Secular Studies and Biography

Abstract In the last decades, the biographical approach has seen a resurgence in scholarship in the humanities, not least in the discipline of history. Recently, there has been an upsurge as well in historical scholarship on atheism, secularism, and humanism. However, these two trends or fields have thus far not been consciously brought into conversation with one another. This special issue is an attempt to do this. In this introduction, we present the articles included in the special issue and discuss what we think can be gained from applying biographical perspectives in secular studies, specifically those having a historical approach. Biography can focus on de-conversion or the process of losing faith. Biography can effectively show a larger story of a secularist zeitgeist or movement. Biography may be used to show entanglements of secularism with other topics and connect with other research fields. The study of biography as a historical genre may be used to analyse the historical rhetoric and self-understanding of secularism.