CO-SPONSORED SESSION: Comparative Studies in Religion Unit and Korean Religions Unit

Self-Cultivation in Religion and Beyond

The concept and exercise of cultivating the self, whether on the level of emotion and cognition, body and action, community or cosmos, can take divergent forms and direct toward dissimilar goals. These theories and practices often lie at the heart of religion, but are not limited to religious domain. Recently, the ideas have emerged within the scholarly community for conceptualising various forms of self-cultivation, and the calls for establishing it as a separate field of study, not necessarily subsumed under the rubrics of religion, mysticism, medicine, sports or arts. To promote such developments, case studies of self-cultivation are required, comparing different religious and non-religious concepts and practices of the past and the present. We invite paper proposals on self-cultivation broadly conceived, following traditions that might be perceived as old, newly invented, or non-traditional. We hope that in time, such research will help generate methodological and other tools for future evolution of self-cultivation as a concept and discipline. (Please contact Victoria Ten, yoneun@gmail.com)