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 3:00-5:30 pm (CET)

Place: online (link to be provided at a later date)

Speakers include:

Zehra Tonbul (Özyeğin University): History of the humanities from an Ottoman perspective

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

Ignacio Sánchez Prado (Washington University in St. Louis): Central American perspective (TBC)

Adam Kola (Nicolaus Copernicus University): Central European perspective

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

Kamelia Spassova (Sofia University): East European perspective

Fenrong Liu (Tsinghua University): Chinese perspective

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 seeks 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!

The program for the upcoming workshop Comparing Comparing: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Comparative Methods and their Histories is now set. The workshop is open for all, free of charge. For more information, see the workshop webpage: https://www.grk-gegenwart.uni-bonn.de/de/veranstaltungen/veranstaltungsarchiv/workshops/workshop-comparing-comparing-interdisciplinary-perspectives-on-comparative-methods-and-their-histories-1

• 9 July, 18:00 c.t. – A public evening lecture by Prof. Benjamin Hutchinson (University of Kent), titled “Comparison and its Discontents”
• 10 July, approx. 10:00–18:00 – Workshop sessions with nine papers

Please register for the workshop in advance at grk2291@uni-bonn.de.