This looks interesting, a colaboration between The Immanent Frame and Killing the Buddha, and curated by Katherine Lofton and John Lardas Modern. They invite writers and artists to reflect on what spirituality means to them. The project statement declares,
America has always been rife with spiritual songwriters. I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate, fully armed, Walt Whitman wrote. I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold.
Whitman’s announcement was but a measure of the American atmosphere, a persistent promise that the proclamation of a national freedom was not just a patriotic rallying cry but also a passionate mysticism. Descriptions of the spiritual and spirituality emerged as a way for seekers to define their wanderings in new worlds of experience, colonial occupation, and social order.
Yet there is more to spirituality than this sort of creative belief. From the transatlantic mission of Christopher Columbus to the planning session of this very project, spirituality has always been an argumentative tool, a political project, and a sectarian squabble. Scholars now evaluate the meaning of spirituality in theological questions. Pundits and political leaders worry about the competing claims of ascendant spiritual authorities. Philanthropic institutions invest in the exposure of the spiritual to the sick, the hungry, the needful, and the sad. And certain religious leaders argue vehemently over the role of the spirit in the expansion of religious empires. To approach spirituality is to be deeply complicit in the unfolding idea of liberal democracy as well as its refusal.
Frequencies seeks to commence a genealogy of spirituality. This project approaches spirituality as a cultural technology, as a diverse reverberation, as a frequency in the ether of experience. We begin in a moment when novelists wonder about the divine, psychological counselors advertise as spiritual advisers, and scholars seek to capture spirituality’s ephemeral nature through survey research. Spirituality abounds, even as it is unclear what it is. Whatever it is, it seems hard to capture. Spirituality takes hold beneath the skin and permeates below the radar of statistical surveys. It resists classification even as it classifies its evaluators and its believers as subjects of its sway. Frequencies will focus this profusion into an epic anthology of wide-ranging analysis.
There is much more to explore on the site. You can also find an interview with Lofton here, talking about her latest book on Oprah, which looks to be worth a read.
