An ethnography of the British Humanist Association
Lead Research Organisation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
Department Name: Anthropology
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Matthew Engelke (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Engelke M
(2015)
The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Humanism
Engelke M
(2015)
"Good without God" Happiness and pleasure among the humanists
in HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
Engelke M
(2014)
Christianity and the Anthropology of Secular Humanism
in Current Anthropology
Engelke M
(2015)
The coffin question: death and materiality in humanist funerals
in Material Religion
| Description | 'Do you realise'? : humanism and the anthropology of non-religion |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The lecture, originally delivered as a keynote to a workshop at UCL on "Anthropology and Atheism" in September 2011, presents an overview of the conceptual issues facing the development of studies on non-religious organizations and traditions of thought, belief, and practice. It then illustrates these conceptual issues by focusing on research conducted on the BHA, and in particular the ways in which humanists often claim to 'realise' that they are humanists--how they come to understand themselves in a self-conscious sense as humanists and/or atheists. I was invited to contribute an afterword to a special issue of a journal based on the workshop papers. This is in process (as of Nov 2014) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | 'For the one life we have' : an anthropological study of Humanist funerals |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This presentation to the Institute of Cemetery and Crematoria Managers gave a general overview of my research on humanist celebrants, in an effort to inform them about one of the clienteles who use council-run cemeteries and crematoria. Section not completed |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | 'For the one life we have' : anthropological reflections on humanist funerals and humanist celebrants |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Participants in your research and patient groups |
| Results and Impact | This keynote lecture was delivered to the BHA Network of Celebrants' Annual Conference, held in Leamington Spa, 22-23 October 2011. It gave an informal and preliminary assessment of research conducted on the celebrants, and in particular their work on funerals. Topics addressed included the celebrant training process, understandings of what distinguishes a 'non-religious' funeral, and celebrants' attention to ritual language. Lots of interest from celebrant practitioners. It led to an invitation to provide a talk to a "Sunday Assembly" in Crystal Palace in spring 2014 (although that talk did not draw on the ESRC funded research itself). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | 'Not mine, not mine' : on the coffin question in non-religious funerals |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This lecture addressed the ways in which humanist celebrants approach the presence of the coffin in the funerals they conduct. For some celebrants, addressing the coffin, or otherwise acknowledging its presence, seems illogical, since the point of a humanist funeral is to affirm the idea that there is no afterlife. So what is being addressed in such a situation? For other celebrants, the point is to show respect for the loved ones of the deceased. This paper situates these concerns in relation to broader literatures on material culture and the body. This was worked up into a peer-review article which is forthcoming in June 2015. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | An ethnography of the British Humanist Association |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Participants in your research and patient groups |
| Results and Impact | This powerpoint presentation, originally prepared for the BHA's Board of Trustees, provided a bird's eye view of all the research I conducted over the course of 2011, detailing the methods, data produced, issues that arose, and plans for the future. In May 2014 I also presented a version of this talk at the European University Institute in Florence. Section not completed |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012,2014 |
| Description | Evidence and Enlightenment (talk on Humanist understandings of evidence) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A public lecture in the 2015-16 series on "Evidence" organised by the Institute for Advanced Study, Durham University. 50+ students, staff, and members of the general public who attended and participated in a Q&A that followed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/ias/audio/Engelke.mp3 |
| Description | Guardian article on cultural understandings of death |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | A comment piece in the Guardian on-line The Guardian |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| URL | http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/may/14/good-death-ritual-religious |
| Description | Guardian article on death and modernity |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | A comment piece for the Guardian The Guardian |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| URL | http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/26/undercover-undertaker-dispatches |
| Description | Guardian article on humanism and the 2011 census |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | A comment piece in the Guardian on-line The Guardian |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| URL | http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/dec/11/humanists-2011-census-religious |
| Description | In spite of Christianity : humanism and its others in contemporary Britain |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was the Non-Religion and Secularity Research Network Annual Lecture, delivered to an audience of academics, students, and interested members of the general public. It was subsequently worked into an academic seminar paper and delivered at the 147th Wenner-Gren Foundation workshop in Sintra, Portugal. It is about to be published as a peer-reviewed article in the journal, Current Anthropology. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012,2013 |
| Description | Interview on humanist understandings of "the good life" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Interview in "The King's Review," an online magazine published by Kings College Cambridge; a feature interview to launch a new series of piece on conceptions of "the good life." Widely read online and has resulted in a handful of contacts for follow-on events/invitations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | http://kingsreview.co.uk/magazine/blog/2015/08/05/good-without-god-an-interview-with-matthew-engelke... |
| Description | Invited talk (at Duke University, Kings College London and University of Michigan) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Invited talk, first at Duke University (October 2014) and then the University of Michigan (March 2015) and Kings College London (April 2015), on humanist understandings of pleasure and happiness. All events had Q&A. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014,2015 |
| Description | Keynote to workshop in Germany on "Secular Bodies" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Keynote address to a workshop at the University Tubingen on "Secular Bodies, Affects, and Emotions." |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://www.uni-tuebingen.de/en/faculties/economics-and-social-sciences/subjects/historical-and-cult... |