Call for Papers

Is historical sociology relevant for understanding and addressing contemporary social problems?

Papers are invited for a major international conference in Prague on the theme of ‘Social figurations: long-term processes, present concerns and future directions’. This in-person conference is a joint venture between the Faculty of Humanities at Charles University, the Norbert Elias Foundation and ISA RC56: Historical Sociology.

Taking inspiration from Elias, the conference will centrally explore the extent to which an understanding of long-term processes can be useful for understanding and addressing pressing contemporary social problems and issues. These include those that relate to developments in gender relations, military conflicts, colonial processes, and the expansion of global capitalism, plus inter-related processes relating to environmental degradation, emerging technologies and artificial forms of ‘intelligence’, shifting challenges to law and juridical practices, the re-ascendancy of ethno-nationalism and the sociology of knowledge and religion.

The conference organisers would particularly like to encourage contributions that interweave theoretical and empirical insights, though will also consider more theoretically- or methodologically-focused papers. We invite papers on a breadth of topics, not restricted to those identified above, to allow for the development of emergent thematic congregations around which the final programme will be organised. Our ultimate aim is to explore the plurality of perspectives within historical sociology – featuring Eliasian work but also encompassing a range of other theoretical approaches – and to consider how figurational and processual scholarship had been adopted, adapted and might continue to mature in ways that are alive to contemporary developments without a ‘retreat’ to the present.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted to praguefigurationsconference@gmail.com by 30 August 2024.

Please include a maximum of five keywords and institutional affiliations.

Further information regarding conference venue, booking, etc. will follow shortly, with updates available from the Norbert Elias website: www.norbert-elias.com/news/