I’m excited to announce the third in the Freethinker’s series of free online seminars for all those interested in freethought history and its enduring relevance. The webinars, hosted by me, will feature expert guest speakers and you’ll have a chance to ask them your questions. They will also be recorded and uploaded to our YouTube channel. (This post will be updated and the video of the webinar—on which more in a moment—will appear below once the recording is available. All posts about these webinars will be accessible here, and all such posts will also be updated in due course when the webinar recordings are available, thus forming a complete catalogue of the series).
Register for Freethought History Webinar #3: A Paine Party? Thomas Paine’s Relevance in America’s Gilded Age—and Today
The webinar will take place on 27 May at 7 pm UK time via Zoom.
About the webinar: In this presentation, Dr Dermot Trainor of Benedictine College (Atchison, Kansas) will narrate the rise and fall of America’s first attempt at a freethought party—the National Liberal Party, which emerged during the revolutionary Reconstruction era following the Civil War. In so doing, Dr Trainor will discuss the intellectual links and inspiration that the contemporary freethinkers who forged the party drew from Thomas Paine, as a guide for how to solve the political problems of their own time. Figures from Robert Ingersoll to Mark Twain, Frederick Douglass to Walt Whitman are part of this underknown and highly intriguing story, and the question of Paine’s relevance for America and the world today—nearly 250 years since his revolutionary pamphlet Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence were published—will also be discussed.
About the speaker: Dermot Trainor is an Assistant Professor of History at Benedictine College (Atchison, Kansas), where he teaches the history of the United States of America. His research focuses on both the history of the Reconstruction era and twentieth-century US foreign policy. Born and raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he has an undergraduate degree in history from Durham University and an MPhil and PhD in American History from the University of Cambridge. Outside of work, he most enjoys pursuing his passion for classical piano and has recently given performances of concertos by Rachmaninoff, Bach, and Beethoven.
You must register to secure your place at the webinar. To do so, click here or on the image below, which also contains other ways to access the registration link. I can’t wait to see you there.
With thanks to Bob Forder for suggesting these seminars and helping to organise them.
Why not click here to find the Freethinker’s articles about Thomas Paine and subjects related to him?
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