This book considers how the non-religious self is performed publicly online, and how digital culture and technology shapes this process. Building on a YouTube case study with women vloggers, it presents unique empirical data on non-organized atheism in the United States. Lundmark suggests that the atheist self as performed online exists in tension between a perception of atheism as sinful and amoral in relation to hegemonical Christianity in the U.S., andthe hyperrational, male-centered discourse that has characterized the atheist movement. She argues that women atheist vloggers co-effect third spaces of emotive resonance that enable a precarious counterpublicness of performing atheist visibility. The volume offers a valuable contribution to the discussion of how the public, the private, and areas in-between are understood within digital religion, and opens up new space for engaging with the increased visibility of atheist identity in a mediatized society.
Author(s): Evelina Lundmark
Series: Routledge Studies in Religion and Digital Culture
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 190
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Introduction: U.S. Women and Non-Religious Identity Online
Exploring Atheist Self-performances in Tension
Relational Selfhood and Identity Performance
Are Women More Religious?
Atheism in the US
YouTube as a Space of Augmented Visibility
The Study of Atheism and Non-religion in Digital Spaces
On the Matter of Publicness: A Brief Note on Ethics
The Study at Hand: A Brief Note on Method and Data
Book Outline
Notes
References
1. Atheist Identity in the US: Civil Religion and Christian Privilege
Moral Minority: Negotiating Atheist Stereotypes
Negotiating Atheist Anger: On the Outside Looking In
Social Dissonance: Despair, Shame, and Relief
Space to Question the Foundations: Christianity as Norm
"What Even Is America": Ostracization, Bullying, and Abuse
Actually Reading the Bible: Opening Up (Mental) Space
Science and Rationality as Ways into Atheism
Born Again Atheist?: Expectations on (De)Conversion Narratives
Evangelical Hegemony and (Dis)Proof of Gods Existence
"Calling Yourself a Christian Don't Make You One": How Vloggers Authority Is Being Undermined
Identifying as Minority, Loosing Subscribers
Finding Resonance: Atheist Community Online
Authentic Self-Expression and Perceived Stigma
Atheist Activism?
Conclusion: Confronting and Reinforcing Evangelical Hegemony
Summary
Notes
References
2. New Atheist Discourse and Hyper Rationality: Authority, Femininity, Atheism
Tensions Within: (White) Women in Public
Transgression: Women in Public
Visceral Reactions: Reinserting Hierarchy through the Public/Private Divide
Banal Sexism and Objectification: Spectacles for Public Consumption
Gendered Dissonance: Silencing Strategies
Feminism and the Atheist Movement
Black Atheist Women and Exacerbated Vulnerabilities
"Black Atheists Unite": Conversations about Race
Black Women and the Oppositional Gaze: Tensions with Whiteness, Masculinity, and Publicness
Atheisms, the Irrationalities of Nuance, and Hysteria
Anti-feminist Sentiments
That "Coherence-building Extra-estrogen Vibe"
Better than You?: Unbuffering Atheist Identity
Ambivalently Atheist
Conclusion: Preaching Respect, Asserting Atheist Identity, and Coexistence
Summary
Notes
References
3. Precarious Selves: Digital Media and Exacerbated Vulnerabilities
The Cultivation of the Self in Relation
The Institutionalization of YouTube: Commercial Space
Self-branding Strategies
Visible or Invisible: Tensions around Self-branding
Broadcast Yourself: Ambivalent Publics and the Collapse of the Private
Private Life as Public Performance
The Aesthetics of Authenticity, and the Format of the Vlog
Women's Work and New Forms of Sociability
Linking Practices and Narrative Augmentations: Shout Outs, Annotations, and Memes
The Ties That Bind: Semantic Linkages
Understanding YouTube Navigation
Semantic Ties, Video Titles, and Algorithmic Segregation
The Engagement Economy
Conclusion: Neoliberal Habits
Summary
Notes
References
4. Third Spaces: Evoking Resonance
The Faces of Your Atheist: Ambivalently Visible, Performatively Restrained
The Politics of Visibility
The Atheist Closet and Visibility
Habituation and a Biopolitics of Emotion
Intersecting Idealized Selves
Faces in the Machine: The Visibility of Religion and Augmented Atheism
Gendered Expectations, Co-effected Space
The Significance of Public Intimacies
Conclusion: Third Space(s), Finding and Evoking Resonance
Summary
Notes
References
5. Counterpublics: Resistance through Dissonance
To Be in Public
Publics as Spaces of Discursive Circulation
Modes of Address and the Constitution of Publics
Circulation and Shifting Modes of Participation
Counterpublics: Spaces of Hegemonic Dissonance
Counterpublics as Challenging Normative Discourse
Counterpublic Visibility
Counterpublics, Stigmatization, and Connection
Subalternness
Third Space, Counterpublics and Democratic Inclusivity
Emancipatory Potential: Visibility, Transgression, and the Closet
Conclusion: The Boundaries of Publicness
Notes
References
Index
