Contemplative Studies is an emerging academic field that examines a distinctive subset of significant human experiences through a multi- disciplinary perspective that utilizes the sciences, humanities, and the arts. This field takes as its principal task the study of a continuum of human experiences that involve focusing the attention in a sustained fashion leading to increased concentration, tranquility, and insight into the processes of self-identification. Naturally, this involves a developing awareness of our identity as social beings, which leads to the increasing awareness of various contexts in which our self-identity arises: familial, social, political, and environmental. Such self-contextualizing experiences are the basis of other-regarding attitudes of empathy and compassion.

Harold Roth, PhD

Brown University

Convening Faculty, Fellow, Grantee, Planning Committee Member

Harold D. Roth is Professor of Religious Studies and the Director of the Contemplative Studies Initiative at Brown University. Roth is a specialist in Classical Chinese Religious Thought, Classical Daoism, … MORE