With the proliferation of online lectures, working groups and all manner of events, we at the JHI Blog thought it would be a good idea to consolidate news and opportunities relevant to our colleagues working in intellectual history. We will publish these roundups of public lectures, conferences, calls for papers, working groups and new journal issues every other Saturday.
We encourage our readers to send us information and updates about any news or events that fits within this scope. You can use this form to let us know about something you’d like us to publicize.
Workshop: “Immobility/Mobility”
Speakers: Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh (Cambridge): Knowledges of geography and geographies of knowledge: Martino Martini’s Novus atlas sinensis and the emergence of mathematical cosmography; Amrita DasGupta (SOAS): Defining mobility in the lower deltaic Bengal: Climate exile and trafficking.
The Workshop for the Early Modern Period (WEMP) provides a forum for graduate students to present research on any aspect of early modern history. The Zoom links to join the virtual meeting will be circulated to the workshop mailing list.
Cambridge Workshop for the Early Modern Period.
January 18, 2021, 5:00 pm (Western European Time/GMT +00:00). Register.
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Lecture: “Holocaust Historiography: Past Present”
Speakers: Prof. Dan Michman (Bar Ilan University and Yad vashem); Prof. Dan Stone (Royal Holloway, University of London)
The Holocaust Studies Program. Western Galilee College, Akko, Israel.
Wednesday, 20 January 2021, 19:30-21:00 Israel Time, 12:30-14:00pm (Eastern Time, USA and Time). Register.
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Webinar: “Freethinkers in Europe: National and Transnational Secularities, 1789−1920s”
Speakers: Carolin Kosuch (Göttingen); Johannes Gleixner (Munich); Daniela Haarmann (Vienna); and Claus Spenninger (Munich).
International Society for Historians of Atheism, Secularism, and Humanism (ISHASH) Webinar Series.
Wednesday, 20 January 2021, 10.00 PT, 13.00 ET, 18.00 GMT, and 19.00 CET. Register.
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Seminar: “Ex-communism and the languages of interwar Marxism: the case of Franz Borkenau in Spain”
Speakers: Nick Devlin (Cambridge)
The Institute of Historical Research. School of Advanced Study. University of London.
Wednesday, 20 January 2021, 5:30pm – 7:00pm (Western European Time / GMT +00:00). Register.
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Reading Group Meeting: “Global Intellectual History”
For the first 2021 session of the EUI IHWG series “History in theory, history in use,” we will talk about global intellectual history(-ies). How to write global intellectual history? To what extent does the adjective “global” change one’s approach towards intellectual history? How to forge a methodology for it, and which tools we might use in approaching it?
Suggested readings:
· Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori, “Approaches to Global Intellectual History” in: idem, Global Intellectual History, New York 2013, pp. 3-30.
· Dag Herbjørnsrud, Beyond decolonizing: global intellectual history and reconstruction of a comparative method, Global Intellectual History Vol 5 Nr 4.
Monday, 25 January 2021, 9:00 am CET
To receive the link for the readings and Zoom, please contact Olga Byrska (olga.byrska@eui.eu).
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Seminar: “Histories of the Book”
For the sixth session of the “Talking about things” seminar series, we will consider visual and material histories of the book. This session will host two presentations, followed by questions and a discussion. See full description of the event here.
Organized by the Visual and Material History Working Group at EUI.
Monday, 25 January 2021, 11:00am CET. Register.
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Working Group: “Historical International Relations”
Starting in January 2021, a reading group focusing on deep histories, big histories, frontiers, energy, ‘Asia before Europe’, entangled histories, and the Global Cold War but we are keen to expand.
Visit www.historical.international to participate in the discussions or suggest readings.
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Call for Papers: “Un/Predictable Environments: Politics, Ecology and Agency (20-21 May 2021)”
Read full call here.
The conference is organised by: Prof John Barry (Professor in Politics, Queen’s University Belfast, UK); Dr Maruška Svašek (Reader in Anthropology, Queen’s University Belfast, UK); Dr Prashant Khattri (Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, University of Allahabad, India, and Charles Wallace Fellow, Queens University Belfast, UK); Dr Tracey Heatherington (Associate Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Canada)
Send a 200 word abstract before January 31, 2021 to m.svasek@qub.ac.uk .
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Call for Papers: “Decolonising Archives, Rethinking Canons : Writing Intellectual Histories of Global Entanglements.”
Read full call here.
Both abstracts for individual presentation (350 words) and panel proposals (1200 words) are welcome. Submissions should be sent to cantabconference@gmail.com no later than the 5th of February, 2021. The two-day conference will be hosted online, tentatively on the 26-27 March, 2021, between 9-6 PM GMT.
For queries, feel free to write to Shuvatri Dasgupta (sd781@cam.ac.uk) or Rohit Dutta Roy (rd548@cam.ac.uk), Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.
Supported by the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.
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Call for Papers: “Education and Educators in Political Thought”
Read full call here.
The Conference will be held virtually on March 31, 2021. Interested doctoral students should send proposals, comprised of a short abstract (max. 500 words) and a brief CV (max. 2 pages), to chptconference@gmail.com with the subject “PTHI Conference submission.” The deadline for proposals is: Friday, February 12, 2021.
The Political Thought and Intellectual History Graduate Conference.
University of Cambridge.
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Call for Submissions: “The S-USIH Book Prize”
The Society for U. S. Intellectual History (S-USIH) is pleased to open the call for submissions for its Annual Book Award for the best book in U.S. intellectual history.
The book should be a work of original scholarship and should cover some aspect of American intellectual history. Books eligible for the 2021 award must be published in English in the period between Jan. 1, 2020 and Dec. 31, 2020. Any member of the Society or any publisher may nominate books for the award. The winner will be announced in June 2021, receive a $250.00 prize, and be recognized at the 2021 Conference in Nashville (October ). The winning author must be a member of the Society at the time of this presentation. Deadline for submissions: February 15, 2021
Instructions for submission can be found at S-USIH.
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Book presentation: “The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790 (2020) by Ritchie Robertson (Oxford)”
Discussants: Joanna Innes (Oxford); Anthony La Vopa (North Carolina); Karen O’Brien (Oxford)
Followed by the author’s response and an open discussion.
The Enlightenment Workshop, Oxford’s interdisciplinary research seminar in Enlightenment studies, is dedicated this term to discussions of new publications in the field. The launch session is focused on The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790, a major new interpretation by Ritchie Robertson, the Schwarz-Taylor Professor of German at Oxford.
Supported by the Faculty of History, and the Faculty of Modern Languages at Oxford University, and the Voltaire Foundation.
January 25, 12:00pm – 2:00pm (Eastern Time, US and Canada). Register.
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Lecture: “Steppe Irrigation: Water, Rivers, and Canalization in the USSR”
Presenters: Maya Peterson (University of California, Santa Cruz); Christopher Ward (Clayton State University)
The desiccation of the Aral Sea is one of the greatest environmental catastrophes of the late twentieth century. But efforts to harness and divert the Aral’s freshwater are rooted in efforts to use technology to terraform landscape in the modern era. Using water to irrigate a wasteland was a hallmark of modernity, progress, productivity, and prosperity. Water was also emblematic of the colonial infrastructure of Russia and the Soviet Union. This live interview with Maya Peterson and Christopher Ward will discuss the role of water in its winder environmental history of the Soviet project.
The Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies,
University of Pittsburgh
January 26, 12:00pm (Eastern Time, US and Canada). Register.
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Webinar: “Implicated Subjects in the Landscapes of Injustice”
Speakers: Michael Rothberg (UCLA); Jordan Stanger-Ross (UVic) Moderator: Charlotte Schallié (UVic)
A conversation about the legacies of historical injustice. Reflecting on the intersections and differences between their respective areas of research, the speakers will discuss the present imperatives that emerge from histories of harm followed by question and answer period with audience members.
Presented in association with Landscapes of Injustice and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. University of Victoria.
January 27, 2:00pm – 3:00pm (Eastern Time, US and Canada). Register.
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Lecture: “How to Decolonize your Research Methods? Philosophy of/as Action Research “
Speaker: David Ludwig (Wageningen University, Netherlands)
Chaired by Azita Chellappoo (Ruhr-University Bochum)
What would it mean to decolonize philosophy of science? This talk shifts the focus from basic research to action research as a methodology for putting scientific practice in the service of social change and social justice. Tracing the history of action research in the domain of international development, it outlines methodological shifts from a paternalistic humanitarianism of developing the “Third World” to critical engagement with the co-production of science and society. In a second step, the talk applies these methodological lessons to philosophy as science. “Philosophy of action research” therefore leads to “philosophy as action research” as one mode of articulating decolonial ambitions in philosophical practice.
Series organisers: Zinhle Mncube (University of Johannesburg/University of Cambridge); Azita Chellappoo (Ruhr-University Bochum); Katherine Furman (University of Liverpool); Dominic Berry (London School of Economics/University of Birmingham)
January 28, 4:00 pm Central European Time (15:00 GMT). Register.
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Webinar: “Is it possible to decolonize Anthropology?”
Discussants: Kamari Maxine Clarke (University of Toronto); Ryan Cecil Jobson (University of Chicago)
Join this Theory from the Margins webinar, for a panel discussion on the politics of racial justice, climate justice, ethical codes and publics of anthropology, and the possibility of decolonisation in the discipline. TfM will be in conversation with Prof. M. Kamari Clarke and Ryan Cecil Jobson.
January 28, 16.00-17.30 CET. Info.
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Lecture: “Imperial Entanglements: Rethinking Modernity with and beyond Zygmunt Bauman”
Presenter: Shalini Randeria (Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna; Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies, Geneva)
Engaging critically with Zygmunt Bauman’s contribution to our understanding of modernity, which played an important role in shifting the debate beyond the teleology of unilinear modernisation, this lecture addresses the Eurocentrism that characterises not only classical but also contemporary sociological theorisations of modernity, including that of Bauman. It will examine some recent alternative theorisations in terms of plural, regional or vernacular modernities. In a postcolonial perspective, it will be argued that only a consideration of imperial spatial and temporal entanglements allows us to grasp modernity as relational in the past and in the present. It illustrates these using ethnographic material from my own field research in India on legal entanglements.
Anyone interested in attending should register by writing to baumaninstitute@leeds.ac.uk to receive the links for any/all of the Post-Colonial Bauman talks.
January 28, 4:00pm – 6:00pm (Western European Time). Info.
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Lecture: “Malinowski: Anthropology, De-Colonialism, and Race”
Speakers: Vicky Barnecutt (British Library, True Echoes project); Dr Freddy Foks (Cambridge, King’s College); Emma Pizarro (LSE Library)
A century after the publication of Argonauts of the Western Pacific, this panel recontextualises Malinowski in the context of colonialism.
The London School of Economics and Political Science Library
January 28, 8:00 am – 9:00 am (Eastern Time, US and Canada). Register.
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Lecture: “Hydrofictions: Water, Power, and Politics in Israeli and Palestinian Literature”
Speaker: Dr. Hannah Boast (University College Dublin)
Water in Israel/Palestine is a major topic of political debate, but how has it been understood in Israeli and Palestinian literature and culture? This talk outlines different approaches that contemporary Israeli and Palestinian authors have taken to the issue of water, from the draining of the swamps in the early years of Zionist settlement to the contamination of the River Jordan in the present day. In doing so, it introduces methods for reading the resource of water in literature, shows the contribution of literary studies to wider hydropolitical discourse, and foregrounds Israeli and Palestinian literature as neglected but crucial areas for the Environmental Humanities.
The Environmental Humanities Network in the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto
January 29, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm (Eastern Time, US and Canada). Register.
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Lecture: “Bauman’s Analysis of European Modernity, its Local and Remote Others, and the Colonial Imprint of the Christian Imaginary”
Professor Griselda Pollock (University of Leeds)
Co-introduced by Prof. Janet Wolff (University of Manchester) and Prof. Max Silverman (University of Leeds)
With the currency of intersectionality in feminist theory, the widespread demand for decolonisation of knowledge and the urgencies of the Black Lives Matter movement, I propose to examine if and how Zygmunt Bauman’s reflections on Christian Europe’s modernity and its local Others have a place in our considerations of postcolonial critique. European colonialism evangelised for a Christianity enacting domination and economic exploitation in its name. This lecture locates Bauman’s indirect relation to Modern Jewish Studies as a site for discovering a postcolonial Bauman, drawing on several specific examples from art/film created in response to traumatic events of the twentieth century.
Anyone interested in attending should register by writing to baumaninstitute@leeds.ac.uk to receive the links for any/all of the Post-Colonial Bauman talks.
January 29, 4:00pm – 6:00pm (Western European Time). Info.
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Seminar: “Introduction to Adorno and Identity: Adorno, Du Bois, and negative identity “
Jonathon Catlin (Princeton), Eric Oberle (Arizona State), and Fumi Okiji (Berkeley)
The first of a series of virtual seminars focusing on “Adorno and Identity,” convened by Jonathon Catlin, Eric Oberle, and Fumi Okiji. Meetings will take place on Zoom every other Friday over the course of the spring 2021 semester, beginning January 29 (1–3pm US EST). Each session will consist of two parts: three presentations of roughly 15 minutes each, followed by an hour of discussion amongst participants and the public audience. An open Zoom link (no registration required) and outlines of the presentations will be posted on the official website prior to the first session.
The seminars are supported by Princeton University’s Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities (IHUM).
January 29, 01:00pm – 3:00pm (Eastern Time, US and Canada). Register.
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Seminar: “Vico’s Poetic Wisdom: Lessons For The Contemporary World”
A Two-Day Virtual Seminar with Giulio Gora (Università Vita Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy)
January 29, 3:00-4:30 PM EST: Vico, Poetic Logic, and Metaphor
Respondent: Alexander Bertland (Niagara University, USA)
February 5, 3:00-4:30 PM EST: Vico and the Origin of History
Respondent: Antonio Calcagno (King’s University College at Western University, Canada)
Organized by: Theorizing Italy, a CNYHC Working Group; Coordinator: Silvia Benso, Rochester Institute of Technology.
Register here.
Featured Image: Anders Zorn, 1887. Emma Zorn, Lasande. Zorn Collections, Mora, Sweden.
