Mitch Stephens, a Professor of Journalism at New York University, has developed an experimental new site in connection with his blog (Without Gods) at The Institute for the Future of the Book. He has posted a twelve part paper on the site that includes controversial ideas from the the early chapters of his forthcoming book on the history of disbelief. The paper — “The Holy of Holies:
On the Constituents of Emptiness” — will be presented tomorrow, Dec. 8, to the working group on “Secularism, Religious Authority, and the Mediation of Knowledge” of the Center for Religion and Media at NYU, but the intention is for the comments, criticism, and ideas that their meeting generates to be expanded upon through the interactive, reader-friendly site. Each of the paper’s twelve sections is posted separately and readers can leave either general or paragrah-specific comments. The “hope is that the conversation will be joined: ideas challenged, facts corrected, queries answered; that lively and intelligent discussion will ensue.” But the hope is also “that the web might realize some smidgen of benefit through the airing of this process.” Join in on the conversation here.