Secularity and Nonreligion in North America - (Bloomsbury Religion in North America) by Jesse M Smith & Ryan T Cragun (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A survey of key topics and debates in the study of non-religion and secularity, focusing on the United States and Canada"--

Book Synopsis

This book surveys the growing field of secularity and nonreligion, focusing on the North American context, and offers an overview of a field that encompasses a wide and disparate set of people and processes. These include the religious nones and unaffiliated, atheists and agnostics, secular humanists and secular activists, and many other kinds of the "traditionally nonreligious", along with novel forms of secular identities, organizations, and worldviews.

Individual chapters highlight the key topics, findings, arguments, and controversies from the past 20 years of research, including issues of secular and nonreligious identity, health, organization, family, inequality, and discrimination.

The book is illustrated throughout with over 50 images and each chapter includes guidance on further reading and a glossary of key terms and concepts. This is a much-needed resource for teaching secularity and nonreligion, as well as the sociology of religion.

Review Quotes

"This volume is an amazing resource filled with up-to-date research on the growing nonreligious population in North America, new insights into the theoretical and methodological debates driving the growing interdisciplinary field of nonreligious studies, and rich data on the intersections of nonreligion with health, politics, family, race, and inequality.
Jacqui Frost. Assistant Professor of Sociology, Purdue University, USA

"With accessible, wide-ranging summaries of the state of the field, this volume is a one-stop shop for scholars looking to orient themselves to fundamental questions in the study of nonreligion."
Evan Stewart, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA

About the Author

Jesse M. Smith is Associate Professor of Sociology at Western Michigan University, USA.

Ryan T. Cragun is Professor of Sociology at the University of Tampa, USA.