Overview
The 26th International Conference on the History of Concepts
Images of Historical Times: Concepts, Metaphors, and Arts
October 27th-29th 2025, Bologna
The 26th International Conference of the History of Concepts Group (HCG) is scheduled to take place in Bologna, Italy. It will be hosted by the Department of the Arts, Bologna University, from 27th to 29th October 2025.
The conference is open to students and scholars from various fields engaged in a dialogue with conceptual history seeking to expand transdisciplinary and comparative dimensions in their investigations. The main theme for this year’s conference is images of time and history, with a particular emphasis on how such images have been shaped historically through concepts, metaphors, and aesthetic representation in the arts.
‘Conceptual history’ names a broad approach to intellectual history which seeks to unfold concepts by placing them in their historical context and mapping their relationship with social history. Yet even such terms as ‘history’ and ‘historical time’ have their own history and thus are not immediately available to us as analytical concepts.
Historical research is always itself historically situated. In order to gain a critical reflective perspective on its own position of observation, conceptual history investigates not just concepts in history, but also the core concepts on which it relies. How we ‘do’ history depends on what we understand by ‘History’, the object of historical research. The political implications inherent in concepts of history have long been recognized by scholars within such fields as critical theory, Marxism, postcolonial studies, and critical strains of intellectual history. Postcolonial theory has criticized the stagiest and Eurocentric understanding of a necessary course in history, advancing instead visions of multiple temporalities.
Likewise, how we understand history relates to how we conceptualize time: From notions of circular time in classical antiquity, over Christian eschatological visions of an end to human time, to modern scientific concepts of an absolute time derivable from Newtonian physics. Time may be conceptualized as a measure of movement, as change, as subjective or objective, as singular and linear or multiple and complex. It may be understood as a container for historical events, or on the contrary as itself given by and through these events. And the time of history may be experienced as accelerating, repeating itself, or coming to a halt. In studying conceptual constellations regarding ‘history’, conceptual and intellectual history must therefore pay close attention to the way historical time is imagined, its motivations and ideological stakes.
With this conference, we wish to invite a discussion on time, history, and related matters: How are they imagined through concepts and metaphors, from ancient Greek and Roman times to the present day, and how are they represented in texts, images, and art?
The conference is also interested in works that engage with new and emerging agendas in intellectual and conceptual history, such as discussions on emotions and politics, the history of concepts and metaphors, the visual studies and the history of concepts in relation to the history of science and technology, among others. It has become increasingly urgent to address social and political problems that are inherently global in nature, as reflected in discussions on ‘digitalisation’ and about concepts such as ‘anthropocene’, ‘climate’ or ‘ecological crisis’.
In this sense, the conference welcomes contributions that engage with the history of concepts in general, particularly those aligned with the following themes:
- History of concepts, languages, and intellectual history
- Arts and History (Iconography, Art History, Political Iconology)
- Visual studies
- Contemporary politics, ideologies, and their political concepts
- Temporalities, chronopolitics, and the politicization of time
- Metaphors, emotions, and ideologies
- History of science, technologies, and ecology
- Social Theory, concepts, and ideologies
- Marxist historiography and philosophy of history
- Critical Theory and philosophy of history
- Critical theories of time
- Postcolonial theories of time and history
Proposals should be sent to the conference’s e-mail address: hcg2025bo@gmail.com. All proposals should be in word files (.doc or .docx) that include names, institutional affiliations, and professional status (e.g. instructor/researcher or student), along with abstracts of the papers or panels.
Abstracts for individual papers should not exceed 250 words. Proposals for panel sessions should not exceed 1000 words.
Panel proposals must include details for all participants. Panels with 3 speakers and 1 commentator are preferred; with 4 speakers and no commentator in exceptional cases.
Submission deadline: May 31st.
Accepted participants will be notified by Juny 15th.
Panels and Papers must be presented in English.
Website: https://eventi.unibo.it/historical-times-bologna
The conference is free of charge. However, participation with individual papers or panels requires an active membership in the History of Concepts Group. The membership fee includes a one-year subscription to our journal, Contributions to the History of Concepts. Membership rates come in three varieties: Sustaining Members: $150/ Regular Members: $100/ Concessionary Members (Students / Emerging Scholars / Emeritus): $40.
For more membership information, please access our Berghahn Journals
Local Committee (Department of the Arts, Bologna University):
Riccardo Brizzi
Carlotta Capuccino
Giorgio Grappi
Gennaro Imbriano
Lotte List
Sandro Mezzadra
Matteo Pasetti
Maurilio Pirone
Maurizio Ricciardi
Chiara Tartarini
Filippo Triola