In this post, Nathan G. Alexander details a history of the ways “atheism” has been defined in English dictionaries, as well as the ways that atheists have pushed back against negative definitions of atheism and influenced these definitions over time.
Author: Jacqui Frost
Event Report: Nonreligion & Secularity in Canada Workshop
In this post, Zach Munro and Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme report on the Nonreligion & Secularity in Canada workshop that was held in October 2019. They detail innovative research findings and ongoing debates in the study of nonreligion discussed at the workshop, as well as share some conceptual maps developed by workshop participants that explore how we might diversify and expand the subfield of nonreligion and secularity studies.
Organised Humanism Across the World: Belgium, Great Britain, the Netherlands and the United States of America, 1945-2005
In this post, Niels De Nutte provides a preview of the soon-to-be-published volume on the history of post-war organised humanism, Looking Back to Look Forward, which he co-edited with Bert Gasenbeek.
Race in a Godless World: Atheism, Race, and Civilization, 1850-1914 – An Introduction
In this post, Nathan Alexander introduces his soon-to-be-published book on the historical relationship between secularization and racism. Nathan details examples from his research into the ways atheists and other nonbelievers responded to racist ideologies in the 19th century.
[Event Report] Understanding Unbeliefs and Reclaiming Enchantment: The 2019 Cultures of Unbelief Conference
In this post, NSRN Deputy Editors Joanna Malone and Jacqui Frost report on findings from the 2019 Cultures of Unbelief conference in Rome. They share insights from the Understanding Unbelief program’s core research projects that were presented, as well as other innovative research being done around the globe to better understand nonreligious beliefs, practices, and identities.
Local Secularisms in Italy
In this post, Alberta Giorgi describes the different “local secularisms” that have taken shape in Italy that are often built directly in relation to Italy’s Catholic culture and state politics.
Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan
In this post, Jolyon Thomas reflects on the anxious nature of secularity and the contested meanings of religious freedom in American-occupied Japan.
Negotiating Religion in Secularised Domains: Religiously Inspired Social Care in Japan
In this post, Aura Di Febo details how religious actors in Japan employ strategies of ‘reflexive secularisation’ in order to spread religious values in secularised public spaces.
Émile Durkheim, the Sacred, and the Nonreligious
In this post, Galen Watts argues for a Durkheimian approach to nonreligion that focuses less on the labels “religion” and “nonreligion” and more on how the sacred manifests itself in contemporary life.
The ‘Secular AA’ Movement
In this blog post, Zachary Munro discusses the development of a non-religious recovery culture in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), and how groups like Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), and LifeRing Secular Recovery are renegotiating their relationships to AA’s origins in the evangelical “Oxford Group” of the 1930s. As this non-religious recovery culture grows, it continues to explore ways in which the Twelve Steps on the road from the “addicted-self” to the “recovering-self” might need neither God nor even “spiritual” discipline to work.
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