Call for Papers

GRACEH 2007

New Histories of Politics - Topics, Theories, and Methods in the History of Politics beyond Great Events and Great Men

a conference at Central European University (Budapest)
18-20 May 2007


In recent decades, we have been witnessing a proliferation of various novel and fruitful approaches to the history of politics. Such fresh, interdisciplinary historical studies are to be explored at this conference; theoretically, methodologically as well as topically. While aiming to achieve this triple goal, the conference could also serve as a forum for established scholars and younger researchers to communicate across borders, which is an issue of outstanding importance in writing European history. Organizing a four-day international conference on the new histories of politics with such aims is timely, since in spite of the evident re-emergence of interest in political histories (after its “dethronement” in the decades of the mid-20th century), reassessments of political history’s place and new definitions of its role for the early 21st century have not been consequently provided due to the lack of overviews. It might even be argued that the current reputation of political history is still suffering from the survival of outdated perceptions. Our ambition is to contribute to the reassessment and, where needed, improvement of this reputation by enabling widespread common reflection on the current state of the art within the frame of this conference, and to focus attention on new, applicable tools for the research of European history that would make possible a more sophisticated understanding of the varieties and unities of the continent’s political developments.

In order to foster mutual reflection on the current state of the novel, interdisciplinary histories of politics, and encourage a wide range of comments on each other’s work and ideas, panels shall not be organized around chronological or regional principles, but rather according to theoretical and methodological ones. Presenters shall be assigned to one of the approximately twenty panels addressing the following four major, broad research areas where the new histories of politics are especially fruitful and important, namely

For each of these broad themes, widely respected scholars of European history are to be invited, to give keynote addresses and serve as commentators at panels.