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What do people learn when involved in religion or spirituality? The most obvious (and correct) answer is \u201ca lot of things,\u201d ranging from, say, the particulars of how to properly engage in a ritual to abstract notions of the very structure of existence. In this keynote address, I only focus on one thing I think people learn when engaged in religious or spiritual practices and communities: to pay attention<\/em>. Drawing from my own research projects on religious recruitment, conversion, and subject formation as well as the insights of several others, I wish to demonstrate how and to what ends religion and spirituality cultivate peoples\u2019 attentional habits and capacities. I go on to suggest what this argument about the education of attention might mean for how scholars of religion and spirituality approach more complex questions of experience, belief, power, and secularization.<\/p>\n Daniel Winchester is Associate Professor of Sociology at Purdue University. His research examines how cultural practices shape human experience, identity, and action, with a particular focus on the study of religion. He has conducted ethnographic studies of conversions to Islam and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, respectively, and is currently working on a project analyzing how the Evangelical missionary recruitment industry works to shape contemporary Christians\u2019 understandings and experiences of \u201cthe global\u201d. His published research has appeared in outlets such as\u00a0Social Forces, Theory & Society, Sociological Theory, Sociology of Religion,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion\u00a0<\/em>and received awards from the Culture and Theory Sections of the American Sociological Association. In 2022, he was the recipient of the ASA Sociology of Religion Section\u2019s Early Career Award for his contributions to the field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Daniel Winchester, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Purdue University, USA Abstract: Let Us Attend: Religion, Spirituality, and the Education of Attention What do people learn when involved in religion or spirituality? The most obvious (and correct) answer is \u201ca lot of things,\u201d ranging from, say, the particulars of how to properly engage in a ritual … <\/p>\nBio<\/h3>\n