International Workshop
Secularities. Freethinkers in the Context of National Movements and the Rise of Nation States in Europe, 1789–1920s
Rome, 21 – 23 March 2018
Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom / Istituto Storico Germanico di Roma Via Aurelia Antica, 391
I–00165 Roma
Contact: Dr. Carolin Kosuch kosuch@dhi-roma.it
The International Workshop aims for a broad transdisciplinary and transnational discourse to examine nuances of the secular present in the European societies of the 19th and the early 20th centuries. The focus is on freethinkers taken as Europe’s outstanding secular avant-gardes, including those of East-Central Europe. Contrasting di erent forms of secularity, we will analyze and discuss
the ways European freethinkers contributed to the concept of the modern nation and helped defining its specifics and values. Thereby, the workshop traces the rooting of the secular projects and sheds light on a set of heterogeneous religious, social and cultural backgrounds as well as the projects concrete designs such as the promotion of a material-scientific world view or initiatives to leave church.
Programme
Wednesday, 21 March
14.00 Martin Baumeister – Roma
Welcome
Carolin Kosuch – Roma
Introduction « Secularism and Freethought from a European Perspective »
I – Freethought in European National Movements
Chair: Viviana Mellone – Napoli
14.30 Anton Jansson – Göteborg
Tracing the Genealogy of Modern Secular Sweden: Late 19th Century Secularists on the Nation and the State
14.55 Yuval Jobani – Tel-Aviv
Jewish Secularisms and the Building of the Hebrew Nation (1904−1922)
15.20 Barbara Wagner – Warszawa
New Country. Poland for and against Freethinkers
15.45 Daniela Haarmann – Wien
The Hungarian Republic of Letters – The Magyarization of Hungary in the early 1800’s
16.15 Coffee Break
16.45 Todd Weir – Groningen
Commentary, Discussion
18.00 Keynote Lecture Detlef Pollack – Münster
Secularization − A Contentious Concept in the Historical and Social Sciences
Thursday, 22 March
II – Networks and Organizations of Freethought: National and Transnational
Chair: Árpád von Klimó – Washington
9.30 Daniel Laqua – Newcastle
« The Most Advanced Nation on the Road to Liberty »: Nationalism and the International Freethought Federation
9.55 Johannes Gleixner – München
Diverging Secularities between the Nation and the Movement: The « International of Proletarian Free-Thinkers » in Central and Eastern Europe during the 1920s in a National and International Framework
10.20 Katharina Neef – Leipzig, Chemnitz
The Komitee Konfessionslos. The Politicization of Leaving Church in the early 20th Century
10.45 Jessica R. Strom – Mansfield (Connecticut)
Nationalists Abroad: Adriano Lemmi, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Lajos Kossuth
11.15 Coffee Break
11.45 Fulvio Conti – Firenze
Commentary, Discussion
12.45 Lunch Break
14.00 Midday-Lectures
Monika Wohlrab-Sahr – Leipzig
Multiple Secularities: A Comparative Perspective on the Study of Religion and its Other
Todd Weir – Groningen
Two Cultures Debate: Secularism and Socialism in Germany 1870 to 1933
15.00 Short Coffee Break
III – Identities and Practices of Freethought
Chair: Costanza D’Elia – Cassino
15.15 Laura Fournier Finocchiaro – Paris
Garibaldi and Mazzini: Anticlericalism, Laicism, and the Concept of a National Religion
15.40 Antoine Mandret-Degeilh – Toulouse
Paris A Secular Avant-Garde? About the Unknown Freethinker Roots of Today’s French Civil Baptism
16.05 Christhardt Henschel – Warszawa
Cultures of Reading. Self-Images of Polish Freethinkers
16.30 Coffee Break
17.00 Jakub Basista – Kraków
Commentary, Discussion
Friday, 23 March
IV – Projects. Freethought, Science and Politics
Chair: Thomas Blanck – Köln
9.15 Carolin Kosuch – Roma
Cremation and the Material Culture of 19th Century European Freethought
9.40 Claus Spenninger – München
Vestiges of a Secular Movement: Scientific Materialism in the 1850s between Emancipation and Technocracy
10.05 Christoffer Leber – München
Integration through Science? The Monist Movement in Imperial Germany between Nationalism and Internationalism (1910–1915)
10.30 Katalin Straner – Firenze
Southampton Evolution and Nation in the Press: The Hungarian Reception of Darwinism before and after the Ausgleich (1859–1875)
11.00 Coffee Break
11.30 Rebekka Habermas – Göttingen
Commentary, Discussion
12.30 Lunch
13.30 Final Roundtable with Monika Wohlrab-Sahr – Leipzig
14.00 End of Conference
Contact:
Carolin Kosuch
Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom via Aurelia Antica, 391, I-00165 Rom
