Kaye to keynote UK conference on Thomas Paine ‘use and abuse’

Harvey Kaye, a UW-Green Bay professor of Democracy and Justice Studies and a leading scholar on the life of Revolutionary Era firebrand Thomas Paine, has been invited to present the keynote address at a Paine conference this fall in Manchester, England. The conference, “Citizen of the World: The Use and Abuse of Thomas Paine,” will be hosted Nov. 29-30 by Manchester Metropolitan University. Kaye is the author of Thomas Paine and the Promise of America. Conference organizers say the event will address how in the 200 years since Paine’s death he has been invoked by both Right and Left, his ideals held aloft in various nations for a variety of causes: “Vilified by Theodore Roosevelt as a ‘filthy little atheist,’ yet adopted by Ronald Reagan in his campaign to make America ‘great again,’ Paine’s life and legacy have been both celebrated and dismissed….” See more.