Total Atheism - Secular Activism and the Politics of Difference in South India

Exploring lived atheism in the South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, this book offers a unique insight into India's rapidly transforming multi-religious society. It explores the social, cultural, and aesthetic challenges faced by a movement of secular activists in their endeavors to establish atheism as a practical and comprehensive way of life. On the basis of original ethnographic material and engaged conceptual analysis, Total Atheism develops an alternative to Eurocentric accounts of secularity and critically revisits central themes of South Asian scholarship from the hitherto marginalized vantage point of radically secular and explicitly irreligious atheists in India.

List of contents

Acknowledgments

Note on Translation

Introduction

Chapter 1. Mental Revolution: Becoming an Atheist in Word and Deed

Chapter 2. Professions: Narratives of Eminent Masculinity

Chapter 3. Propagation: Enacting Atheism in Oratory and Debate

Chapter 4. Programs (1): Eradicating Superstition through Magic

Chapter 5. Programs (2): Humanism and the Unmaking of Caste

Chapter 6. A Way of Life: Marriage and the Gender of Atheism

Conclusion

References

Index

About the author

Stefan Binder is senior lecturer and researcher at the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies (ISEK) at University of Zurich (UZH). He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS) at University of Göttingen and holds a Ph.D. degree from Utrecht University (Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies).

Summary

Exploring lived atheism in the South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, this book offers a unique insight into India's rapidly transforming multi-religious society and develops an alternative to Eurocentric accounts of secularity...

Product details

• Authors: Stefan Binder
• Publisher: BERGHAHN BOOKS, INC
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.04.2020
• EAN: 9781789206746
• ISBN: 978-1-78920-674-6
• No. of pages: 314
• Series: Methodology & History in Anthr; Methodology & History in Anthropology
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Other religions; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Miscellaneous; Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie, Ethnographie, Religion - World Religions, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, RELIGION / Atheism, India, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Social and cultural anthropology, Agnosticism and atheism, Agnosticism & Atheism, Southern India, Anthropology of Religion; Anthropology (General)