Rethinking Atheism in the Early Modern World

Beginning with the premise that religious and non-religious identities were fluid, overlapping phenomena rather than static, binary conditions, this timely edited collection challenges the traditional notion that atheism was an acute intellectual innovation of Western modernity by rethinking its multifarious pre-modern manifestations and impact in Brazil, China, England, France, Italy, New England, Poland, Scotland, Spain, and Transylvania. The book reveals the entangled intellectual, cultural, and experiential dynamics of atheism, which was not only an abstract philosophical or theological category, but also a lived phenomenon involving emotional, sensory, and bodily meaning across European and non-European worlds. Rich materials including manuscript diaries, correspondence, sermons, dramaturgical texts, and colonial writings evince diverse attitudes towards atheism and offer glimpses into atheistic perspectives. The book achieves pioneering insights by gathering emergent and world-leading researchers whose scholarship investigates atheism from multiple interdisciplinary vantage points, including history, theology, and literature as well as philosophy, anthropology, and sociology.

Patrick Seamus McGhee is Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Durham, UK. He has published in Atlantic Studies, Studies in Church History, and Exchange, and has co-edited a Special Issue of the Journal of Early Modern History entitled ’Global Protestantisms’ (2024).