Author biographies

Drs Niels de Nutte is a scientific collaborator at the Centre for Academic and Secular Humanist Archives (CAVA) and affiliated to the history department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels. His research interests include post-war organised humanism, with specific expertise in relation to the history of bioethics and euthanasia advocacy in Belgium.

Drs Bert Gasenbeek is the director of the Humanistisch Historisch Centrum and researcher on the history of Dutch humanism at the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht. He has published extensively on the history of Dutch humanism. He is one of the editors of the book International Humanist and Ethical Union 1952- 2002: Past, present and future (2002).

Dr David Nash is a professor of British history at Oxford Brookes University. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and an officer of the Social History Society of Great Britain. He specialises in research on Secularism and Humanism in Britain, blasphemy, the history of religion and the cultural history of law and crime. He has also advised the United Nations, European Commission and a number of Western governments on the issue of blasphemy laws and their repeal.

Dr Caroline Sägesser is a senior research fellow at the Centre de recherche et d’information socio-politique (CRISP). She specializes in state and church relationship and public financing of life stances in Belgium.

Dr Jeffrey Tyssens is a professor in contemporary history at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels and president of the interdisciplinary research group freemasonry (FREE). He was a visiting researcher at the Institut National de Recherche Pédagogique (Paris) and the Leibniz Institüt für Europäische Geschichte (Mainz) and visiting professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the University of Berkeley.

Dr Stephen P. Weldon is an associate professor of History of Science at the University of Oklahoma. His work concerns the recent history of science and culture. His main area of research is the historical relationship between science and religion with an emphasis on secularism in modern America. His forthcoming book The Scientific Spirit of American Humanism will be published by Johns Hopkins University Press.