Lois Lee is a Research Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Kent. She is a sociologist whose work focuses on the empirical study of nonreligion and atheism and, more widely, on the theory and study of culturally diverse and differentiated societies. Lois is founding director of the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network (NSRN) and co-edits the journal Secularism and Nonreligion. As well as work in academic journals and the media, Lois' publication include the edited volumes Secularity and Non-religion (Routledge) and Negotiating Religion (Ashgate). She is co-editor of the book series, Religion and Its Others: Studies in Religion, Nonreligion and Secularity (De Gruyter).
This book is both innovative and insightful. In it, Lois Lee recognises non-religious experience as a lived and above all social reality, rather than a reasoned and individualized epistemology. The shift in emphasis from the hollowly secular to the substantively non-religious will, I have no doubt, provoke a lively debate. --Grace Davie, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Exeter This is simply the most analytically sophisticated discussion of non-religion/secularity written to date. Ambitious, thorough, commanding, and piercing, this book takes our understanding of-and theorising about- non-religion to a whole new, and thoroughly satisfying, level. This book is a veritable scholarly feast. --Phil Zuckerman, Professor of Sociology, Pitzer College