CfP: Ecosystems of the Mind: Resources for Reconstructing Early Modern Intellectual Life

In recent decades, the discipline of intellectual history has increasingly turned its focus from abstractions—a much-maligned “history of ideas” model—toward more concrete approaches to understanding conceptual change over time. Historians now analyze how early modern actors developed and deployed their ideas at an astonishing level of granularity, with an abundance of theoretical, methodological, and empirical resources at their disposal. The very richness and diversity of newer scholarship, though, points to the need for retrospection and assessment. This conference provides an opportunity for exchange and reflection among scholars whose work relates to this vein of intellectual history.

Ecosystems of the Mind: Resources for Reconstructing Early Modern Intellectual Life

Date: 21–23 May 2026
Submission Deadline: 1 December 2025

In recent decades, the discipline of intellectual history has increasingly turned its focus from abstractions—a much-maligned “history of ideas” model—toward more concrete approaches to understanding conceptual change over time. This trend has developed thanks to a number of factors, including cross-fertilization with the history of science, the emergence and increasing prominence of practice-oriented historiographical currents such as the history of the book, of scholarship, and of knowledge, and interdisciplinary collaborations with similar trends in literature, art history, and further disciplines. Historians now analyze how early modern actors developed and deployed their ideas at an astonishing level of granularity, with an abundance of theoretical, methodological, and empirical resources at their disposal. The life of the early modern mind has never been so vividly portrayed, in all its contours and complexity.

The very richness and diversity of newer scholarship, though, points to the need for retrospection and assessment, particularly because most monographs and journal articles focus on individual cases and shy away from explicit methodological statements. Such a process of reflection should both take the measure of what has been achieved thus far and provide something of a methodological map, giving younger as well as more advanced researchers a toolbox for analyzing early modern intellectual life. What does “intellectual culture”—to take the now-standard term for the object of rooted intellectual history—actually refer to, and what are the various empirical and theoretical bases upon which it can be reconstructed?

This conference provides an opportunity for exchange and reflection among scholars whose work relates to this vein of intellectual history. As an initial stimulus, I put forward the metaphor of an “ecosystem” to capture the complexity of intellectual culture. Such a term suggests not only the embodied character of human knowing but also that it takes place within a web of material and immaterial relationships. Human knowledge comes about through specific systems of media and particular material environments, molded by institutional, political, and linguistic structures, expressed through cultural practices shared within communities on multiple scales. Even the abstract relationships among conceptual constructs—here one might think of disciplinary boundaries, never precisely equivalent to their institutional manifestations—provide a context for human thought in many ways no less real than physical relationships.

This framing intends to provide the broadest possible umbrella for considerations such as:
- The role of material culture and visual/artistic elements in shaping intellectual life
- Early modern media systems and intermediality as contexts for intellectual change over time; orality as a medium of knowing
- Knowledge practices and communities of practice; relations among degrees of “elite” and “popular” knowledge
- The role of “charisma,” intangible qualities, and interpersonal relationships in shaping intellectual community
- Consequences, implications, and dynamics of conceptual/theoretical structures
- Shifting scales of analysis, both in relating micro and global perspectives and in looking beyond Western Europe
- Quantitative and Digital Humanities insights into the character of early modern intellectual culture

If you are interested in presenting a paper, please send a 400-word abstract and CV to tomas.valle@uni-hamburg.de by 1 December 2025. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 15 December 2025. Please send any questions to the same address.

In the presentations, the emphasis will lie on methodological innovation and exchange: presenters may decide how empirical and case-based vs. theoretical they wish to make their paper, but are requested to spend some portion of their time explicitly reflecting on methodology—i.e., how others may usefully draw from their approach. Though presenters are welcome to address the “ecosystem” metaphor or to place their approach and findings in connection with it, they are not required to do so or to frame their presentation in such terms.

Presentations are planned to last thirty minutes, with another thirty minutes for questions and discussion. A separate time for collective discussion and assessment is also planned for each full day of the conference. Because of the conference’s focus on intellectual exchange, presence during its full duration is expected (though exceptions can be made). Reimbursement is planned for the cost of travel and accommodation.