Current Series–2019-20

The Theory and Practice of History at Wesleyan University provides information about a seminar series, talks, and other local endeavors connected to the theory and philosophy of history as well as issues of historiography and its history, including the methodology, style, and form of historical research and writing. Its aim is to stimulate reflection on these subjects within the university and the region and to help to channel and accelerate wider discussion of these topics.

First, however, it is the home of the Wesleyan Seminar on the Theory and Practice of History, supported by Wesleyan’s Center for the Humanities and the Department of History.

The 2019-20 seminar series will meet four times across the year, usually on Thursdays, and will feature an exciting international and interdisciplinary line up of scholars.

For further information or a copy of the papers once they become available, contact Gary Shaw at gshaw@wesleyan.edu. Here are the dates and current topics. Seminars will be in Boger Hall.

Starting time for all sessions is 4:30.

  • November 14: Stefka Eriksen, Norwegian Institute of Cultural Heritage, “The Archaeology and Allegory of the Settlement of Iceland: Reflections on the Theory and Method of Interdisciplinary Environmental History.”  Boger Hall 115
  • February 6:  Heather Keenleyside, University of Chicago: “The Literary History of the History of Ideas,”  Boger Hall 113
  • March 5: Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen, University of Oulu, How to Get it Wrong: Historiography, Normativity and the Holocaust Debate,”  Boger Hall 113
  • March 26: Achim Landwehr, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Dusseldorf, “Heiner – Hamlet – Hans. Chronoferences and the Power of ghosts,”  Boger Hall 113