Recording Secularist Lives
Multiplicity and Collectivity in J.M. Wheeler’s A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations (1889)
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Abstract
This article argues that the biographical dictionary was a crucial form through which nineteenth-century secularists conceptualised their own history as a movement that spanned time, place, and class, and envision themselves as part of this multitude. By illuminating how J.M. Wheeler negotiated gender, nationality, and contemporaneity in A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations (1889), it identifies how biographical compilation—a form commonly associated with nation building—was co-opted for radical ends. In contrast to longer-form secularist (auto)biographies that privileged the individual over the collective, the biographical dictionary did not impose a singular narrative and so enabled freethinkers to navigate a tension at the heart of the secular movement: the desire to work together to effect social change while upholding the right to draw their own conclusions about what constituted freethinking principles and exemplary lives.
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| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
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| Abstract Views | 205 | 205 | 155 |
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Recording Secularist Lives
Multiplicity and Collectivity in J.M. Wheeler’s A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations (1889)
In: Secular StudiesSearch for other papers by Clare Stainthorp in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
This article argues that the biographical dictionary was a crucial form through which nineteenth-century secularists conceptualised their own history as a movement that spanned time, place, and class, and envision themselves as part of this multitude. By illuminating how J.M. Wheeler negotiated gender, nationality, and contemporaneity in A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations (1889), it identifies how biographical compilation—a form commonly associated with nation building—was co-opted for radical ends. In contrast to longer-form secularist (auto)biographies that privileged the individual over the collective, the biographical dictionary did not impose a singular narrative and so enabled freethinkers to navigate a tension at the heart of the secular movement: the desire to work together to effect social change while upholding the right to draw their own conclusions about what constituted freethinking principles and exemplary lives.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 205 | 205 | 155 |
| Full Text Views | 6 | 6 | 4 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 10 | 10 | 5 |
