Penny Edgell

Penny Edgell is a cultural sociologist who studies religion and non-religion in the United States. Her work explores how religion, non-religion, and spirituality influence moral culture: for example, our shared understandings of right and wrong, ideals of family life, how we think about race and racial equality, and understandings of good citizenship. She also researches the growing group of Americans who are non-religious, and the organizations through which non-religious Americans come together to socialize and create meaningful identities, or to lobby for legal protections, fight anti-atheist sentiment, or work on political or policy-oriented goals. She is the author of several books, including Religion is Raced (New York University Press, 2020), Religion and Family in a Changing Society (Princeton University Press, 2005), and Congregations in Conflict: Cultural Models of Local Religious Life (Cambridge University Press, 1999).