Godless Polemics

Atheist Pamphleteering and the Specter of Emancipation in the United States
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-041-15173-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 108 Seiten, Format (B × H): 145 mm x 225 mm, Gewicht: 242 g

Reihe: Routledge Focus on Religion

Godless Polemics examines the role of pamphleteering as a medium for radical critique in the intellectual and cultural history of American atheism, focusing on its function as oppositional and counter-hegemonic discourse. It investigates how atheist pamphleteers, operating from the margins of public discourse, have challenged overt and covert religious influence on public and private life by producing and disseminating polemical texts that intervene in ongoing cultural, social, and political debates. The author argues that atheist pamphleteers have historically functioned as both critics of religious authority and proponents of intersectional struggles against social, political, and cultural power structures. Drawing on Pierre-Héli Monot’s concept of the “pamphletary event,” the book examines how these texts did more than articulate atheist positions—they actively shaped public debates, contested dominant narratives, and introduced a tradition of radical anti-religious dissent into American progressivism. By analyzing key pamphleteers from the nineteenth century to contemporary digital activists, this book redefines the role of pamphleteering in the history of unbelief in the United States, highlighting its vital role in introducing affirmative atheist ideas in emancipatory contexts. It will be of particular interest to scholars of religious studies and American studies.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Zappe, Florian

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Alternative Glaubensformen Agnostizismus, Atheismus, Säkularer Humanismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Historische & Regionale Volkskunde

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction I. Atheist Agitation and Pan-Emancipatory Struggles: The Godless Polemics of Ernestine L. Rose and Emma Goldman II. Polemic Proxy Wars: H. L. Mencken and the Scopes Trial III. Madalyn Murray O’Hair And The Polemical Performance Of Radical Atheism IV. New Atheism and the Digital Age: The Transformation of Atheist Polemics in the Twenty-First Century Conclusion: From the Margins to the Center? Atheist Pamphleteering as Cultural Intervention. Index

Über Autor(innen)

Florian Zappe is Postdoctoral Researcher in the ERC Project The Arts of Autonomy: Pamphleteering, Popular Philology, and the Public Sphere, 1988-2018 at the Department of English and American Studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany.