Citizen of the World: The Use and Abuse of Thomas Paine, People’s History Museum, Manchester, 29–30 November 2013

In many respects, our recent conference ‘Citizen of the World’ was inspired by the bicentenary of the death of Thomas Paine in 2009. The anniversary saw renewed scholarly and popular attention directed towards Paine, particularly in Britain and the United States. In Thetford, Lewes and New Rochelle Paine was feted and commemorated; in Glasgow, Simon Newman and Peter Onuf organized a very successful international conference reasserting the significance of Paine’s life and ideas to the ‘founding fathers’ generation; and three years later, in 2012, Iona College (New Rochelle, New York) launched the Institute of Thomas Paine Studies with another international gathering of Paine scholars. As organizers of ‘Citizen of the World’, we hoped to contribute to this resurgent interest in Paine. But, at the same time, we also wished to turn attention specifically towards Paine’s long and lingering legacy.

As early as 1892, Moncure Conway, the author of the first scholarly Paine biography, noted that whilst Paine’s life up to 1809 was certainly fascinating, his subsequent life, that is, his afterlife, was even more thrilling. With this in mind, we hoped that the conference would explore Paine’s ‘thrilling’ postmortem influence amongst and within different cultures and communities, at different moments in time. Taking our cue from the maxim that historians need to engage not just with the historical past, but also with historical memory, we sought contributions from those currently researching how Paine’s words and ideas had been appropriated, invoked, used and abused in the two centuries since his death. In doing so, we also hoped to gather together scholars from different disciplines and nations, as well as those at different stages of their careers. The response to our call for papers was everything we hoped, and by November 2013 we had an outstanding programme of papers and presentations.

In total, there were twenty-four presentations, as well as a keynote address from Prof. Harvey J. Kaye of the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay. The conference was truly international, with delegates descending on Manchester from across the globe: the UK, US and Canada were all represented, but so too were New Zealand, Australia, Italy and Ecuador. The delegates also came from a variety of disciplines and specialisms, and included historians, political scientists, translators and philosophers. There was, unfortunately, a gender imbalance to the speakers; a reflection of the proposals received. More of the non-presenting delegates were female, however. Besides established academics, we had a large number of postgraduates presenting (and in attendance), as well as several delegates from non-academic backgrounds. In no small measure, this was the result of a concerted effort on our part to be accessible and open. Our efforts were repaid with engaging discussion, a variety of perspectives, and some lively debate.

Friday’s first panel, on Paine, Democracy and Government, involved papers from Gregory Claeys and Maurizio Griffo (both discussing issues connected to Paine’s conception of natural rights), while Gary Berton, representing Iona College and the Thomas Paine Historical Association, considered the distortion of Paine’s ideas in contemporary American politics. In the second panel papers from Benjamin E. Park, Rosina Martucci and Ted Marotta interrogated Paine’s religious ideas and writings – undoubtedly, amongst the most contentious of Paine’s legacies. Together these papers called for a rereading of Paine’s views on religion, especially his much misunderstood and misquoted treatise, The Age of Reason. After a discussion-filled lunch, the conference moved on to explore the ‘transnational’ Paine. Patrick Thomas highlighted the idea of ‘man as neighbour’ in Paine’s thought, Matteo Battistini outlined the shared impact and transnational borrowings of Paine’s ideas on working-class protest groups in Britain and America (especially in the early nineteenth century), while Bill Speck provided an illuminating insight into how Paine’s image had been manipulated by various individuals for many purposes. In the final panel of the day Rowland Weston, George Owers and Matthew Roberts delivered thought-provoking papers on various aspects of Paine’s influence on the diverse...