The New Atheist Novel: Literature, Religion, and Terror in Amis and McEwan

Author: Bradley, Arthur

Source: The Yearbook of English Studies, Volume 39, Numbers 1-2, 1 july 2009 , pp. 20-38(19)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

This article is the first study of a major new genre of contemporary fiction, the New Atheist Novel. It examines how Richard Dawkins's so-called New Atheism movement has caught the imagination of two eminent modern novelists, Ian McEwan and Martin Amis. For both authors, the contemporary novel represents a new front in the ideological war against religion, religious fundamentalism, and, after 9/11, religious terror: the novel apparently stands for everything - freedom, individuality, rationality, and even a secular experience of the transcendental - that religion allegedly seeks to overthrow. If the New Atheist Novel exhibits many of the strengths of its philosophical equivalent, however, it also demonstrates some of the latter's well-documented intellectual, political, andtheological blind spots. In conclusion, the article argues that what really defines the New Atheist Novel - for all its claims to champion freedom of thought, action, and expression - is a disturbing aesthetico-political dogmatism, about science, about reason, about religion, and, in particular, about Islam.

Keywords: New Atheist Novel; Dawkins; New Atheism; Ian McEwan; Martin Amis; religion; theological blind spots

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Lancaster University

Publication date: 2009-07-01

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A supplement to the Modern Language Review, this journal includes articles and reviews on the language and literature of the English-speaking world. Most of the volumes published so far are 'Special Numbers', collections of between fifteen and eighteen commissioned articles on particular topics, such as the impact of the French Revolution on English writers; literature in the modern media; and colonial and imperial themes in literature.