Print

Print


Call for Papers: FOURTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON THE HISTORY OF RECENT
SOCIAL SCIENCE

Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

June 9-10, 2017

This two-day conference of the Society for the History of Recent Social
Science (HISRESS) will bring together researchers working on the history
of post-World War II social science. It will provide a forum for the
latest research on the cross-disciplinary history of the post-war social
sciences, including but not limited to anthropology, economics,
psychology, political science, and sociology as well as related fields
like area studies, communication studies, history, international
relations, law and linguistics. We are especially eager to receive
submissions that treat themes, topics, and events that span the history
of individual disciplines.

The conference aims to build upon the recent emergence of work and
conversation on cross-disciplinary themes in the postwar history of the
social sciences. A number of monographs, edited collections, special
journal issues, and gatherings at the École normale supérieure de
Cachan, Duke University, Harvard University, the London School of
Economics, New York University, the University of Toronto and elsewhere
testify to a growing interest in the developments spanning the social
sciences in the early, late, and post-Cold War periods. Most history of
social science scholarship, however, remains focused on the 19th and
early 20th centuries, and attuned to the histories of individual
disciplines. Though each of the major social science fields now has a
community of disciplinary historians, research explicitly concerned with
cross-disciplinary topics remains comparatively rare. The purpose of the
conference is to further encourage the limited but fruitful cross-
disciplinary conversations of recent years.

Submissions are welcome in areas such as:

- The uptake of social science concepts and figures in wider
  intellectual and popular discourses
- Comparative institutional histories of departments and programs
- Border disputes and boundary work between disciplines as well as
  academic cultures
- Themes and concepts developed in the history and sociology of natural
  and physical science, reconceptualized for the social science context
- Professional and applied training programs and schools, and the quasi-
  disciplinary fields (like business administration) that typically
  housed them
- The role of social science in post-colonial state-building governance
- Social science adaptations to the changing media landscape
- The role and prominence of disciplinary memory in a comparative
  context

The two-day conference, hosted by the Erasmus Institute for Public
Knowledge in collaboration with the Erasmus School of History, Culture
and Communication and the Faculty of Social Sciences at Erasmus
University  Rotterdam, will be organized as a series of one-hour, single-
paper sessions attended by all participants. Ample time will be set
aside for intellectual exchange between presenters and attendees, as all
participants are expected to read pre-circulated papers in advance.
Proposals should contain no more than 1000 words, indicating the
originality of the paper. The deadline for receipt of abstracts is
February 3, 2017. Final notification will be given in early March 2017
after proposals have been reviewed. Completed papers will be expected by
May 15, 2017.

The organizing committee consists of

Jamie Cohen-Cole (George Washington University), Bregje van Eekelen
(executive organizer, Erasmus University Rotterdam), Philippe
Fontaine (École normale supérieure de Cachan), and Jeff Pooley
(Muhlenberg College)

All proposals and requests for information should be sent to:
[log in to unmask] For more information on the Society for the
History of Recent Social Science (HISRESS), see www.hisress.org