The Oxford Centre for Intellectual History Graduate Conference will take place on Thursday 5 June 2025. The conference will be run as a hybrid event, with the opportunity for all attendees to join us online or in person at Keble College, University of Oxford. This year’s theme is Anachronism and History. We are interested in receiving papers from current graduate students relating to contemporary discussions of anachronism and history in intellectual history and related disciplines. This event is an opportunity for graduate students to present their research and network with similar researchers at Oxford and other institutions. See below for more details
What is anachronism in history, and how is history being used anachronistically today? These questions are particularly pressing at a moment when historians are more frequently consulted on public issues than scholars from any other discipline. Anachronism in history raises complex questions about how people in the past thought, felt, and acted according to categories that—within their own contexts—may have seemed outdated or misplaced. The anachronistic use of history, however, is something different: it concerns how historical narratives are used in the present to legitimate or challenge authority, shape contemporary political life, and link societies to the past. What challenges does anachronism pose for intellectual historians? How should we approach these tensions methodologically? What are its ethical and epistemological implications? The 2025 Oxford Centre for Intellectual History Graduate Conference invites you to explore these questions. We welcome your own interpretation of anachronism—whether theoretical, methodological, or grounded in a specific historical case study—according to your research and perspective.
Our keynote address will be delivered by Dr Tania Shew the Isaiah Berlin Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford.
The Call for Papers is open until Sunday 20 April 2025: Submit an abstract:
forms.office.com/e/1mU8t2r4EV
If you wish to attend the conference please express interest here:
forms.office.com/e/6V3VKtmXzR
