Join us on September 11 at noon as we welcome attorney and activist Julie Gunnigle and Jeanne Casteen, Secular AZ Executive Director, to discuss Arizona's upcoming elections, politics, the legislature, and more.
Abortion rights remain one of the clearest places where questions of bodily autonomy, religious freedom, and church–state separation collide. This webinar will examine the current state of abortion rights in Pennsylvania and across the country, including recent court decisions and continuing battles over medication abortion, while exploring how attacks on reproductive freedom are intertwined with broader Christian Nationalist efforts to impose one set of religious beliefs through public policy. This program is being hosted by our Jewish Women and Religious Freedom in Pittsburgh project, sponsored by the Jewish Women's Foundation of Greater Pittsburgh. It is open to people across the country
Join Rep. Jared Huffman, co-founder of the Freethought Caucus, and Secular AZ Executive Director Jeanne Casteen for a discussion and signing of his book, No Prophets, a behind-the-scenes look at the shocking extent of Christian nationalism’s reach in our government—and the fight to defend church-state separation. They'll be at Changing Hands Books in Tempe on September 8 at 7p! a national wake-up call about Christian nationalism. Instead, most Americans and politicians looked away.
No Prophets argues that Christian nationalism is now America’s most dangerous political movement. Huffman pulls back the curtain on religious extremists behind the insurrection who have only grown more powerful with Trump’s return. Openly vowing to destroy church-state separation and democracy as we know it, they now work inside the highest levels of government to drive domestic and foreign policy, reshape federal agencies, undermine science and education, and tilt elections. The endgame: an authoritarian theocracy that imposes their religious beliefs by force of law.
Join us on September 4 at noon/PT as we welcome Leah Sottile to discuss her new book Blazing Eye Sees All: Love Has Won, False Prophets, and the Fever Dream of the American New Age.
Click here to watch: https://youtu.be/1n-8tEFHL3o
In Blazing Eye Sees All, journalist Leah Sottile investigates the modern New Age movement, examining why women become devoted to self-professed gurus like Love Has Won's "Mother God." While tarot and crystals dominate social media, Sottile reveals that this seemingly gentle world of "love and light" has long been built on conspiracies, antisemitism, nationalism, and anti-science views. Driven by modern anxieties like climate change and pandemics, people seek relief in these spiritualities. Ultimately, Sottile separates genuine healing from dangerous "snake oil," helping readers find true clarity amid the rise of New Age influence.
Leah Sottile is the author of When the Moon Turns to Blood: Lori Vallow Chad Daybell, and A Story of Murder, Wild Faith and End Times. Her investigations, features and essays have been published by The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Playboy, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic and High Country News. She is the host of the investigative podcasts Hush, Burn Wild, Two Minutes Past Nine and Bundyville. She lives in Oregon.
Join us on August 28 at noon (PT) as we welcome special guest Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, PhD to discuss her latest book "The Edge of Space Time: Particles, Poetry and the Cosmic Dream Boogie."
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is an associate professor of physics and astronomy and core faculty in women’s and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire. She conducts award-winning theoretical physics research on dark matter, the early universe, and neutron stars, while also researching Black feminist science studies. Her first book, The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred, won the 2021 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science and Technology, the 2022 Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, and a 2022 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award. A columnist for New Scientist and Physics World, she is originally from East L.A. and now divides her time between the New Hampshire Seacoast and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Join us on August 21 at noon/PT as we welcome director Liz Smith and producer Noelle Cook to discuss their new documentary film, The Conspiracists, in which a January 6th insurrectionist takes a British filmmaker and an American researcher on a road trip and attempts to convert them to her world of conspiracy theories.
Watch here: https://youtu.be/-3OPJ3P2Chc
Three women set off on a road trip across America. One of them is a MAGA supporter and conspiracy theorist. She has just been sentenced to 30 months in prison for her role in the storming of The US Capitol. They meet other “patriots” along the way and as the journey unfolds she leads her travel companions deeper into her labyrinth of conspiracy, determined to open their eyes to what she sees as the real truth. By the trip’s end will she have converted them to her “5D world”?
Join us on August 14 at noon (PT) as we welcome special guest Mariah Blake to discuss her latest book They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals.
Watch here: https://youtu.be/QgLvg7SIVmc?si=QBF5yXYyA6pnaWzC
In They Poisoned the World, investigative journalist Mariah Blake exposes a decades-long cover-up of toxic "forever chemicals" contaminating the drinking water of 100 million Americans. Tracing the pollution from the Manhattan Project to corporate labs, Blake reveals that manufacturers and the government knew these chemicals caused cancer and birth defects, yet lax regulations allowed the public to become unwitting test subjects. Based on extensive research, the book chronicles how a small New York village discovered the contamination in 2014, fought chemical giants, and ignited a powerful, historic grassroots environmental movement to protect public health.
Mariah Blake is an award-winning investigative journalist whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Mother Jones, The New Republic, and other publications. She was a Murrey Marder Nieman Fellow in Watchdog Journalism at Harvard University. Her book, They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals, was named on of the best nonfiction books of 2025 by The Washington Post and Scientific American.
Join us on August 7 at noon/PT as we welcome special guest Maya Kornberg, PhD, to discuss her new book Stuck: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress.
Watch here: https://youtu.be/A821KCCYR5k
Despite fifty years of idealistic, diverse new lawmakers arriving in Washington, Congress remains paralyzed and inhospitable to change. In Stuck, Maya Kornberg explains that well-intentioned reforms have been thwarted by systemic forces: political violence, skyrocketing campaign costs, constant fundraising, diminished staff, and centralized party leadership
On August 2 at 10am, Jeanne Casteen, Executive Director and Lobbyist for Secular AZ will speak to the Granite Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Prescott.
She'll provide post-primary update about the political landscape in Arizona and what we can do to combat Christian nationalism in our own backyard, and at every level of government.
Join us on July 31 at noon/PT as we welcome special guest Wendy Via, Co-Founder, CEO and President of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, to learn about Christian nationalism at the DOJ and DHS.
Watch at https://youtu.be/0K8nXWMbr44.
Launched in 2020, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) was founded by Heidi Beirich and Wendy Via to address the gap in efforts to stop transnational hate and far-right extremism movements, particularly U.S.-based activity that is exported to other countries and across borders.
Join us on July 24 at noon (PT) as we welcome special guest s.e. smith to discuss their latest book All My Dead Cats and Other Losses: Practicing Good Grief in a Culture That Fears Mourning.
Click here to register for this virtual presentation.
Despite its title, s.e. smith’s All My Dead Cats is not a book about pet loss, but a guide to understanding grief as a collective, community-driven experience. Using cat vignettes as accessible entry points to intimidating conversations, smith interviews experts—including death doulas and psychologists—to explore the stages of grief and "disenfranchised grief." The book reframes mourning not as a fixable problem, but as an ongoing, livable shift in one's relationship to the world. Ultimately, it teaches readers how t
Join us on July 17 at noon (PT) as we welcome special guest Julia Azari, PhD to discuss her latest book Backlash Presidents: From Transformative to Reactionary Leaders in American History.
Watch here: https://youtu.be/bd11tLWUIqM
Dr. Julia Azari is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Marquette University. She holds Ph.D., M.A. and M.Phil. degrees in political science from Yale University, and a B.A. in political science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research and teaching interests include the American presidency, American political parties, political communication and American political development. Her research has been supported by the Marquette University Regular Research Grant, the Harry Middleton Fellowship in Presidential Studies, the Gerald Ford Presidential Library Foundation Travel Grant, the Harry Truman Library Institute Scholars Award, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Library of Congress.
