CALL FOR PITCHES
Historians’ Days/Historicidagen August 2024
Undisciplined Cultural History
From 22 to 24 August (Thu-Sat) 2024, the Royal Netherlands Historical Society (KNHG) organizes the Historians’ Days (in Dutch: Historicidagen) in cooperation with Maastricht University, Open University, and Fontys University of Applied Sciences. The event targets a broad group of professional historians, including but certainly not limited to academics. The theme of this year’s edition of the Historians’ Days is “Undisciplined History.” The organization invites participants to do history differently by breaking with the traditional conventions of historiography and thinking outside the box, not just concerning subject matter, but also methodology and presentation. (For more information, see the official Historians’ Days website.)
The Huizinga Instituut prides itself on bringing together early career scholars (RMA students and PhD candidates) who come from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines and yet all represent the field of cultural history. The Huizinga Instituut would like to showcase this diversity in a panel on Saturday morning, 24 August 2024, giving RMA and PhD members of the Huizinga Instituut the opportunity to demonstrate their ways of interrogating or breaking conventions and thinking outside the box. This will furthermore be the basis for reflection on what these “undisciplined” ways of doing cultural history can or cannot teach us.
We therefore invite our RMA and PhD members to submit a short proposal for a pitch of about 10 minutes in which they demonstrate their “undisciplined” ways of doing history: what do you do with your research (or your broader cultural historical interests) that moves beyond the standard academic output of essays, (conference) papers, articles, and PhD/MA theses?
Since the theme is “undisciplined,” there is no limit to what you may present. Do you, for example, cook historical meals or try your luck at alchemy or magic spells; use your historical research as the basis for creative endeavours such as writing fiction, painting, drawing, making music, or dancing; reenact historical events or practices, or take part in live action role-playing; turn your historical findings into activities for the broader public to enjoy, such as a historical treasure hunt or guided tour; or do you have any other “undisciplined” ways of engaging with (cultural) history?
Your pitches ideally provoke questions about how we can make doing cultural history more exciting and in which ways. What do we gain or lose by “disciplining” our historical findings with academic jargon? How can we actively engage a broader audience in conducting and presenting our research? And with which traditions must we break to make cultural historical research even more exciting and relevant?
Please email a short proposal of max. 1 page to huizinga@uu.nl before Thursday 20 June 2024. Describe what you want to do and how. Proposals and presentations can be in either Dutch or English. You are free to choose a format that suits your presentation. Actively engaging with the audience is allowed but not mandatory. If you have any questions, you can reach out to the coordinators of this event: Jan Hein Furnée (janhein.furnee@ru.nl) and/or Tommie van Wanrooij (t.van.wanrooij@hum.leidenuniv.nl).