VIIth International Conference of the History of Concepts

Transatlantic Dialogues

July 6-9, 2004, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Call for papers

Since its foundation in 1998, the History of Political and Social Concepts Group (HPSCG) has succeeded in becoming a major agent in the dissemination of conceptual history as an approach to the study of political and social thought. A great portion of this success is due to the annual conferences promoted by the HPSCG in conjunction with local institutions in several countries. The itinerant aspect of the annual conferences has contributed not only to presenting conceptual history to new audiences but also to opening new debates about the discipline, both substantive and methodological, and to establishing conversations among different ways to study political thought in historical perspective. By focusing on the theme “Transatlantic Dialogues”, the VII^th International Conference of the History of Concepts aims at furthering this agenda.

The idea behind the core theme is to encourage a reflection about the circulation of concepts between Europe and the New World. An extensive historiographical work about the reception of European thought in the New World was produced on both sides of the Atlantic and some important contributions that deal with the impact of the New World encounters in European thought have recently been made. However, conceptual historians have mostly worked in national projects, and, as a result, have paid small attention to this promising subject. Thus, the VII^th International Conference of the History of Concepts intends to contribute to enlarging the substantive scope of the discipline by attracting conceptual historians to this topic and also by bringing historians of other denominations closer to conceptual history.

The VII^th International Conference of the History of Concepts is being organized together with Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro (IUPERJ).

The conference organizing committee is accepting paper proposals for the following thematic panels:

1. o The New World in Europe

2. o Europe in the New World

3. o The Concept of Civilization

4. o The Concept of Citizenship

5. o The Concept of Nationalism

6. o The Concept of Liberalism

7. o Transatlantic Encounters and Conceptual Change

• Paper proposals must include the following items:

1. o An abstract clearly stating the aims, methodology and substantive claims of the proposed work. The abstract’s length must not exceed 500 words.

2. o The author’s or authors’ updated curriculum vitae, which must include institutional affiliation and recent publications.

• Paper proposals can be sent either by e-mail or regular mail to;

VII^th International Conference of the History of Concepts IUPERJ Rua da Matriz, 82 - Botafogo 22260-100 - Rio de Janeiro - RJ (021) 2537-8020 Fax: (021) 2286-7146