The European Society for the History of the Human Sciences (ESHHS) invites
submissions to its 45th conference to be held from June 30th to July 3rd, 2026.
The conference will be hosted by Sigmund Freud Private University, Vienna, and
will be held in person only.
We invite proposals for oral presentations, posters, symposia or workshops that
deal with any aspect of the history of the human, behavioural and social sciences
or with related historiographic or methodological issues. This year’s conference
particularly encourages submissions related to the theme of archival work and
uses (see below). Naturally, all other topics are welcome as well.
Guidelines for submission
Any submission should include the following: name, email and institutional
affiliation of all authors. Please indicate clearly on the top of the page the
submission type: oral presentation, poster, session or workshop.
• Proposals for individual oral presentations should contain a 500-600 word
abstract in English plus a short bibliography. Accepted presentations will be
grouped by theme in 90 minutes sessions.
• Proposals for posters should contain a 300-word abstract in English and a short
bibliography.
• Proposals for workshops or round tables should contain a 500–600-word
rationale of the event, plus a short bibliography, as well as a short abstract for
each individual contribution to the event. These formats will be held in 90
minutes sessions.
Presentations can be given in a language other than English, yet, to reach the
widest audience possible, consider providing reading or visual materials in
English as well. If the presentation(s) will not be in English, please indicate this in
your proposal. Please send your proposal as an attachment in MSWord
(.doc/.docx) to eshhs2026@gmail.com
Deadline for submissions is March 1st, 2026.
Travel stipends
A limited number of travel stipends will be available for students, or scholars who
otherwise might require economic support. Only those presenting a paper
(including in an organized session) or poster are eligible. If you wish to apply for
a travel stipend, please indicate this clearly in your submission email.
What we do in the archives. Institutional organization and research practices in the History of Human Sciences.
Archives are undoubtedly central in any historical research, as they constitute the
evidence with which reconstructions and interpretations are made. As such,
discussions about the notion of “the archive” and the examination of sources have
been constant in the discipline of History. These discussions have been typically
renewed by successive historiographical outlooks, the release or finding of new
documents or collections, or conceptual debates such as what can be considered
as a source or the uses of memory in the public space (i.e. Osborne, 1999;
Brockmeier, 2010). Moreover, the issue of the archive has exceeded the realm of
the discipline of History into other humanities (i.e. Derrida,1996; Eichhorn,
2013). There is a profuse literature about this (i.e. Foucault, 1972; Caimari, 2017)
and it will remain as a constant topic of reflexion inasmuch as historical studies
seek for renovation.
Despite this, there are some aspects about this subject that have been less
considered overall, especially when the history of the human sciences is being
researched within the epistemic and training boundaries of a particular
discipline. The focus of this year’s theme is not so much about the “the archive” as
a conceptual synthesis of the range of documentation considered for a specific
research, nor the proposition of a new “archival turn”, but about the concrete
archives, as institutions which gather and classify many types of documents for
several purposes, and the actual uses researchers make of them. The aim is to
thematize what relation historians have with the institutional archives, how much
we know about their organization and in which way we participate of that, which
materials we use to train new researchers, how archives change with new
technology and how that impacts historical research, or what kind of documents
we consider and interpret depending on the available resources of said archives.
In sum, how familiar we are with the functioning of existing archival institutions
and what interactions we have with their authorities and staff.
Whis this in mind, the theme of this meeting tries to promote reflection on
questions such as: How the organization of archives determine the results of
research? How historians mediate between archives and lay people? How do
historians get to know where sources are? In which ways archivists and historians
can build a productive exchange? Which are the current archival policies towards
documentation preservation, access and exchange? How to tackle the pressing
issue of digital sources of the XXI Century? Which are the structural and
contingent limitations of archives? How archives should be organized and used
so as to mitigate or avoid localisms, ethnocentrisms or dogmatisms? Surely, the
participants of the event can come up with many other inquiries or approaches to
this topic, whether directed towards these specific points, or as an added
reflection in their specific research.
Find the CfP in PDF format here.