, when asked their religious affiliation, have self-identified as "spiritual but not religious" (SBNR). Charles Taylor argues that the popularity of "spirituality" is the result of the "massive subjective turn of modern culture"; while Paul Heelas has deemed this new religious form, "self-spirituality." Many scholars have taken a critical stance toward this recent cultura…
Recovering enchantment
This article illuminates the nature of ‘spirituality’ as it relates to addiction in modernity. It does so by using philosopher Charles Taylor’s conception of the malaise of modernity and the meta-narrative he presents in A Secular Age as theoretical starting points. It then draws from qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews and ongoing ethnographic fieldwork conducted with Canadian millennials who self-identify as ‘spiritual…
The Myth of Disenchantment
status: Published
The religion of the heart
Making sense of the study of spirituality
In this article I offer a meta-theoretical mapping of spirituality studies and its many controversies. I begin by distinguishing between two projects that together constitute the field: the study for and the study of spirituality. I argue a good deal of the confusion surrounding ‘spirituality’ is the result of scholars failing to make this distinction. Next, I outline the few areas of agreement within the study of spirituality in order to illumin…
Older adults and “scams”
Purpose The issue of financial abuse is highlighted in the Care Act (2014). One category of financial abuse is consumer fraud or “scams.” Evidence suggests that scams are becoming increasingly ubiquitous, yet how scams impact older adults remains under-researched. The purpose of this paper is to report data from 80 older adults’ written responses to a Mass Observation Archive Directive, commissioned in autumn 2015, which focused on scams. Design/…
Religious Studies and the Spiritual Turn
This article surveys the range of positions from which religious studies scholars have generally responded to the spiritual turn. We classify these as: the sociology of religion approach, the critical religion approach, and the practical study for spirituality by professional fields like business, education, and healthcare. In light of recent cultural sociological and historical scholarship on the emic folk category “spirituality” we argue that, …
The Spiritual Turn
Increasingly, North Americans and Western Europeans identify as “spiritual but not religious.” But what does “spirituality” actually mean? And what does this recent “spiritual turn” reveal about the nature of twenty-first-century liberal democracies? Secularization theorists argue that “spirituality” lacks institutional support and a shared tradition, thereby evincing religious decline. Meanwhile, critical commentators contend that the spiritual …
Situating Spirituality
It is by now well-established in religious studies that the field’s central concept—religion—is contingent, contested, and controversial. There is so little agreement over how (and whether) to define or delimit it that the study of religion can seem a scholarly world without coherence or common ground. Yet, compared with the study of spirituality, the study of religion nearly resembles a case of Kuhnian normal science. Indeed, so lacking in conse…
Can Critical Religion Play by Its Own Rules? Why There Must Be More Ways to Be “Critical” in the Study of Religion
According to some of the most vocal proponents of Critical Religion (CR), taking CR seriously entails accepting that religion as an analytic category leads to reification and naturalization and is unduly normative, thus critical scholars of religion should abandon it and restrict ourselves to studying discursive battles over the uses of religion. In this article, we build on the case for alternative critical proposals by offering an immanent crit…
Are you a neoliberal subject? On the uses and abuses of a concept
A spate of social scientific literature gives the impression that societies in the twenty-first century are overrun with 'neoliberal subjects'. But what does it actually mean to be a neoliberal subject? And in what ways does this concept relate to 'neoliberalism', more generally? In this article, I distinguish between four common ways of thinking about 'neoliberalism': (1) as a set of economic policies, (2) as a hegemonic ideological project, (3)…
Purification or Pollution? The Debate over ‘Workplace Spirituality’
The commentary on ‘workplace spirituality’ is deeply polarized. Among advocates, the integration of spirituality and work is hailed as the ultimate cure-all for the problems facing the modern work organization. Conversely, critics see it as yet another form of capitalist appropriation. This article advances a neo-Durkheimian cultural sociological analysis of these polarized responses. Proponents espouse a schema of purification, which holds that …
Religion, Spirituality, and Secularity Among Millennials
Journal Article Religion, Spirituality, and Secularity among Millennials: The Generation Shaping American and Canadian Trends, by SARAH WILKINS-LAFLAMME Get access Religion, Spirituality, and Secularity among Millennials: The Generation Shaping American and Canadian Trends, by Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme. New York: Routledge, 2023, 182 pp.; $48.95. Galen Watts Galen Watts KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium [email protected] Search for other works by thi…
Capital and distinction or goods and traditions? Toward a post-Bourdieusian cultural theory
Debating Critical Religion
Interpreting Robert Bellah
The spiritual turn and the disenchantment of the world
There is little question that organized religion as embodied in the Christian churches has not fared well in recent decades. Yet, precisely the period when the decline of organized religion hit its stride - the 1960s and 1970s - also witnessed the rise of what Ernst Troeltsch referred to as 'mystic religion', only now it goes by 'spirituality'. Indeed, recent empirical studies suggest that, in addition to secularization, we are also witnessing a …
The specter of authenticity
In a long-forgotten essay, Alvin Gouldner defended the distinctive contributions of Romantic social science. Today, half a century later, very few would risk making a similar plea. Owing to its deconstruction, the discourse of Romanticism has increasingly fallen out of favor in the social sciences, meaning social scientists have progressively come to see Romanticism as less a resource for critique than a bourgeois ideology warranting critical scr…
Beyond Doubt
Symbolic Pollution and Religious Change
In this article, we advance a cultural sociological approach to religious change that foregrounds the role of symbolic pollution and shifting religious imaginaries. Leveraging interviews with 50 Anglo-Canadian Millennials who identify as spiritual but not religious, and ethnographic research at three field sites, we sketch a religious imaginary comprising four discourses of 'religion.' According to our informants, 'religion' is (1) anti-modern; (…
Peter L. Berger on Religion
The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism. Matthew McManus. London
Between Description and Evaluation
We argue that the philosophical distinction between the “good” and the “right” is helpful in discerning the plurality of normative stakes in sociological accounts. Our argument stands in contrast to other approaches to the question of normativity in sociology on several grounds. Primarily, we locate the normative content of sociological accounts in their actual explanatory, descriptive, or interpretative empirical models, rather than in their dee…
Sociology (25 works) · Philosophy (19 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (18 works) · Political science (17 works) · Epistemology (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (12 works) · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices (11 works) · Spirituality (11 works) · Philosophy (10 works)