CfP: Sixth Annual Conference on the History of Recent Social Science (HISRESS)
*Freie Universität Berlin, Germany*
*June 13-14, 2019*
This two-day conference of the Society for the History of Recent Social Science (HISRESS; http://hisress.org)
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. While large parts of history of social
science scholarship still focus on the
19th and early 20th centuries and are attuned to the histories of
individual disciplines, there is also a larger interest now in the
developments spanning the social sciences in the early, late, and
post-Cold War periods. Though each of the major social science
fields 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 fruitful
cross-disciplinary conversations of recent years.
Submissions are welcome in areas including, but not restricted to
* The interchange of social science concepts and figures among the academy and wider intellectual and popular spheres
* 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 two-day conference 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 8, 2019. Final notification will be given in early
March 2019 after proposals have been reviewed.
Completed papers will be expected by May 14, 2019.
The organizing committee consists of Jamie Cohen-Cole
(George Washington University), Philippe Fontaine (École normale
supérieure de Cachan), Jeff Pooley (Muhlenberg College), and Susanne
Schmidt (Freie Universität Berlin).
All proposals and requests for information should be sent to: hisress2019@gmail.com.