Nonreligious Lifeworlds in Egypt: Sense-Making, Emotion, and Embodiment

An analysis of the growing visibility of nonreligion in Egypt. Egypt's 2011 Uprising, while often perceived as a failed revolution, nonetheless nonetheless had durable social effects.Among these has been a rise in expressing atheism and agnosticism, especially among educated and affluent youth-the country’s future leaders. An intimate ethnography, Nonreligious Lifeworlds in Egypt explores the intellectual and emotional transformations of atheists and agnostics inspired by the aspirational freedom-seeking of the Arab Spring.Rejecting both of Egypt’s dominant religious traditions, Islam and Coptic Christianity, nonreligious people are widely viewed as agents of moral outrage.Amid media-driven panics, their sanity is often questioned by their own families as they experiment with new ways of living and relating.Drawing from in-depth fieldwork, interviews, and social media analysis, Karin van Nieuwkerk reveals her interlocutors’ changing perspectives on sex and gender, eating and drinking,