Performing Atheist Selves in Digital Publics

<p>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. and<i> </i>the 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.</p>