Freethinkers in Europe

Published by De Gruyter 2020

Freethinkers in Europe

National and Transnational Secularities, 1789−1920s

Edited by: Carolin Kosuch

Volume 86 in the series Religion and Society

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110688283

Overview
Contents

About this book

This volume brings together for the first time case studies on secularists of the 19th and early 20th centuries in national and transnational perspectives including examples from all over Europe. Its focus is on freethinkers taken as secular avant-gardes and early promoters of secularity. The authors of this book deal with multiple historical, religious, social, and cultural backgrounds and, in these contexts, analyze freethinkers' organizations, projects, networks, and contributions to forming a secular worldview, in particular, the promotion of concrete undertakings such as civil baptism or initiatives to leave church. Next to this secularist agenda, the contributions also take into account ambivalences and difficulties freethinkers were faced with, namely, the tensions between a national self-image and the transnational direction the movement has taken; the regional base of many projects and their transregional horizon; freethinkers' cultural programs and their immanent political mission; and the dialogue with respectively the conceptual distinction from other secularist groups. Readers interested in the history of secularity will learn that it was a heterogeneous enterprise already in its beginnings. This set the course for later European and global developments.

Author information

Carolin Kosuch, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Germany.

Frontmatter Accessible Download PDF	I
Table of Contents Accessible Download PDF	V
Notes on Contributors Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	1
Abstracts Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	5
Freethinkers in Modern Europe’s Secularities: Introduction Carolin Kosuch Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	13
Freidenkerei, Libre-pensée, Szabadgondolkodás – Concepts of Freethinking during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Daniela Haarmann Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	35
I Secularities: National Perspectives
Garibaldi and Mazzini: Anticlericalism, Laicism, and the Concept of a National Religion Laura Fournier-Finocchiaro Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	87
Group Portrait with Freethinker: Jacob Moleschott, Risorgimento Culture, and the Italian Nation-Building Process Costanza D’Elia Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	109
Secularity in the New State: The Case of Poland Barbara Wagner Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	131
Friends and Foes: Two Secularisms in late Nineteenth-Century Sweden Anton Jansson Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	155
II Organized Freethought in National, International, and Transnational Entanglements
Integration through Science? Nationalism and Internationalism in the German Monist Movement (1906–1918) Christoffer Leber Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	181
“The Most Advanced Nation on the Path of Liberty”: Universalism and National Difference in International Freethought Daniel Laqua Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	203
Socialist Secularism between Nation, State, and the Transnational Movement: The International of Proletarian Freethinkers in Central and Eastern Europe Johannes Gleixner Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	235
III Freethinkers’ Networks and Projects Critically Revised
A Movement That Never Materialized: The Perception of Scientific Materialism as a Secular Movement in Nineteenth-Century Germany Claus Spenninger Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	273
Politicizing a (Non)Religious Act: The Secularist Church Exit Propaganda of the Komitee Konfessionslos (1908–1914) Katharina Neef Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	297
A Secular Avant-Garde? About the Unknown Freethinker Roots of Today’s French Civil Baptism Antoine Mandret-Degeilh Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	331
Illustrations Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	351
Index of Names Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	353
Index of Places Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	355
Index of Subjects Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	357

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Pages
- Front matter: 6
- Main content: 362
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 2
- Coloured Illustrations: 3

eBook

Published: August 10, 2020
ISBN: 9783110688320

Hardcover

Published: August 10, 2020
ISBN: 9783110687163