Date Published:

Abstract:

This essay examines poems about cremation written by adherents of both 19^th-century German bourgeois initiatives to reintroduce cremation and the early 20^th-century German proletarian freethought movement. Supporters of these currents held secularist views. Cremation poems can be considered a laboratory of secularism in which certain secularist truths and beliefs could be formulated and expressed in compelling ways. Notably, these poems fleshed out secularism by paying particular attention to its emotional aspects. The poems discussed point to the existence of a secularist, cremationist emotional community across class and temporal boundaries. The essay contributes to the study of secularist mentalities and convictions in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, probing the role of poetry in establishing secularist themes and positions.

September 2024: Carolin Kosuch is a historian with research interests in Jewish history, secularism, anarchism and intellectual history. After holding positions at Leipzig’s Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture and the German Historical Institute in Rome, she completed her habilitation project on secularism and death in Western modernities at the chair of Rebekka Habermas, University of Göttingen, in summer 2023. She teaches courses in 19^th and 20^th century transnational history, the history of gender, technology and Jewish history. Her work was funded by the German Research Foundation. Since winter term 2023/24, she represents the chair of Rebekka Habermas (December 2023) at the University of Göttingen.