The annual conference of the History of Concepts Group is held at the University of Helsinki, 19-21 August 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conference of the History of Concepts Group<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Conceptual history studies the use of concepts and tries to understand how historical actors have linguistically articulated views of the world. Studying concepts from such a contextual perspective builds on the notion that linguistic articulation of ideas contain disagreements and that changes in concepts both mirror and produce historical change. In doing so, conceptual history has, over the past half-century, provided a historically grounded critical perspective on a wide range of debates, both past and present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the years, conceptual history has engaged in continuous dialogue with major developments across the human and social sciences and has in itself gone through a number of innovations. Most notably, conceptual history has<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1) expanded its scope to the study of concepts beyond political and social concepts into law, the arts, emotions, psychology, the natural sciences and more<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2) moved beyond the nation state as a self-evident context for studying concepts historically thus taking on transnational and postcolonial perspectives<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3) embraced the use of digitized materials to analyze quantitative trends in language side-by-side with contextual reading of individual texts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taking cue from these developments, we invite all interested scholars of all stages in their careers, to the annual HCG Conference in Helsinki, for a discussion of past present and future directions of conceptual history. We welcome panel and paper proposals that engage in<\/p>\n\n\n\n – case studies of the use of particular concepts, words and expressions in historical contexts<\/p>\n\n\n\n – the theory and method of conceptual history, how it relates to other theoretical debates, and the history of the dialogue between neighboring schools of thought<\/p>\n\n\n\n – comparative, transnational, entangled or global conceptual history and the theoretical discussions spurred by these approaches<\/p>\n\n\n\n – broadening the scope of conceptual history by deploying its methodological and theoretical insights to new materials and topics<\/p>\n\n\n\n – digital or quantitative methods to produce empirical studies in conceptual history<\/p>\n\n\n\n – discussing new algorithmic or count-based digital methods and the theoretical implications that the use of those methods may have for conceptual history<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, this year\u2019s conference is sponsored by the research projects \u201cNeoliberalization of Nordic Democracy?\u201d, \u201cPolitical Temporalities: Narrating Continuity and Change in the Finnish Parliament from the Cold War to Covid-19\u201d and \u201cThe Struggle over Human Rights in Finland 1945\u20132020\u201d. We therefore especially welcome papers that<\/p>\n\n\n\n – address the history of the concepts relevant to neoliberalism and\/or democracy<\/p>\n\n\n\n – intervene in the discussion of temporalization in political language<\/p>\n\n\n\n – study the history of concepts related to human rights<\/p>\n\n\n\n The conference is jointly hosted by the Helsinki Centre for Intellectual History, the Centre for Nordic Studies and the Department of Political History at the University of Helsinki.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Proposals should be sent to the conference organizing committee through this. All proposals should include names, contact details and affiliations of all participants who plan to attend the conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We accept proposals for<\/p>\n\n\n\n – individual papers (please include an abstract of max 250 words).<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Panels of four papers or three papers and one commentator. For panels, please submit a proposal separately for each paper, but tick the box that your submission belongs to a panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Doctoral students have the possibility to attend the \u201cIntroduction to Conceptual History\u201d summer school (17\u201328 August), which includes the conference. For more information about the summer school, click . If you apply to the summer school, you do not have to apply to the conference separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The conference will be held 19-21 August 2026 at the University of Helsinki Main building (Fabianinkatu 33).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Submission deadline:<\/strong> 30 April 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Accepted participants will be notified by 7 May 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Papers must be presented in English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Participation with individual papers or panels requires an active membership in the History of Concepts Group. The membership fee includes a one-year subscription to our journal, Contributions to the History of Concepts. Membership rates come in three varieties: Sustaining Members: $150\/ Regular Members: $100\/ Concessionary Members (Students \/ Emerging Scholars \/ Emeritus): $40. For more membership information, please see Berghahn Journals: <access.berghahnjournals.com\/subscribe\/product-category\/individual\/membership\/<\/a>><\/p>\n\n\n\n Conference participants are asked to pay a conference fee of 60 euro to cover coffee and lunch at the conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Organization committee<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prof. Johan Strang<\/p>\n\n\n\n University lecturer Jani Marjanen<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Elina Hakoniemi<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Martin Pettersson<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Olli Castr\u00e9n<\/p>\n\n\n\n For queries about the conference, please contact olli.castren@helsinki.fi<\/a>. In your query, please include HCG2026 in the title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contact<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n olli.castren@helsinki.fi<\/a>\u00a0 Conference of the History of Concepts Group<\/em>, in: H-Soz-Kult, 25.03.2026,\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.hsozkult.de\/event\/id\/event-161344<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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