(Claremont, Calif.) August 20, 2013– Pitzer College Professor of Sociology Phil Zuckerman’s book, Society without God, an ethnographic portrait of secularity in Denmark and Sweden, has been translated into Danish, Korean and Italian while Invitation to the Sociology of Religion, an introduction to the sociology of religion, has appeared in Chinese, Farsi and Turkish.
Zuckerman’s books examine secular culture and explore religion as a social phenomenon, chronicling how it affects other aspects of social life, including gender, class and politics. He approaches religion as a human enterprise instead of a philosophical debate.
“I’m not focused on polemical arguments over metaphysics. I’m a sociologist—I’m interested in studying actual secular people,” Zuckerman said. “The demand for these translations shows that there is a growing global interest in secularism and how people live meaningful, moral lives without believing in God.”
Zuckerman pioneered Pitzer College’s secular studies program—the only one of its kind in the United States. His article about Pitzer alumnus William Holt ’13, the first student in the country to graduate with a degree in secular studies, recently appeared in the Huffington Post, where Zuckerman is a regular contributor. Zuckerman has authored four books, edited another four and is currently working on two manuscripts that are due to be published next year—one by Penguin, the other by Oxford University Press.
Zuckerman has taught sociology at Pitzer since 1998.
