Phil Zuckerman

Phil Zuckerman is a professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. He is also a regular affiliated professor at Claremont Graduate University, and he has been a guest professor for two years at the University of Aarhus, Denmark.

In 2011, Phil founded the first Secular Studies department in the nation. Secular Studies is an interdisciplinary program focusing on manifestations of the secular in societies and cultures, past and present. Secular Studies entails the study of non-religious people, groups, thought, and cultural expressions. Emphasis is placed upon the meanings, forms, relevance, and impact of political/constitutional secularism, philosophical skepticism, and personal and public secularity. Courses offered in the Secular Studies program include “Sociology of Secularity,” “Secularism: Local/Global,” “Anxiety in the Age of Reason,” “Monkey Business: Controversies in Human Evolution,” “Secularism, Skepticism, and Irreligion,” etc.

Phil is the author of several books, including Living the Secular Life (Penguin, 2014), Faith No More (Oxford, 2011), and Society Without God (NYU, 2008). He has also edited several volumes, including Atheism and Secularity (Praeger, 2010), and The Social Theory of W.E.B. Du Bois (Pine Forge, 2004). Phil’s books have been translated and published in Danish, Farsi, Turkish, Chinese, Korean, and Italian.

Phil writes a regular blog for Psychology Today titled "The Secular Life" and he also writes for the Huffington Post. His work has also been published in various scholarly journals, such as Sociology Compass, Sociology of Religion, Deviant Behavior, and Religion, Brain, and Behavior.

He lives in Claremont, California, with his wife and three children.