I write in multiple genres for different audiences, often returning to the same core questions: how people create meaning, negotiate identity, and respond to social pressure in contexts shaped by religion, secularism, and culture. Public, creative, and scholarly writing differ mainly in audience, form, and constraints rather than in intellectual purpose.

For a fuller overview of my professional experience and education, see my cv.

Public & magazine writing (selected)

Free Inquiry (Center for Inquiry)

  • The Prophet and the Pathologist: Stephen Kent, Massimo Introvigne, and the Battle for an Honest Study of Religion (2026)
    Read online
    An essay on methodological conflict, apologetics, and boundary work in the academic study of religion, written in conversation with Stephen Kent’s Psychobiographies and Godly Visions: Disordered Minds and the Origins of Religiosity.

  • The Humanist Response to Authoritarianism (2025)
    Read online

  • Sacred or Secular? Rethinking Indigenous Spirituality (2025)
    Read online

Nonreligion & Secularity Research Network (NSRN)

  • Beyond Smudge and Creator: Recognizing Indigenous Nonbelievers in Canada (2025)
    Read online

Bright Lights Film Journal

  • The Pervert’s Guide to The Birds: Of Hitchcock, Žižek, the Maternal Superego, and Critical Confusion (2010)
    Read online
  • Modest Intentionalism and the Replicant Debate (2010)
    Read online

Fiction

On Spec Magazine

  • Les Guérisseurs (On Spec, Vol. 35 No. 3 / Issue #133, 2025)
    Available here

On Spec closed in 2025 after 35 years of publication.

Graduate research

PhD Dissertation
Simmons, J. (2018). Atheist Identity and Lifestyle Among Activists in Edmonton. University of Alberta.

  • University repository: https://ualberta.scholaris.ca/items/e5e6fcc9-9be2-48f5-a01c-3737958a0e4d
  • Local PDF: Download dissertation

MA Thesis
Simmons, J. (2012). Positive Psychology as a Scientific Movement: A Case Study in Scientific Legitimacy. University of New Brunswick.

  • University repository: https://unbscholar.lib.unb.ca/bitstreams/f55d1765-65a6-4ab5-8fe5-2aa7b0dd361a/download
  • Local PDF: Download thesis

Academic publications

2025

Eacersall, D., Pretorius, L., Smirnov, I., Spray, E., Illingworth, S., Chugh, R., Strydom, S., Stratton-Maher, D., Simmons, J., Jennings, I., Roux, R., Kamrowski, R., Downie, A., Thong, C. L., & Howell, K. A. (2025).
Navigating ethical challenges in generative AI-enhanced research: The ETHICAL framework for responsible generative AI use.
Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching, 8(2).
https://doi.org/10.37074/jalt.2025.8.2.9

2024

Simmons, J. (2024).
Indigenous atheists in Canada: Challenging assumptions and navigating belonging.
Secular Studies, 6(1), 62–83.
https://doi.org/10.1163/25892525-bja10060

Simmons, J. (2024).
The politics of nonreligion.
In J. M. Smith & R. T. Cragun (Eds.), Secularity and nonreligion in North America: An introduction (pp. 152–170). Bloomsbury Academic.

2022

Sandhu, A., & Simmons, J. S. (2022).
Police officers as filmmakers: The cinematography of body worn cameras.
Policing and Society, 33(5), 593–603.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2022.2160450

2020

Simmons, J. (2020).
Feminist women’s attitudes towards feminist men in the Canadian atheist movement.
Religion and Gender, 10(2), 182–201.
https://doi.org/10.1163/18785417-01002002

Simmons, J., & Sandhu, A. (2020).
Between Islam and Islamophobia: Stigma management among Canadian atheist activists.
Secular Studies, 2(2), 117–137.
https://doi.org/10.1163/25892525-bja10007

2019

Simmons, J. (2019).
Politics, individualism, and atheism: An examination of the political attitudes of atheist activists in a Canadian city.
Secularism and Nonreligion, 8, 1–9.
https://doi.org/10.5334/snr.112

Simmons, J. (2019).
Homeopathy as a form of practical magic.
International Journal of Cultic Studies, 10, 32–40.
https://articles3.icsahome.com/articles/homeopathy-as-a-form-of-practical-magic

2018

Simmons, J. (2018).
‘Not that kind of atheist’: Scepticism as a lifestyle movement.
Social Movement Studies, 17(4), 437–450.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2018.1434500

2017

Simmons, J. (2017).
Atheism plus what? Social justice and lifestyle politics among Edmonton atheists.
Canadian Journal of Sociology, 42(4), 425–446.
https://doi.org/10.29173/cjs27297

2015

Simmons, J., & Kent, S. A. (2015).
An expansion of the rational choice approach: Social control in the Children of God during the 1970s and 1980s.
International Journal for the Study of New Religions, 6(1), 27–49.
https://doi.org/10.1558/IJSNR.V6I1.20430

2013

Simmons, J. (2013).
Positive psychology as a scientific movement.
International Journal of Science in Society, 4(1), 43–52.

Primary access (EBSCO):
https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=a0d92b83-c306-3147-889d-2dad0db45e3f

DOI (currently inactive):
https://doi.org/10.18848/1836-6236/CGP/v04i01/51361

PDF (local copy):
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