An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Elad Carmel (Daiches-Manning Memorial Fellow in 18th-Century Scottish Studies 2023; Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Freethought, Feminism, and Antislavery Ideas in 18th Century Britain: Two Case Studies
This talk will present my current work which focuses on two British writers from the eighteenth century who both advocated radical ideas for their time and yet remain widely neglected in the scholarship. The Scottish lawyer, George Wallace, was the son of the freethinking clergyman Robert Wallace, known mainly for his debate with Hume on the population of the world. In 1760, George Wallace wrote that slavery was not only immoral and illegal in Scotland but should also be abolished altogether in colonial America and could never be justified anywhere even on economic grounds. He was immediately read and cited by influential abolitionists in France and America, such as Anthony Benezet, and his arguments anticipated the historic rulings in the cases of Somerset (1772) and Knight (1778) who were declared free in England and Scotland respectively.
Two decades later, the English novelist, philosopher, and biographer Mary Hays joined her friend Mary Wollstonecraft in defining and defending the rights of women, demanding what she called the emancipation of the female mind. In some respects, she surpassed the other members of her circle of radical rational dissenters in London. In her roman-à-clef Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796), she portrayed an outspoken heroine who advocated and exercised her right to think and speak freely and, in a dinner conversation with a slave owner, linked her own freedom to the urgency of emancipation for the enslaved in the West Indies.
What made both writers arrive at their radical ideas and what was their reception? What were the commonalities between their cases, despite the different contexts in which they operated? And why are they almost entirely forgotten today? This talk will attempt to offer at least some answers—and likely even more questions.
Click the link below to join the webinar:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/86535202023
Passcode: Vr8f3ew2