Publications

Posted on by Chris Publications

Publication of special journal issue on “Atheism, Secularity, and Science.”

Announcing the publication of “Atheism, Secularity, and Science,” a special issue of the journal Science, Religion & Culture, guest edited by John R. Shook, Ralph W. Hood Jr., and Thomas J. Coleman III. The journal issue contains theoretical and empirical articles covering a wide range of topics related to atheism and secularity. It begins with an introduction by the editors discussing key areas in the field, within which they situate this issue’s articles on topics such as definitions and discourse, measurement, mental wellbeing, organized nonbelief and humanism, growth of the “nones,” secularity of academics, hypothetical god image, and deconversion narratives in Rabbis. The issue concludes with three book reviews on The Problem of Animal Pain, The New Atheist Novel, and Living the Secular Life.

Science, Religion & Culture is an open access peer reviewed journal and the special issue, “Atheism, Secularity, and Science” can be viewed here: http://smithandfranklin.com/journal-details/Science-Religion-and-Culture/9/archive/2015/June

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Posted on by Chris News, Publications

289 new additions to our bibliography of relevant publications

After a long hiatus, 289 new items have been added to the NSRN bibliography. These new items can be viewed here:

http://nsrn.net/bibliography/bibliography-additions/

The bibliography can also be viewed in a list organised by author surname or publication date.

As ever, the bibliography is a collaborative enterprise and we cannot claim that it is comprehensive of all relevant NSRN related publications. If you spot any gaps, at any point, you can let us know via this comment form on the website and we will add the publication at our next update.

Posted on by Lorna Mumford Publications

The Archives at Conway Hall

Liz Lutgendorff, Phd student at Oxford Brookes and Chair of Conway Hall Ethical Society, has provided the NSRN with an informative overview of the archive facilities offered by Conway Hall in London which may be helpful to researchers of secularism and nonreligion.

As part of my research into the history of atheism and secularism in the UK, I’ve become involved with Conway Hall Ethical Society (CHES) and I am currently the chair of Trustees. CHES may be better known to some as the South Place Ethical Society or South Place Chapel. It started as a radical Unitarian church in the eighteenth century and gradually evolved into a secular, ethical society in the late nineteenth century. It is now the only Ethical Society remaining in the UK and only one of two freethought and secular organisations in the UK with a hall purposely built for the promotion of ethical, secular, or humanist principles in the UK (the other being Leicester Secular Hall). Continue reading →

Posted on by Per Smith News, Publications

Conference Guide: American Academy of Religion 2013

Last year we began publishing guides to some of the larger academic conferences to help interested scholars navigate the non-religion and secularity offerings at them. We are happy to announce the release of the conference guide to the 2013 annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion which is being held in Baltimore, Maryland (Nov 23-26).

As usual there are several relevant sessions, panels and papers to engage in Baltimore, but you may also wish to take special note of the four sessions granted to the brand new Secularism and Secularity Group this year. Those interested in contributing to their efforts (of fostering sustained work on such topics at AAR) should be aware that the group’s business meeting will be held immediately after the paper presentations of their third session, “Producing Secularism in Public Spaces” (Monday: 9:00 AM-11:30 AM). Happy navigating.

Posted on by Chris News, Publications

Podcast of Matthew Engelke’s NSRN Annual Lecture 2012 now available

In partnership with the Religious Studies Project (RSP), we are delighted to announce that a recording of the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network’s Annual Lecture 2012 with Matthew Engelke is now available. This lecture was recorded on 8 November 2012 at Conway Hall, London on the topic “In spite of Christianity: Humanism and its others in contemporary Britain”

You can access the lecture at the following URL: http://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/2013/08/19/engelke/

This comes as part of a continuing relationship between the NSRN and the RSP – they have previously released recordings of their Annual Lecture 2011, with Jonathan Lanman, and the four keynote lectures from the NSRN Biennial Conference, July 2012. These recordings are available here.

The full text of this lecture is available to download here.

Posted on by Chris Publications

83 Additions to the NSRN Bibliography

83 new items have been added to the NSRN Bibliography which now boasts 745 entries relevant to the broad remit of the NSRN. These latest additions can be viewed here:

http://nsrn.net/bibliography/bibliography-additions/

As always, if you spot anything that we have missed please get in touch via the comments box here:

http://nsrn.net/bibliography/

 

Posted on by Beth Calls for Papers, Publications

CFP: Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe (RASCEE)

RASCEE

Religion & Society in Central and Eastern Europe – Journal of the International Study of Religion in Eastern and Central Europe Association (ISORECEA) | ISSN: 1553-9962 http://www.rascee.net

Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe (RASCEE) is an open-access peer-reviewed annual (published in December) academic journal reflecting critical scholarship in the study religion in the region. Journal Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe is included in Index to the Study of Religions Online (A cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles) and in EBSCO Publishing – Academic Search Complete, SocIndex with Full Text and in Central and Eastern European Academic Source., while it is in the review process with Religious and Theological Abstracts, ATLA Religion Databases and ProQuest.

Call for papers

RELIGION IN THE SOCIETIES OF FORMER SOVIET UNION TERRITORIES:ROLES, MANIFESTATIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS In the early 1990s the territories of the former Soviet Union opened up to social and religious innovations. After generations of nurturing the idea of a homogenous society, different states emerged,some of them with homogenous, and some of them with heterogeneous, religious fields, with different ways of living and coping with the new conditions of religious freedom, and with different conceptions of the role of religion in society. Looking back after two decades, we can state that religion in the territories of the former Soviet Union has undergone transformations: from forced secularization, to offering new roles, and having a variety of manifestations within contemporary societies that are marked by modernization, individualization and globalization. Is it possible to talk about a religious revival or not? What are the roles of religion in post-Soviet societies? What are the manifestations of new forms of religiosity? How has religion been transformed and mutated in the last two decades? Which religions have been successful and which have failed?Throughout this period a new generation of social scientists and humanities scholars have grown up,and we are particularly interested in their interpretations of the social situation in the region. How does the new generation of scholars understand and interpret the roles, manifestations and transformations of religion in the former Soviet Union?

Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe invites submissions for a special issue dedicated to religion in the former Soviet Union. We welcome both empirical and theoretical contributions from diverse areas of the social sciences, such as: sociology, anthropology, political science, religious studies, history and law, and that focus on the post-Soviet religious landscape and its post-Communist transformations.

Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe (RASCEE) is an annual, open-access, peer-reviewedacademic journal that reflects critical scholarship in the study of religion in the region.

Language: English

Website for the submission of articles: http://www.rascee.net/index.php/rascee

Deadline: June 1, 2013

Contact: Milda Alisauskiene at m.alisauskiene@smf.vdu.lt, or Annika Hvithamar ahvit@sdu.dk

Posted on by katieaston News, Publications

And the winner is….’Non-Religion and Secularity’ from Journal of Contemporary Religion

We have received the news that the NSRN’s special issue of Journal of Contemporary Religion has topped the list of ‘most wanted’ of special issues published by Routledge! We are also pleased to note that the list in general shows and interest in the secular and the nonreligious. Thank you to everyone who voted!

Free Access to the Top 3 Most Wanted Special Issues

These issues are now available for you to read for free
online until 28th Febuary 2013.

In first place with the most overall votes.

‘Non-Religion and Secularity’ from Journal of Contemporary Religion

A close runner up in second place.

‘Mindfulness: diverse perspective on its meaning, origins and
multiple applications at the intersection of science and dharma’ from
Contemporary Buddhism

and finally, in third place.

‘Post-Secular Trends: Issues in Education and Faith’ from Journal of
Beliefs & Values: Studies in Religion and Education

Read these articles for free today at
http://tandf.msgfocus.com/c/1duaF7xlTqaaDmZRuCyaW6DAm

Posted on by Chris News, Publications

Five Podcasts of NSRN Lectures now available

600x600_square_logoIn partnership with the Religious Studies Project (RSP) it is our pleasure to bring you the audio recordings of five very important lectures, hosted on the RSP website.

The first is the NSRN Annual Lecture from April 2011, recorded at St Mary’s University College in Twickenham:

The other four are the keynote lectures from the NSRN’s Biennial Conference, recorded at Goldsmiths University, London, in July 2012:

Chris, the managing editor of the NSRN website, is also one of the Religious Studies Project’s ‘editors-in-chief’ and therefore, when the NSRN wanted to make available some podcasts from recent events, it seemed like a win-win situation for both organizations for the RSP to host and disseminate these podcasts on behalf of the NSRN. These lectures come as part of an extensive series of podcasts from the RSP which touch on the study of non-religion – from a recent roundtable discussion on Studying Nonreligion within Religious Studies, to interviews with Linda Woodhead, Callum Brown, and Lois Lee.

For those of you who don’t know the RSP, please take a moment to survey religiousstudiesproject.com which features a few dozen of their weekly podcasts with leading international scholars on exciting developments in theory, method and empirical study within the social-scientific study of religion, in addition to roundtable discussions, book reviews, feature essays, opportunities digests, and more. The RSP is presented with generous support from the British Association for the Study of Religions.

As the RSP has a wider remit than the NSRN, they did not wish to fill all of their listeners inboxes with five quite lengthy podcasts and, therefore, have not made these podcasts available though their iTunes channel. However, they are all available on the RSP website and shall be linked to from the NSRN website. Due to the lecture style of these recordings, it is somewhat inevitable that the audio quality will be lower than we would like, and that there might be references to PowerPoint presentations or other events happening in the room. However, we know that these will be minor irritations when compared with the stimulating scholarship that you are about to hear, and we are very grateful to the RSP for working with us to bring you these lectures.

Posted on by katieaston Calls for Papers, Publications

Call For Submission

The launch  of the NYUP’s book series on Secular Studies was announced earlier this year and is seeking submissions, details attached.

The Secular Studies series is meant to provide a home for works in the emerging field of secular studies. Rooted in a social science perspective, it will explore and illuminate various aspects of secular life, ranging from how secular people live their lives and how they construct their identities to the activities of secular social movements, from the demographics of secularism to the ways in which secularity intersects with other social processes, identities, patterns, and issues.

Secular_series