{"id":2255,"date":"2025-10-15T14:11:28","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T12:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/announcement\/2253\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T10:16:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T09:16:43","slug":"2253","status":"publish","type":"announcement","link":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/announcement\/2253\/","title":{"rendered":"Histories of Scholarly Evaluation in the Sciences and Humanities, 1700-2000 &#8211; Call for Abstracts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<section  class=\"contemporanea-section full-width-text\">\n    <div class=\"contemporanea-container\">\n        \n                    <div class=\"block-text lh-2\"><p><strong>Deadline for abstracts (500 words)<\/strong>: 31 January, 2026<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Organising Comittee\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em> Marie-Gabrielle Verbergt (Ghent University)<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>\u00a0Sjang ten Hagen (Utrecht University)<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Joris Vandendriessche (KU Leuven)<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Els Minne (KU Leuven)<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n            <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n<section  class=\"contemporanea-section full-width-text\">\n    <div class=\"contemporanea-container\">\n        \n                    <div class=\"block-text lh-2\"><p><strong>Evaluation<\/strong>, i.e. assessing how an entity attains a certain time of worth, and\u00a0<strong>valuation<\/strong>, i.e.<\/p>\n<p>giving worth or value, permeate all domains of the social. As notoriously \u201ccomplex, slippery,<\/p>\n<p>and often elusive sociological objects\u201d, valuation and evaluative processes are also intrinsic<\/p>\n<p>parts of scholarly work (Lamont 2012, 203). Manuscript feedback, editorial reviewing,<\/p>\n<p>proposal ranking and departmental assessment\u2014scholars today as in the past regularly<\/p>\n<p>judge the merit of their colleagues writing (Fyfe et al. 2020; 2022; Vanderstraeten 2021),<\/p>\n<p>ideas for new research (Serrano Velarde 2018; Gl\u00e4ser and Serrano-Velarde 2018; Verbergt<\/p>\n<p>2024), work environments (Hamann 2016; 2018), careers, and, even, character (Tsay et al.<\/p>\n<p>2003; Wils and Huistra 2020; Ten Hagen 2022). Scholarly evaluation thereby has a history;<\/p>\n<p>one that touches on both the social, intellectual, cultural and epistemological aspects of<\/p>\n<p>science.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>With this call for abstracts, we want to invite historians and other interested scholars to<\/p>\n<p><strong>reflect collectively on the broad and multi-faceted history of scholarly evaluation<\/strong>. Scholarly<\/p>\n<p>evaluation, we argue, is and has not solely revolved around quality control or gatekeeping.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, evaluative moments can also be approached as instances of knowledge production,<\/p>\n<p>circulation, transfer, or constitution. Historically, scholarly evaluation has also been related to<\/p>\n<p>education and teaching students how to do proper scholarship (Seifert forthcoming) or<\/p>\n<p>guarding the autonomy of scientists over their work (Baldwin 2018). In line with the work of<\/p>\n<p>Laura Stark on \u2018declarative bodies\u2019, we moreover see (scholarly) evaluation as a performative<\/p>\n<p>act: evaluation processes can produce new ideas, structure our thinking about (valuable)<\/p>\n<p>scholarship, and (re)establish collectives (Stark 2012; 2019).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>During a live workshop in Leuven (Sept 2026), we aim to use the varied perspective of<\/p>\n<p>evaluation to probe the \u2013 shared or distinct \u2013 histories of knowledge production and career<\/p>\n<p>development\u00a0<strong>across the sciences and the humanities<\/strong>. Inspired by developments within the<\/p>\n<p>burgeoning field of history of knowledge, we think histories of evaluative cultures have the<\/p>\n<p>potential to enhance our understanding of questions related to access, legitimacy, and the<\/p>\n<p>development of scholarly reputations in a more holistic way. By this we mean that the<\/p>\n<p>evaluative practices, regimes and\/or repertoires that have shaped scholarly careers were<\/p>\n<p>only partly determined by disciplinary boundaries. Rather, practices such as \u201cpeer review\u201d<\/p>\n<p>were shared across fields, moved between them, and were adapted in the process to fit<\/p>\n<p>specific scholarly needs. Moreover, they were shaped and influenced by more widely shared<\/p>\n<p>socio-political and cultural contexts and values. It is these histories of similarities and<\/p>\n<p>contrasts, travels and adaptations, the workshop aims to uncover.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Possible themes and questions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Our approach to the theme of scholarly evaluation, as well as our periodization, is therefore<\/p>\n<p>consciously broad. We are interested in how evaluative infrastructures, methods, repertoires,<\/p>\n<p>and more, have shaped the long history of the sciences and the humanities since 1700 and<\/p>\n<p>up to today. To structure our discussions, we can delineate three larger sets of questions:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Cultures, contexts and circulation of scholarly evaluation;<\/li>\n<li>Practices and ideals of scholarly evaluation;<\/li>\n<li>Functions of scholarly evaluation<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Timing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We propose the following timing that works towards an edited volume that we intend to<\/p>\n<p>submit to Studies in the History of Knowledge (formerly at Amsterdam University Press,<\/p>\n<p>now at Taylor &amp; Francis):<\/p>\n<p>\u25cf\u00a031 January, 2026:\u00a0Deadline for abstracts (500 words). Please email abstracts to<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:mariegabrielle.verbergt@ugent.be\">mariegabrielle.verbergt@ugent.be<\/a>, <a href=\"mailto:s.l.tenhagen@uu.nl\">s.l.tenhagen@uu.nl<\/a>,<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:joris.vandendriessche@kuleuven.be\">joris.vandendriessche@kuleuven.be<\/a> and <a href=\"mailto:els.minne@kuleuven.be\">els.minne@kuleuven.be<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u25cf\u00a028 February, 2026:\u00a0Selection and feedback on abstracts.<\/p>\n<p>\u25cf\u00a01 September, 2026:\u00a0Submission of drafts (approximately 4000-6000) words<\/p>\n<p>\u25cf\u00a027-29 September, 2026:\u00a0Network workshop in Leuven, Belgium; travel and hotel<\/p>\n<p>will be covered.<\/p>\n<p>\u25cf\u00a01 February, 2027:\u00a0Submission of final drafts (8000 words, references included) for publication at Amsterdam University Press<\/p>\n<p><em>This workshop is organised as part of the Integrating the Histories of Science and the<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Humanities, 1500-1900 Scientific Research Network sponsored by the Research<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Foundation \u2013 Flanders (FWO). Bringing together nine international partners, the network<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>explores what happens when we view the relation between the natural and the human<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>sciences through the lens of their intertwined histories. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>For more information, see:<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/hshh.ugent.be\/en\/news\/cfp-histories-scholarly-evaluation-1700-2000\">CFP: Histories of Scholarly Evaluation, 1700\u20132000 | Integrating the History of Science and History of Humanities<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arts.kuleuven.be\/cultuurgeschiedenis\/nieuws\/call-for-papers-on-histories-of-scholarly-evaluation-1700-2000-for-a-workshop-in-leuven-sept-2026\">Call for papers on histories of scholarly evaluation, 1700-2000 for a workshop in Leuven (Sept 2026) \u2014 Cultuurgeschiedenis vanaf 1750<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n            <\/div>\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2317,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"class_list":["post-2255","announcement","type-announcement","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-call-for-papers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/announcement\/2255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/announcement"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/announcement"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/announcement\/2255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2353,"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/announcement\/2255\/revisions\/2353"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}