What can contemporary expressions of religious life and spiritual experience tell us about ourselves, the societies we live in and the nature of social change in our world? In this subject students examine how contemporary orientations to faith, piety, spirituality and the search for self-transcendence connect to broader debates and transformations across the globe. Students in this subject are given the opportunity to develop their conceptual, self-reflexive and critical abilities as they investigate the personal, local and global implications of religious life and spirituality. Who said modernization would be the death of religion, and why? Can religious claims and secular criticisms co-exist? What explains the success of global religious movements? Does the soul have a body? Are religion and spirituality forms of social critique? These questions will be addressed on the basis of case studies drawn from western, non-western, developed and developing countries.

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