‘The Making of the Humanities’ conference series goes to South Africa! The University of Cape Town will host the 8th conference in the series, from 21 till 23 November 2019, at the facilities of the Faculty of Humanities, Neville Alexander Building.
Goal of the Making of the Humanities (MoH) Conferences
The MoH conferences are organized by the Society for the History of the Humanities and bring together scholars and historians interested in the history of a wide variety of disciplines, including archaeology, art history, historiography, linguistics, literary studies, media studies, musicology, and philology, tracing these fields from their earliest developments to the modern day.
We welcome panels and papers on any period or region. We are especially interested in work that transcends the history of specific humanities disciplines by comparing scholarly practices across disciplines and civilisations.
This year there is a special conference theme. We encourage submissions that explore this theme, but remain fully open to submissions addressing other subjects too.
This year’s conference theme: Decentralizing the History of the Humanities
A growing body of scholarship is emerging that suggests that historiography of the humanities unnecessarily limits itself if it takes one knowledge center as its main focus. This year we especially value contributions that help to recognize a poly-centric perspective on the history of the humanities, for example through investigations that highlight the circulation of knowledge between multiple centers, or through the study of centers of humanistic scholarship in different parts of the world or also different periods of time.
Please note that the Making of the Humanities conferences are not concerned with the history of art, the history of music or the history of literature, and so on, but instead with the history of art history, the history of musicology, the history of literary studies, etc.
Keynote Speakers (third speaker will follow soon)
Elísio Macamo (University Of Basel)
Martin Scherzinger (New York University)
Paper Submissions
Abstracts of single papers (30 minutes including discussion) should contain the name of the speaker, full contact address (including email address), the title and a summary of the paper of maximally 250 words. For more information about submitting abstracts, see the submission page.
Deadline for abstracts: 31 July 2019
Notification of acceptance: End of August/Begin of September 2019
Panel Submissions
Panels last 1.5 to 2 hours and can consist of 3-4 papers and possibly a commentary on a coherent theme including discussion. Panel proposals should contain respectively the name of the chair, the names of the speakers and commentator, full contact addresses (including email addresses), the title of the panel, a short (150 words) description of the panel’s content and for each paper an abstract of maximally 250 words. For more information about submitting panels, see the submission page.
Deadline for panel proposals: 31 July 2019
Notification of acceptance: End of August/Begin of September 2019
Conference Fee
The exact conference fee will be determined later this spring and will be ca. $120 for regular participants and ca. $80 for PhD students. The fee includes access to all sessions, access to the welcoming reception, simple lunches and tea and/or coffee during the breaks.
There is a fee waiver for scholars from Africa and elsewhere in the South whose papers are accepted. Please note that we do not cover accommodation or flights.
Accommodation and Travel Information
Please open this document for information about accommodation and local traveling options.
MoH International Committee
Rens Bod (U. of Amsterdam), Shamil Jeppie (U. of Cape Town), Christopher Drew Armstrong (U. of Pittsburgh), Julia Kursell (U. of Amsterdam), Fenrong Liu (Tsinghua U.), Jaap Maat (U. of Amsterdam), Helen Small (U. of Oxford), Thijs Weststeijn (Utrecht U.)
