Department of History

Diversifying Historical Epistemologies: New Directions Lecture Series

The New Direction Lecture Series foregrounds the relationship between histories of systemic racism and knowledge formation; the recognition that some groups of people have not only been excluded from institutions of higher education, but that disciplinary knowledge formations have often provided the institutional mechanisms and intellectual justifications for those acts of exclusion.

It therefore considers inclusion and the kinds of questions we ask of the past, different modalities and ethics of research and scholarship, as profoundly intertwined. 

The Lecture Series steers away from focusing on a particular geography or period of history (how our fields have been traditionally defined). Rather we step away from traditional definitions of fields and bring together historians who, by their work on histories of non-European and marginalized peoples, challenge historical practice, consider how foundational questions of history and historical subjectivity are transformed by the politics of inclusion, and are creative in constituting new fields of inquiry. In other words, we seek out historians who are expanding the epistemological boundaries of the discipline and can contribute to transformative work in the world.

Visit the events archive to view the full list of events in the series