Coordinators

Worldwide, intellectual history is moving into new, exciting directions. Tapping into new source materials, covering longer stretches of time, de-centering Europe and the West, making comparisons and drawing connections on a global scale, as well as combining established and new (digital) methods. Early career as well as established experts are in search of new answers – and perhaps more importantly – new questions. There is currently no such research forum at Dutch universities and this research group intends to provide a venue for presenting and discussing frontline research.

We understand global intellectual history (1) in the basic sense that we do not exclude or privilege any geographical region or historical period; (2) to imply a self-reflexive and critical orientation to the historical rootedness of conceptual categories and intellectual traditions; and we believe (3) that global intellectual history should be concerned not only with connections, exchange, comparison, integration, interdependence and transfer, but also with conflict, disintegration, separation, resistance, boundaries and locality. While the history of political thought has traditionally been organised around a canon of Western (and largely male) authors, a global history of political thought must not only integrate different traditions of thinking about the political, but also open itself to approaches that borrow from disciplines such as anthropology, religious studies, literature, art history, among others.

In practical terms, the research group will

1. continue to run the well-established Global Intellectual History seminar series , founded at the UvA in 2014  and currently managed in collaboration with Utrecht and Groningen;
2. encourage informal reading workshops for members, to be held once or twice per semester;
3. provide support for an annual student and early career-led conference, designed to offer Master and PhD students in the field the opportunity to present their work-in-progress, network and gain experience in managing an academic workshop;
4. organise one annual lecture, possibly associated with a masterclass, delivered by a prominent scholar in the field.

Events

The seminars act as way of presenting and discussing state of the art research in the field of Global Political Thought, by experts on different geographical areas, both from inside and outside the UvA. Dissemination of global intellectual history research to staff and students in the Netherlands (the audience consists generally of 10-20 different participants, including ReMa and PhD students) is therefore one of its major aims.

The seminar series also provides an opportunity, next to the groups meetings outside the seminar series, to discuss larger themes in global political thought amongst the group members and other participants. We will develop this aspect of the seminar series further, by organising more round tables (see plans for 2026).    

Societal Impact

Although the focus of the group is primarily on broadening and intensifying academic, scholarly knowledge and discussion, many of our group members play an active role in public debate and the dissemination of academic output (see the Pure output of the group members). Additionally, some of the seminars take place in Spui25 for a more general audience.