The issue brings together an exceptionally rich collection of papers.

Hilary Gatti examines the divisions of knowledge in the European Renaissance and the earliest distinction between “the sciences” and “the humanities.”

Teddy Delwiche sheds light on the largely untold yet deeply compelling Indigenous history of classical learning in early America.

Ayaz Asadov highlights key aspects of late seventeenth-century Ottoman debates on what it meant to be a scholar, drawing on four major educational texts from the period.

Katherine Arens examines two central figures in the formation of formalist art history as a modern discipline, Riegl and Wölfflin.

Edgar Lejeune investigates how the datafication of historical sources has reshaped the historian’s craft, offering a case study in the history of digital history.

And Gregory Jones-Katz analyzes the concept of “theory” in Diacritics and Critical Inquiry, journals that played a pivotal role in shaping what came to be known as “Continental philosophy.”

The issue concludes with reviews of books by Ada Palmer, Andrew Hui, Valeria López Fadul and Felix Schlichter.

For the full issue: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/hoh/2025/10/2. Enjoy!

On December 5th 2025, the Society for the History of the Humanities is hosting a digital symposium and round table discussion on the global state of the history of the humanities. For the digital event, we have invited speakers from all over the world to give their view on the history (and current state) of the study of literary, historical, cultural, philosophical or linguistic forms of knowledge.

Time: Dec 5 at 3:00-5:45 pm (CET)

Place: online
Join Zoom Meeting
https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/69845211292

Updated schedule:

3pm Introduction Rens & Isak

3.10 Fenrong Liu (Tsinghua University): Chinese perspective

3.20 Zehra Tonbul (Özyeğin University): Ottoman perspective

Q&A Session 1 (10-15 minutes)

3.45 Naomi Nkealah (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg): African perspective

3.55 Ignacio Sánchez Prado (Washington University in St. Louis): North American perspective from Mexico

4:05 Q&A Session 2 (10-15 minutes)

(Short break)

4.25 Adam Kola (Nicolaus Copernicus University): Central European perspective

4:35 Irina Podgorny (U. La Plata): South American perspective

4.45 Kamelia Spassova (Sofia University): East European perspective

Q&A Session 3 (20-30 minutes)

5.10 Concluding remarks

Our hope with this digital event is to expand the reach of the history of the humanities as a research field and engage new scholars to questions we believe are globally relevant.

The digital event will be open to all and free to attend. After a round of overviews from prominent scholars, we will moderate a joint discussion and also invite the audience to ask questions.

In 2026, the twelfth Making of the Humanities conference will be hosted by Nicolaus Copernicus University, in Torun, Poland, October 7-9, 2026.

Under the title “The Structure of Humanistic Revolutions,” this conference will seek to critically explore the transformations that have shaped the history of the humanities. Drawing inspiration from Thomas Kuhn’s seminal work “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” we will engage in a reflective analysis of how “revolutions” within humanistic disciplines have been conceptualized, contested, and institutionalized over time.

Please note that although we invite submissions that explore this theme, we remain open to abstracts addressing other subjects as well.

Deadline for all submissions: April 19, 2026.
Notification of acceptance: June 1, 2026.

More information about submitting abstracts and panels is available at the conference webpage: https://mohxii.umk.pl/pages/home/

Our celebratory issue of History of Humanities is out! We celebrate 10 years of our journal by highlighting the remarkable development of a field that, just over a decade ago, was barely recognized as a distinct academic discipline. Today, the history of the humanities occupies a recognized space within academia and has become a thriving, global field of study.

We are keenly aware that we celebrate this milestone at a time when the world is facing a variety of societal, political and ecological crises. Negative trends in the academic world to which the humanities are especially vulnerable continue to be a threat to our emergent field. Yet, the resilience of our scholarly community and the growing recognition of the value of our field give us confidence that History of Humanities will continue to thrive and expand.

If the history of the humanities has revealed anything, it is our shared commitment to humanistic values. As humanists, we must remain connected, drawing inspiration from the Republic of Letters, a tradition that dates back to the time of Isotta Nogarola and Desiderius Erasmus. Even when nations were at war and mutual hatred ran deep, humanists continued to write to one another and extend intellectual hospitality. Let us uphold that legacy—and perhaps even find some solace in it!

Read our celebratory issue here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/hoh/2025/10/1. It contains two Themes: “Race” in Cultural Knowledge Production and Papers from the MOH X Conference!