商品簡介
The essays in this book not only examine the variety of atheist expression and experience in the Western context, they also explore how local, national and international settings may contribute to the shaping of atheist identities. By addressing identity at these different levels, the book explores how individuals construct their own atheist—or non-religious—identity, how they construct community and how identity factors into atheist interaction at the social or institutional levels. The book offers an interdisciplinary comparative approach to the analysis of issues relating to atheism, such as demography, community engagement, gender politics, stigmatism and legal action. It covers such themes as: secularization; the social context of atheism in various Western countries; the shifting of atheist identities based on different cultural and national contexts; the role of atheism in multicultural settings; how the framework of “reasonable accommodation” applies to atheism; interactions and relationships between atheism and religion and how atheism is represented for political and legal purposes. Featuring contributions by international scholars at the cutting edge of atheism studies, this volume offers unique insights into the relationship between atheism and identity. It will serve as a useful resource for academics, journalists, policy makers and general readers interested in secular and religious studies, identity construction and identity politics as well as atheism in general.
作者簡介
Lori G. Beaman, Ph.D. is the Canada Research Chair in the Contextualization of Religion in a Diverse Canada and Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is principal investigator of a 37 member international research team whose focus is religion and diversity (religionanddiversity.ca). Steven Tomlins is a PhD Candidate at the University of Ottawa in Religious Studies under the supervision of Lori G. Beaman, PhD. His current area of study deals with issues pertaining to identity within atheist organizations in a religiously diverse Canada. For his Masters he undertook a discourse analysis of ‘New Atheist’ literature and was awarded the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Dean’s Scholarship. His Bachelor of Arts was obtained at the University of Prince Edward Island, where he majored in Religious Studies and double minored in Art History and Political Studies, receiving the Ambrose Lee Graduation Prize for graduating with the highest average in the fourth year of the Bachelor of Arts program. He is regularly employed as a teaching assistant, has given numerous guest lectures and conference presentations, and is a Student Team Member of The Religion and Diversity Project, a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded Major Collaborative Research Initiative (MCRI). Outside of academia Steven has an interest in created writing; he has had several poems and works of short prose published, and he has won a Lucy Maud Montgomery Literature for Children Award and an Honorable Mention Milton Acorn Poetry Award.