Catherine Gidney is an adjunct research professor of history at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, N.B., Canada. Her research focuses on the intersection of the history of education and other fields such as youth culture, health and religion in 20^th-century Canada. She most recently authored Captive Audience: How Corporations Invaded Our Schools (Between the Lines, 2019) and co-edited Feeling Feminism: Activism, Affect, and Canada’s Second Wave (UBC Press, 2022). In 2016 she was elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists.

Catherine joined global dis:connect funded by the Munich Centre for Global History.

From Dharma to Davos and Beyond: A Cultural History of Mindfulness

Catherine’s current research focuses on the history of the modern mindfulness movement. She is particularly interested in the transformation of mindfulness from a primarily countercultural and individual practice to one prominently featured in global corporations. Her research aims to shed light not only on the origins and spread of the mindfulness movement, but also on the role and implications of this movement in the processes of cultural globalisation.