Americans United for Separation of Church and State Orange County Chapter
AU-OC Presents: Joseph Blankholm
The Secular Paradox,
or Why Secular People Can Seem Weirdly Religious
Saturday, May 21st at 4:00 pm (Notice Time Change)
Either In-Person or by Zoom
In-Person – You MUST email the chapter at mail@au-oc.org and request a place as we are limited to 25 people in person. You will receive a confirmation response.
Irvine Ranch Water District Community Room*, 15500 Sand Canyon Ave, Irvine
Proof of Vaccination or Masks are not Required
If by Zoom, You Will Need to Register Here
Join Zoom Meeting: See our Meetup page or email us at mail@au-oc.org
Meetup: Americans United for Separation of Church & State - OC
Secular people are, by definition, not religious, but they share more with each other than religion's mere absence. They trust in certain ways of knowing the world, they create their own life-cycle rituals like weddings and memorial services, and they sometimes gather in face-to-face communities. Legally, secular people can choose to be religious or not religious depending on the rights they want to claim. They even have their own particular ways of inhabiting their bodies and giving meaning to their lives. In this talk, Joseph Blankholm relies on several years of ethnographic research, more than a hundred in-depth interviews, and a survey of over twelve thousand secular people to explain what it's like to be a nonbeliever in the United States and why at times secular people can seem so weirdly religious.
Joseph Blankholm is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His first book, The Secular Paradox: On the Religiosity of the Not Religious, is an ethnographic study of very secular people in the United States that will be published by NYU Press in June 2022. Blankholm currently co-leads a project that investigates the intergenerational transmission of values and the many things we mean when we talk about religion. The project surveys and interviews three generations of California families that have been tracked since 1971 and is funded by a $2.8m grant from the Templeton Foundation.
For more information:
E-mail: mail@au-oc.org
Call: 714-299-4551
Please visit AU-OC on Facebook, where you can "Like" our page, comment on AU-related articles and find out what's happening with your favorite church-state separation organization: https://www.facebook.com/Americans-United-Orange-County-CA-Chapter-AU-OC-242192172475419/
We have a Meetup group! http://www.meetup.com/Americans-United-For-Separation-Of-Church-State-OC
Sign up to get e-mail notifications of meetings and events for the Orange County Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
*Irvine Ranch Water District makes its facilities available for use by residents and non-profit organizations merely as a public service, but does not, by allowing this use, endorse or support the purpose of the event or its sponsor.