In the past decade, scholars, the news media, and the public have turned increased attention to the activity of atheists in the West. Atheism serves as a source of identity and community in todays society, signaling more than a simple lack of belief in god(s). This dissertation is a cultural study of contemporary atheism, focusing on how atheists negotiate meanings and values through media, thereby giving atheism positive content. What values do people associate with atheism, and how do these relate to religious values? How do people decide what atheism is about “ what ideas, affinities, and attitudes it contains? What accounts for the many apparent tensions in contemporary atheism, including the fact that organized atheism comes to bear a resemblance to what we (and atheists themselves) think of as religion? ', 'My source materials are a variety of cultural products, both corporate-driven and grassroots, that circulate in the media-supported atheist network. Primary source materials for this project include observations of grassroots Internet communities as well as material culture representations of the movement, such as those found in atheist fan art. I also perform content analysis of atheist public relations campaigns, popular television programming, and organized atheist events. This method of cultural analysis, new to secular/atheist studies, provides valuable insights into what and how atheists believe, the ways they commune, and the lives that they live in relation to their atheism. This dissertation argues that atheist culture emerges from a unique tension with religion a category atheists critique and resist but also, at times, imitate. A framework based on ritual studies theorizes this ambivalence, ambiguity, and in-betweenness as the essential condition of emergent atheist culture.

Last modified

• 11/20/2019

Creator

• Hannah Scheidt Tebbetts

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-hp1f-zv94

Subject

• Religious Studies

Keyword

• cultural studies
• atheism
• religion and atheism
• theory of religion
• media studies
• American atheism

Date created

• 2018-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright