The Relevance of Alan Watts in Contemporary Culture

Columbus (formerly, Assumption College; Greenfield Community College; currently, Shantigar Foundation) brings together a rich collection of 14 essays concerning the place of Alan Watts's thought in humanistic psychology, comparative religion and philosophy, and the arts and humanities. Watts was a synoptic thinker, a brilliant synthesizer of ideas from the Daoist and Zen traditions (and beyond), but he remains a figure whose contribution is shrouded by controversy. Some scholars have waved him aside as no more than an opportunistic guru or an Orientalist appropriator, but others, such as the contributors to this volume, see his relevance for fields as diverse as psychotherapy, music theory, and queer theory. The majority of the essays appeared in 2017 in special issues of the academic journal Self & Society, yet here the editor usefully reframes them in terms of future directions for research. An introduction develops Watts's relationship to 20th-century existentialism and to the current milieu of consumer capitalism. This book will be most valuable to scholars of psychology and the history of religion and to practitioners of psychotherapy who wish to broaden their therapeutic possibilities to encompass the contemporary space of mindfulness-informed practice. - M. Uebel, University of Texas, CHOICE Optional Columbus (formerly, Assumption College; Greenfield Community College; currently, Shantigar Foundation) brings together a rich collection of 14 essays concerning the place of Alan Watts's thought in humanistic psychology, comparative religion and philosophy, and the arts and humanities. Watts was a synoptic thinker, a brilliant synthesizer of ideas from the Daoist and Zen traditions (and beyond), but he remains a figure whose contribution is shrouded by controversy. Some scholars have waved him aside as no more than an opportunistic guru or an Orientalist appropriator, but others, such as the contributors to this volume, see his relevance for fields as diverse as psychotherapy, music theory, and queer theory. The majority of the essays appeared in 2017 in special issues of the academic journal Self & Society, yet here the editor usefully reframes them in terms of future directions for research. An introduction develops Watts's relationship to 20th-century existentialism and to the current milieu of consumer capitalism. This book will be most valuable to scholars of psychology and the history of religion and to practitioners of psychotherapy who wish to broaden their therapeutic possibilities to encompass the contemporary space of mindfulness-informed practice. - M. Uebel, University of Texas, CHOICE Optional