Conference : « Transnational Concepts, Transfers and the Challenge of the Peripheries ». The 10th Annual International Conference on Conceptual History. Istanbul, Turkey, August 30-September 2, 2007.Deadline : Monday 28th May, 2007.

Istanbul Technical University and the History of Political and Social Concepts Group (HPSCG) warmly welcome you to the 10th Annual International  Conference on Conceptual History. Since 1998 the HPSCG has been involved in organising annual conferences on conceptual history. In later years, the focus has been on the theoretical, methodological and empirical questions dealing with transfers, translations and re-interpretations of concepts in various parts of the world. This year's conference will continue on this path.

Processes of political and social transformation have always been a core interest of conceptual history, particularly those processes variably called modernization, westernization or civilization related to the establishment of social and political modernity. Conceptual historians have studied the key concepts that contributed to bring about social and political modernity.

At the 10th conference we intend to examine and question, the master narratives and the Western modernization canon that resulted from these processes. The creation of a canon of ideas, values and concepts included a division between centre and periphery. Centres became defined by possessing what was to be seen as the uniform way to modernity. Peripheries were seen as late-comers and receivers.

Master narratives and their conceptual frameworks were transferred from parts of Europe to other parts of Europe and to other regions in the world. They provided tools for local processes of transformations. The master narratives had an in-build demand for imitation and copying. But what actually happened in various places were translations, elaborations, adaptations and mergers into other cultural frameworks. Although transfers often took place under conditions of power and asymmetry, 'peripheries' were never passive receivers.

At the conference we will focus on the canonical and transnational key concepts that played a crucial role in the processes of democratization, nationalization, temporalization and secularization contributing to the establishment of social and political modernity in different parts of the world. We will discuss and compare the reception, translation and adaptation of concepts such as state, people, democracy, citizenship, nation, civilization, class and religion in different cultures. We will highlight the different modernist and anti-modernist strategies formed by the battles around the concepts. We will deal with the challenges that the peripheral elaborations have posed to the canon.

SESSION SUBJECTS

-Concepts of universality and transnationality. This panel investigates concepts used to characterize universal values and universal processes in different parts of the world. It will include the conceptualization of transfer processes. Among concepts to be discussed is civilization, cosmopolitanism, mankind and history.

-Imperial language. This panel will deal with conceptualization of imperial ruling, which includes the concept of empire itself. An emphasis will be put on the challenges to imperial ruling in the 19th and 20th century.

-Concepts in secularization processes. This panel will discuss the conceptualization of various forms of secularization processes including the concept of religion.

-Periphery and centre. This panel will look into different ways of conceptualizing asymmetrical relations between inside and outside.

-Modernizing concepts. This panel will deal with the import of central concepts in processes of modernization. The focus will be on the various interpretations and redescriptions of crucial concepts such as nation, liberalism, republicanism, democracy, civil society, public sphere and rule of law.

-Parliamentarism. This panel will investigate the conceptual build up of parliamentarism in various cultures.

-Conceptual transfers. This panel will deal with tracing transfers of basic political and social concepts in the 19th and 20th century.

-Methodological issues. In this panel we will discuss the theoretical and methodological questions that arise when moving the history of concepts from its national setting to dealing with transferences and transnational processes.

-Parliamentary Sources in Conceptual History. This session shall deal with the theoretical and methodological problems of analysing both the distinctive characteristics of parliamentary speaking as well as with the problems of intra- and inter-parliamentary comparison from the viewpoint of conceptual history. It will take up exemplary case studies on conceptual histories based on parliamentary sources, connecting the topic with theoretical and methodological problems. The analysis of parliamentary sources for the study of any conceptual changes is then one part of the panel. In addition, the discussion of the distinctive parliamentary vocabulary, including such as representation, mandate, deliberation, debate, discussion, negotiation, and even more technical terms such as plenum, committees, or the names of parliamentary functions and officials may contain interesting topics for conceptual history.

-The international reception of Reinhart Koselleck. This panel will focus on the international perception of Koselleck's work and investigate the ways in which theoretical premises, paradigms and specific works of Koselleck have come to influence historiograpic discussions in the last decades and how that impact has led to a new understanding of the relation between history and language.

For further details: http://www.itb.itu.edu.tr/anchorage/

Confirmed Participants include:

Key Note speakers:

Serif Mardin, (Sabanci University, Turkey)

Anthony Pagden (UCLA, U.S.A.)

Melvin Richter (Hunter's College, U.S.A)

Zafer Toprak (Bogaziçi University, Turkey)

Gürcan Koçan (ITU, Turkey)

Istar Gözaydin (ITU, Turkey)

Barry Socker (ITU, Turkey)

Stefo Benlisoy (ITU, Turkey)

Ahmet Öncü (Sabanci University, Turkey)

Nedim Nomer (Sabanci University, Turkey)

Simon Wigley (Bilkent University, Turkey)

Recep Sentürk (ISAM Turkey)

Jan Ifversen (Arhus University, Denmark)

Joao Feres (Instituto Universitãrio de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Kari Palonen (Jyvaskylan University, Finland)

Martin J. Burke (University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A)

Balázs Trencsényi (CEU Hungary)

Henrik Stenius (University of Helsinki, Finland)

Pim den Boer (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Sandro Chignola (Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy)

Javier Fernández Sebastián (Universidad del Pais Vasco)

Peter Burke (University of Cambridge, UK)

Patricia Springborg (University of Bolzano, Italy)

Willibald Steinmetz (University of Bielefeld, Germany)

Raymonde Monnier (Saint-Cloud, France),

Peter Hallberg (Stockholm University)

Jörn Leonhard (Universität Freiburg, Germany)

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION

The organising committee is now in the process of collecting abstracts. All participants interested in presenting a contribution are kindly asked tosubmit a one-page abstract to:

kocan@itu.edu.tr          kultji@hum.au.dk

IMPORTANT DATES

Closing date for receipt of abstracts: Monday 28th May, 2007

Notification of acceptance of abstracts: Friday 15th June, 2007

Full paper submission: Friday 13th August, 2007

CALL TO ORGANIZE SESSIONS

Submissions for applications to organize a session for the conference are also invited. Interested individuals/groups should submit expressions of interest which include a synopsis of no more than 200 words outlining the duration, title, aims, and content of the proposed session.

All proposals will be reviewed by the Organizing Committee. Presentations will be selected to provide a program that offers comprehensive and diverse treatment of issues relating to the conference theme.

Authors of accepted abstracts must register for the conference. Where an abstract is written by joint authors, at least one author is required to register.

Any questions or run into problems, send e-mail to:

kocan@itu.edu.tr or kultji@hum.au.dk

Gürcan Koçan

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences,

Faculty of Science and Letters,

Istanbul Technical University

34469 - Maslak, Istanbul, Turkey

E-mail: kocan@itu.edu.tr

Tel: +90 212 285 3295

Fax: +90 212 285 6622

Jan Ifversen

Institute of History and Area Studies

Aarhus University

Nrd. Ringgade 1

8000 Aarhus C Denmark

E-mail: kultji@hum.au.dk

Tel: + 45 89 42 64 92

Fax: + 45 89 42 20 47