Histories of Scholarly Evaluation in the Sciences and Humanities, 1700-2000 – Call for Abstracts
Deadline for abstracts (500 words): 31 January, 2026
Organising Comittee
- Marie-Gabrielle Verbergt (Ghent University)
- Sjang ten Hagen (Utrecht University)
- Joris Vandendriessche (KU Leuven)
- Els Minne (KU Leuven)
Evaluation, i.e. assessing how an entity attains a certain time of worth, and valuation, i.e.
giving worth or value, permeate all domains of the social. As notoriously “complex, slippery,
and often elusive sociological objects”, valuation and evaluative processes are also intrinsic
parts of scholarly work (Lamont 2012, 203). Manuscript feedback, editorial reviewing,
proposal ranking and departmental assessment—scholars today as in the past regularly
judge the merit of their colleagues writing (Fyfe et al. 2020; 2022; Vanderstraeten 2021),
ideas for new research (Serrano Velarde 2018; Gläser and Serrano-Velarde 2018; Verbergt
2024), work environments (Hamann 2016; 2018), careers, and, even, character (Tsay et al.
2003; Wils and Huistra 2020; Ten Hagen 2022). Scholarly evaluation thereby has a history;
one that touches on both the social, intellectual, cultural and epistemological aspects of
science.
With this call for abstracts, we want to invite historians and other interested scholars to
reflect collectively on the broad and multi-faceted history of scholarly evaluation. Scholarly
evaluation, we argue, is and has not solely revolved around quality control or gatekeeping.
Instead, evaluative moments can also be approached as instances of knowledge production,
circulation, transfer, or constitution. Historically, scholarly evaluation has also been related to
education and teaching students how to do proper scholarship (Seifert forthcoming) or
guarding the autonomy of scientists over their work (Baldwin 2018). In line with the work of
Laura Stark on ‘declarative bodies’, we moreover see (scholarly) evaluation as a performative
act: evaluation processes can produce new ideas, structure our thinking about (valuable)
scholarship, and (re)establish collectives (Stark 2012; 2019).
During a live workshop in Leuven (Sept 2026), we aim to use the varied perspective of
evaluation to probe the – shared or distinct – histories of knowledge production and career
development across the sciences and the humanities. Inspired by developments within the
burgeoning field of history of knowledge, we think histories of evaluative cultures have the
potential to enhance our understanding of questions related to access, legitimacy, and the
development of scholarly reputations in a more holistic way. By this we mean that the
evaluative practices, regimes and/or repertoires that have shaped scholarly careers were
only partly determined by disciplinary boundaries. Rather, practices such as “peer review”
were shared across fields, moved between them, and were adapted in the process to fit
specific scholarly needs. Moreover, they were shaped and influenced by more widely shared
socio-political and cultural contexts and values. It is these histories of similarities and
contrasts, travels and adaptations, the workshop aims to uncover.
Possible themes and questions
Our approach to the theme of scholarly evaluation, as well as our periodization, is therefore
consciously broad. We are interested in how evaluative infrastructures, methods, repertoires,
and more, have shaped the long history of the sciences and the humanities since 1700 and
up to today. To structure our discussions, we can delineate three larger sets of questions:
- Cultures, contexts and circulation of scholarly evaluation;
- Practices and ideals of scholarly evaluation;
- Functions of scholarly evaluation
Timing
We propose the following timing that works towards an edited volume that we intend to
submit to Studies in the History of Knowledge (formerly at Amsterdam University Press,
now at Taylor & Francis):
● 31 January, 2026: Deadline for abstracts (500 words). Please email abstracts to
mariegabrielle.verbergt@ugent.be, s.l.tenhagen@uu.nl,
joris.vandendriessche@kuleuven.be and els.minne@kuleuven.be.
● 28 February, 2026: Selection and feedback on abstracts.
● 1 September, 2026: Submission of drafts (approximately 4000-6000) words
● 27-29 September, 2026: Network workshop in Leuven, Belgium; travel and hotel
will be covered.
● 1 February, 2027: Submission of final drafts (8000 words, references included) for publication at Amsterdam University Press
This workshop is organised as part of the Integrating the Histories of Science and the
Humanities, 1500-1900 Scientific Research Network sponsored by the Research
Foundation – Flanders (FWO). Bringing together nine international partners, the network
explores what happens when we view the relation between the natural and the human
sciences through the lens of their intertwined histories.
For more information, see: