The Helsinki Centre for Intellectual History seminar convenes for the second time under the heading "Isms in Historiography and the History of Isms", Unioninkatu 38, lecture room A 205, 5 September 2018, 4–6 pm. Welcome!
Isms in Historiography and the History of Isms
Helsinki Centre for Intellectual History Seminar
Unioninkatu 38, lecture room A 205
5 September 2018, 4–6 pm
Papers by Cesare Cuttica, Jussi Kurunmäki and Jani Marjanen
Chaired by Ainur Elmgren
It is difficult to imagine a conversation about politics without words such as feminism, socialism or liberalism. And similarly it is hard to think about a historical analysis without words such as feudalism, absolutism or modernism. Isms are omnipresent as political keywords and as analytical terms in historiography. As such, they are often criticized for being imprecise or even harmful. Can complex historical phenomenon be captured be reducing them to single isms, someone may ask? Or, are isms not grounded in ideologically biased views that hinder fruitful debate? Despite recurring criticisms of them, isms tend to continuously proliferate by entering new spheres of life. This seminar session seeks to discuss isms from two perspectives. First, it touches upon the history of isms by discussing the introduction and struggle over ism words and their meaning from the sixteenth-century to the present. Second, it discusses the applicability of isms as analytical categories in the study of history, even when used for periods that did not possess the word.
The presentations are based on the following articles that are also distributed to participants:
- Cesare. Cuttica, ‘To Use or Not to Use. . . The Intellectual Historian and the Isms: A Survey and a Proposal,’ Études Épistémès 23 (2013), http://episteme.revues.org/268
- Jussi Kurunmäki & Jani Marjanen, ‘A Rhetorical View of Isms: An Introduction’, Journal of Political Ideologies 23 (2018:3) (forthcoming). For the paper please send e-mail to jani.marjanenAThelsinki.fi.
- Jussi Kurunmäki & Jani Marjanen, ‘Isms, Ideologies and Setting the Agenda for Public Debate’, Journal of Political Ideologies 23 (2018:3) (forthcoming). For the paper please send e-mail to jani.marjanenAThelsinki.fi