The history of experiences is a burgeoning, interdisciplinary field of study that sets out to comprehend the manifold roles and meanings of experience in history. It charts the dynamic interplay between the individual, community, and society at large. The history of experiences reconsiders how experience is defined and used as a key element of historiographical practice. Historians of experience highlight the generative role of experience in shaping history and its vital importance to any comprehensive historical analysis. Rather than as an isolated, extraneous facet of historical study, experience is most fruitfully studied as situated within social structures and institutions, with which it is in constant interaction. Experience is deeply intertwined with the fabric of culture, and understanding cultural change requires examining experience within its context. Historians of experience constantly develop the approaches and concepts central to their field. They interrogate the specificities of their domain and self-reflectively ask how it is situated in the wider historiographical context. New sources help unravel the multilayered historicity of experience.
Within this framework, the seventh annual HEX Conference will reassess the premises on which this field rests and consider what historicizing experience entails. How is experience produced, and why is it crucial to understand it as a historical process?
We invite proposals for papers and panels that span a range of periods, methodologies, and disciplines with only one, all-encompassing methodical goal in mind: historicizing experiences. By encouraging diverse contributions, we aim to create a forum that engages in discussion about the state of the field through conceptual case studies and more theoretically oriented reflections.
Possible themes include but are not limited to:
- The contributions of the history of experiences to the discipline of history and other scientific fields.
- Historiography of the history of experiences.
- Problematizing the history of experiences.
- Novel theoretical and conceptual approaches to the history of experiences.
- Methodologies in the history of experiences.
- New sources for the history of experiences.
- Institutionalization of experiences.
- Intersectional perspectives on historical experience.
- Temporality and memory in experience.
- Collective experiences in history.
- Longue durée studies, case studies, and comparative studies.
- Lived experiences of religion, nations and nationalism, and the welfare state.
Panel Proposals and Individual Paper Proposals
We encourage proposals for coherent panels and individual papers from all scholars who examine historical experiences in any time period or geographical context. Panel proposals should consist of 3 to 4 papers. The conference broadly considers the history of experiences, but the organizers encourage scholars to focus rigorously on the central questions, theoretically oriented approaches, and novel methods and sources pertaining to the history of experiences. As a tribute to the three thematic teams at HEX, we also encourage scholars with an interest in the history of experiences of religion, nations and nationalism, and the welfare state to submit proposals.
Please submit your proposal by 29 November 2024 via this link: https://www.lyyti.in/hex2025callforpapers according to the following instructions. All proposals MUST address the concept of experience. The conference will take place in person only.
- For complete panels, send a joint 400-word abstract, together with brief bios and paper titles for each proposed speaker.
- For individual papers, send a 250-word abstract together with a brief bio.
For questions and more information, please write to hexconference@tuni.fi.
Conference official website: https://events.tuni.fi/historyofexperience/
Digital Handbook of the History of Experience: https://sites.tuni.fi/hexhandbook/