“Pick-A-Periodical” – Volume 9 of The Secular Chronicle

Please join the RSVP Digital Events committee for our next “Pick-A-Periodical” with Clare Stainthorp* leading us on a discussion of the Secular Chronicle (1872–79)

Date/time:  17 May at 8am PDT/ 10am CDT/ 11am EDT/ 4pm BST/ 5pm CEST

Registration: as always, our events are free but registration is required to receive the zoom link

The Secular Chronicle (1872–79), founded by  George H. Reddalls served atheist, agnostic, and freethinking audiences in Victorian Britain. Upon Reddalls’s death in 1875, Harriet Law took over as editor, promising principled atheism, republicanism, socialism, and the expression of her belief in the emancipation of women as fundamental to social progress. In 1877 the Secular Chronicle was notable for being the first freethought periodical to print large-scale front-page illustrations; it is a vital record of working-class radicalism and prompts reflection upon how minority groups used periodicals to build a sense of community, or counterpublic.

Clare has asked that attendees browse volume 9 of the Secular Chronicle prior to the session, which can be found here. Questions to consider while browsing: What roles do different forms of content (illustrations, biographies,  essays, editorials, letters, jokes, poems, etc.) play? How does the form, structure, and content negotiate potential tensions between individual freedoms and aspirational community? How is the past, present, and future of the radical press (in terms of content, materialities, and distribution) conceptualised?

 *Clare Stainthorp is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at Queen Mary University of London. Her research currently focuses on the nineteenth-century freethought press. Most recently, she has published an article in Media History about what Chatterton’s Commune, the Atheistic Communistic Scorcher (1884–1895) can tell us about the affordances and limits of the periodical form, and an article in Victorian Periodicals Review about the role of dialogue and debate in freethought periodicals. Her monograph, Constance Naden: Scientist, Philosopher, Poet, was published by Peter Lang in 2019.