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How Humor Matters in Social Movements: Insights from the New Atheist Movement

Sun, August 17, 12:30 to 1:30pm, TBA

Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrate the analytic utility of incorporating humor into scholarship on social movements. We present an exploratory analysis of the importance of humor for collective identity and framing, and demonstrate the linkages between humor and political and cultural opportunities, in the New Atheist Movement, a social movement focused on reducing the social stigma of atheism and enforcing the separation of church and state. Humor emerges as very important to this social movement, and should be incorporated into future analyses of social movements to add depth to current knowledge about social movements and their outcomes.

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