Description: Although many individuals identify as atheists, little is understood about the belief system beyond the simple lack of a belief in a higher power. Hannah K. Scheidt's Practicing Atheism: Culture, Media, and Ritual in the Contemporary Atheist Network unpacks the cultural products, both corporate-driven and grassroots, that carry messages about atheism to examine the complicated relationship between organized atheism and religion.
Review Quotes: "In this way, Practicing Atheism has much to teach us about what it means to be religious" -- Charles McCrary, American Religion
"Scheidt approaches atheism in a very different way, interpreting it as a complex cultural phenomenon. Her intent is to help readers understand atheism by viewing it from a variety of perspectives. She draws material from narratives found in different forms of media to provide this analysis of cultural atheism." -- J. Jaeger, CHOICE"Far from being simply the absence of religion, atheism finds itself having to craft and redefine itself in contexts and conditions not of its own making. Hannah Scheidt presents a careful and fascinating account of these efforts and their prospects in the evolving geography of contemporary public and private life, from social media to evolving locations of social connection." -- Stewart M. Hoover, author, Religion in the Media"Practicing Atheism takes the topic of non-belief out of the seminar room, dealing only with disembodied ideas, into the real world of flesh-and-blood people, of huge integrity, living with, wrestling with, finding fulfilment with their inability or unwillingness to accept the existence of a deity, of any kind. It is a total revelation and simply compelling reading. I finished the book wiser, and very much humbler. Highly recommended." -- Michael Ruse, author of Atheism: What Everyone Needs to Know(R)"Moving deftly between analyses of personal deconversion narratives and narratives of popular television, memes, comics, celebrity debates, and a review of parental commentary on raising children as critical thinkers and caring world citizens, Hannah Scheidt has melded the insights and methods of cultural studies and religious studies to render a fresh and authoritative work on U.S. atheism. She has broken ground for future studies of atheism as a fascinating and widely misunderstood cultural phenomenon." -- Lynn Schofield Clark, author of From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural and The Parent App"Practicing Atheism: Culture, Media, and Ritual in the Contemporary Atheist Network by religious studies scholar Hannah K. Scheidt is a welcome addition to the task of understanding this second, secular movement. Not a long book, it is a good read and particularly strong on reflections of ideas as they are transmitted in various media-blogs, for instance, and television programs and so forth. It takes up such contested questions as to whether atheism is a religion...Also, whether we should think of the atheism movement as something in its own right or more of a reaction to the above-mentioned Christian movement." -- Micheal Ruse, Florida State University, Journal of Religion