Search

This essay focuses on a neglected phase in the competitive history of attempts to appropriate Burns and monopolise interpretations of his work. Although Burns was in his time an ecclesiastical liberal, late Victorian and Edwardian secularists, most notably William Stewart Ross (pseudonym 'Saladin') and J. M. Robertson, read Burns as a proponent of secularism and freethought. However, they recoiled from the bardolatry associated with the Burns cult as something that itself smacked of religiosity. Nevertheless, Robertson's alignment of Burns with an anti-Calvinist interpretation of Scottish history has proved an enduring feature of modern Scottish culture and criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term "freethinking" originated in the 17th century to describe inquiry into beliefs which were accepted unquestioningly. Feminists such as Mary Wolstonecraft, abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, and novelists such as Mark Twain and Zora Neal Hurston are among the many who dared to simultaneously challenge religious dogma, patriarchal convention and racialized boundaries. But today the concept has been appropriated by the alt-right. A broad spectrum ranging from hardened white supremacists to those with more centrist tendencies have developed a discourse that objects to any form of antiracism on the grounds that it runs counter to individualism and freethought. In this essay we suggest that this critique from the alt-right should not be dismissed. Rather, it should be the impetus to revitalize the connections between antiracism and the principles of freethinking. We map out some of the history in which these connections were previously established; the reason the connection was weakened, and the principles by which the confluence could be restored. We recount some initial experiments using educational technologies to support this framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of deistical freethought, which appealed to a growing share of the American population at the turn of the nineteenth century, gradually became a matter of concern for the Protestant religious authorities that endeavored to counter its growth by targeting and incriminating it under the umbrella term of religious “infidelity.” Led by actors of orthodox and evangelical Protestantism alike, this unprecedented attack on deism relied on the vindication of disciplinary, social, as well as sanitary norms. To what extent can Foucault’s concepts of governmentality and biopolitics be conducive to a better understanding of the characteristics and mechanisms of this anti-infidel controversy? These assaults on religious infidelity framed deism as a multifaceted peril disrupting the stability of the young Republic, ultimately forging a form of Protestant governmentality that sought to make the population internalize the rejection of religious skepticism. Undermining deism thus hinged on security and sanitary discourses that associated religious infidelity with anarchy, criminality, and even insanity. Conflating religious and sexual infidelity also contributed to the development of a biopolitics of femininity and womanhood that presented freethought and the critique of religion as synonymous with licentiousness and moral depravity.

Our paper aims to present a comprehensive study of the present-day freethinkers in Moscow and St Petersburg. By means of a questionnaire-based survey (N=669), we analyse social and political attitudes and features of freethinkers’ worldview. The article proposes an operational defi nition of a freethinker. In compliance with this defi nition, we, for example, exclude from the study representatives of other faiths. Beside the analysis of the general sample, the article identifi es the specifi city of the organised freethinking in both capitals. Organised freethinking is represented by a number of public organisations and non-formal societies of cultural, educational, and social orientation whose aim is to criticise religion, church and to promote secular ideas in society. Apart from the questionnaire, we have used data of 14 interviews with leaders of organisations and with their active members. The data obtained by the questionnaire show that freethinkers do not make up a homogenous community, but are a milieu that consists of subgroups with diff erences in their worldview, political preferences, attitudes to religion and the church. The following previously observed regularities have been confi rmed: the freethinker is most often a man younger than 39, with a higher or incomplete higher technical education, with medium income. A signifi cant percentage of those inclined to superstitions shows a contradictory character of freethinkers’ worldview. Anticlerical and antireligious attitudes are rather strong, but the interviewees demonstrate tolerance towards religious persons. There is no signifi cant diff erences between those belonging to organisations and communities (N=150) and other freethinkers in terms of their social and demographic properties or views. But the organised freethinkers have a more active position as to defending their ideals in the Internet and in the public domain. Organised freethinking in both capitals is not a mass phenomenon. Despite the increase in the anticlerical attitudes in society, freethinkers are not eager to unite into organisations and are considerably disjointed.

The nineteenth century has long been conceived as a critical period of the history of the United States for women whose religious beliefs motivated their commitment to reform; conversely, women activists who publicly rejected the authority of churches and positive theologies have gone almost entirely unnoticed. As a result, the feminism suffused with anarchist overtones which emerged at the turn of the twentieth century may appear almost fortuitous as its historicity seems untraceable. The historiographic gap regarding women’s role in the promotion of radical freethought thus hinders our understanding of anti-conformist feminist activism predating the 1840s and the first women’s suffrage organizations. This blind spot in the history of women and religion obscures the relationship between feminism and the American freethought tradition throughout the nineteenth century, whose demands were not limited to suffrage. Exploring the lives and ideas of such freethinkers as Frances Wright, Ernestine Rose, Juliet Stillman Severance, Lois Waisbrooker, or Voltairine de Cleyre illuminates the existence of a feminism which ties male domination to the power of religious apparatuses and defends emancipation as well as equal rights by arguing against the essentialization of women.

Nineteenth-century print media provided a set of metaphors with which American unbelievers began to articulate an understanding of religious infidelity as something permanent. Ink, paper, pencil, and mechanical printing technologies served as symbols for articulating disbelief as something imprinted indelibly on the mind of the reading or viewing subject. Thus, over the course of the nineteenth century, American nonbelievers began discussing infidelity less in terms of something rationally subscribed to and more in terms of something non-rationally imprinted at a young age. At the same time, the late nineteenth century witnessed an increasing emphasis on a militaristic understanding of missionary activity incumbent upon American infidels—a tendency partially enabled by understandings of the cartoon image as a tool suited to the defeat of believers and the creation of young unbelievers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Associated with the communist movement from the beginning of the 1920s, the French proletarian freethinkers (Libre pensée d'action sociale 1921-1924, libre pensée révolutionnaire 1926-1932, Association des travailleurs sans dieu 1933-1936) anchored their anti-religious critique in the class struggle. They also regularly emphasized sexual issues from different angles, ranging from vigorous denunciation of clerical pedophilia to defense of neo-Malthusianism, feminism, and the Soviet achievements on divorce and abortion legislation. This article, focusing on the printed sources of the proletarian freethinkers, illustrates a little-known aspect of these cultural organizations linked to the communist movement, thus opening perspectives on communist sexual morality and its relationship to the then dominant bourgeois and Christian model.

Copyright of Revista de Historia (07169108) is the property of Universidad de Concepcion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the movements made by the Centre d'action laïque (CAL, Centre for Secular Action), a French-speaking structure of organized secularism in Belgium, in its definition of secularism over the last twenty years. Starting from an observation of the mobilization of secularism in the written output from the CAL, the article examines the extent to which its secular ideal has become secularized both in its vocabulary and in its commitments, no longer being necessarily determined by its relationship to religion. It reveals how the written output of the CAL is gradually distancing itself from a secularism constructed in opposition to, but also and perhaps in mirror image with, clericalism, to engage instead with topics previously unknown to secularism (such as sport, drugs and prostitution) so as to better respond with a philosophical secularism that a single position vis-à-vis religion can no longer always justify. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines dictionaries and encyclopedias' coverage of the term "atheism" in the anglophone world from the early modern period up until the twentieth century. The article recounts how most dictionary- and encyclopedia-makers often portrayed atheism as an irrational and immoral belief system, through their use of negative illustrative quotations or the idea of "atheism" as a denial of God. The article will also show how atheists responded to these dictionaries and encyclopedias, particularly by examining the alternative definition supplied in the middle of the nineteenth century by Charles Bradlaugh, the most important British atheist of the era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the spirit of the new naturalism, Adriaan Koerbagh defends in Een Ligt schijnende in duystere plaatsen (1668) the freedom to philosophize with a fundamental critique of religion and metaphysics. He links this criticism to the politically radical, anti-hierarchical idea of universal equality and freedom. Moreover, by writing in Dutch, he addresses a broad audience with this explosive mixture of ideas. At the very center of his naturalism is the idea of an indifferent God or nature. He criticizes, unmasks, and translates improper language that is aimed at deception and oppression, and leads to violence. His loanword dictionary Een Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet (1668) can be seen as the preparatory handwork to this critical project. Koerbagh thereby places himself in the line of the clandestine freethinkers such as Vanini, the anonymous authors of Theophrastus redivivus and De jure ecclesiasticorum , Spinoza, and the clandestine text written 'in the spirit of Spinoza,' Traité des trois imposteurs. I will illustrate this genealogical line and thus illuminate the significance of this (politically) subversive thinker for the radical Enlightenment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we have focused on the humanistic perspectives of genealogy of vonnegutian humanism, which passed from generations to Vonnegut Jr. as a legacy. In Slaughterhouse-Five, he has expressed his concern over freethought, which he inherited from his ancestors and became his guiding principal for life. This freethought gave birth to his Humanism, which was the primitive concern why Vonnegut Jr. negated religion in his life and passed his freethought missionary to others through his writings. Here in this novel, he questions religion, sufferings of man and enunciates that there is no God in the Heavens who promises Heaven and makes people suffer on Earth. He says man is the centre and everything he himself can reward, judge and punish the wicked and can make the moment everlasting. Moreover, stresses the fact that man is bound to things which happen around him and cannot do anything to prevent and uses a panacea, So It Goes, the story of life goes on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study on history of spiritual and practical activities of so-called free-religious communities (freireligiösen Gemeinden) created in 1840s in Germany by «the German Catholics» and Protestant «friends of light» — originally separate movements, opposite to Catholic and Protestant orthodoxy respectively. The analysis presents a complete picture of development of the free-religious movement, starting from its emergence during the Vormärz period. The span of research covers intense activity during the revolution of 1848–1849, the period of political reaction following soon after the suppression of revolution, the ultimate ban by national-socialists in fascist Germany, reaching up to our days. Additionally, focus is given to the preceding tradition of the German free-thinking and its connection with the free-religious movement. It is shown that one of the distinctive features of the free-religious movement is the variety of world-view among ideologists of its different communities. Thus, this movement falls under a special category, intermediate between religion and secular outlook. As a result of the analysis the author comes to a conclusion that the ideology of the free-religious movement can be characterized by interweaving of religious and political motives in its program, and the deviation that the views of its adherents take from orthodox Christianity — to pantheism and even materialism.

This article shows that, for the International Free Thought Federation, Latin America was a strategic objective. Argentina and Brazil were the bridgeheads of this deployment. Certain masonic networks were the platform, the social support of this operation. The 11th freethought international congress, in 1904, marked a hinge by provoking a massive mobilization, by widening its program and its doctrine, and by integrating in a new way Latin America, represented by the Argentina, in particular by Manuel B. Ugarte. It is thus about a preliminary study intended to demonstrate the interest to deepen this little known dimension of the cultural history of the contemporary international relations.

Among social scientists, humanist and freethinker organizations are often described as secularizing agents within society with a critical and confrontational relation to religions. This article provides a re-evaluation of this theory with respect to a contemporary example of German freigeistig organizations, the German Humanist Association (Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands [HVD]). Through being incorporated into German religiopolitical arrangements, the author argues, the HVD rather imitates religion, thereby unfolding secularization-opposing effects. Drawing on a grounded theory-based analysis of found data as well as interviews and participant observations, and with reference to the comparative frameworks regarding 'multiple secularities' (Burchardt/Wohlrab-Sahr) or 'different modes of nonreligion' (Quack), the article concludes by distinguishing two different types of freigeistig organizations in contemporary Germany, only one of which can by described as a secularizing agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's dominant academic use of the term ‘secularisation’ refers to an epochal process that transformed a society based on Christian faith to one grounded in human reason. This paper argues that ‘secularisation’ had not been used in this sense prior to the 1830s, and that no such process has been shown to have taken place in early modernity. This new use of the term was in fact internal to rival secularising and sacralising programs. The notion of an epochal rationalisation of society was thus invoked by secularists seeking to turn a factional campaign into an historical process. Their sacralising opponents employed the same strategy when they claimed that this process contained a desecularising counter-current, or that secularisation was secretly grounded in an alienated religion whose de-alienation held the promise of a post-secular age. This suggests that until they can adduce evidence of an epochal rationalisation of society in early modernity, histories of secularisation should be regarded as disguised program-statements for rival cultural-political factions in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the media as in a variety of books aimed at the general public, Abraham Lincoln’s name has often been paired with public figures who have been identified or have self-identified as modern-day freethinkers. This essay offers comments on the relationship between Lincoln and the American freethought tradition, with a final focus on Thomas Paine, all of which are considered in the context of the 2006 Lincoln bicentennial, the New Atheism movement, and the increase in the number of American “nones.” Some historiographical shifts and communication strategies used by freethinkers are also emphasized. The purpose of the essay is to provide some insight into the renewal of interest for freethought in the United States.

The study "Vojta Náprstek and Antonín Dignowity : the ideal world of two freethinkers in the begining of Czech community in the USA" deals with comparision of religious, national, social and political ideas of two representatives of Czech immigration in the USA in the mid-nineteenth century.

Copyright of Cahiers Victoriens & Edouardiens is the property of Presses Universitaires de la Mediterranee and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Studies in the history of physical education show that it was often promoted for socio-political reasons: to stimulate nation-building or increase economic productivity and/or military strength. By contrast, a different kind of motivation has received little attention in historical studies: the importance of physical education for the perfection of the individual, as expressed by the German neohumanistic word ‘Bildung’. This article presents a case study in which the debate on the importance of physical education in the Netherlands in the mid-nineteenth century is examined. Ideas on the importance of Bildung in physical education especially existed within the freethinkers’ movement. With arguments derived from their naturalistic worldview, freethinkers contested educational approaches that obstructed the natural development of the child. This case study aims to contribute to a better insight into the history of physical education in the Netherlands and into the diversity of reasons for promoting physical education in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines Victorian debates on scriptural interpretation and women's rights, when feminists and anti-feminists, Christians and secularists battled over whether the Bible assigned women a subordinate sphere. It argues that scriptural debates were of central importance to the nineteenth-century 'woman question', while women's rights provided the discursive terrain upon which Christians and secularists competed for power and legitimacy. The article focuses on the contributions made by women activists in the secularist or freethought movement. These 'freethinking feminists' have been largely ignored in the historiography, though they formed a longstanding and active current within the Victorian women's movement. They were often marginalised, however, because of their violently anti-Christian views and their insistence that the Bible needed to be rejected in full for women to acquire freedom and equality. They argued not only with conservative Christians but with other activists in the women's movement who sought to demonstrate that women's rights could be reconciled with scriptural teachings. Highlighting this alternative tradition reveals the 'religious roots' of Victorian feminism to have been diverse and highly contested, and expands our understanding of the multiple processes by which modern definitions of 'secularism' came into being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the work of the Fédération internationale de la Libre Pensée, an organization that was founded in 1880 as a transnational actor in Europe's 'culture wars'. With a secretariat based in Brussels, the federation organized twenty-five international congresses in different cities and countries between 1880 and 1938, bringing together representatives of secularist groups as well as political activists and scientists through its events. The federation hence played a role in creating transnational meeting spaces — yet it could also serve as a campaigning tool, reflected by its role in the international solidarity campaign for the Catalan educator and anarchist Francisco Ferrer. Significantly, the federation provided a forum for both socialists and liberals, who were unified in identifying the role of organized religion (in particular the Catholic church) as a matter of transnational concern. By tracing the main features of this 'Freethinkers' International' and its constituency, the article questions the boundaries between different forms of internationalism. At the same time, the relation between 'freethought' and 'socialism' remained a contentious issue for the federation both before and after World War I, demonstrating the obstacles to further-reaching transnational cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early-nineteenth-century America, anatomical narrative was crucial to the acquisition and performance of medical identity. Dissecting the dead, robbing graves, making and exhibiting "anatomical preparations," and joking with bodies and body parts all served to affirm membership in the cult of medical knowledge. So did telling stories about such things. Through an examination of the autobiography of Charles Knowlton (1800-1850), a rural physician who practiced in northwestern Massachusetts, this article argues that the recitation and exchange of anatomical stories enabled medical practitioners to assert professional identity, healing competence, and filiations with theories and cliques. In both content and performance, the anatomical tale rehearsed the storyteller's structural relationship to patients, the public, colleagues and rivals, and, above all, made a claim to knowledge and mastery of the body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]