Praise for the historian’s craft: What's new?
Apologie pour le métier d’historien : Quoi de neuf ?
Or historical experience and its epistemological sublimation
Ou l’expérience historique et sa sublimation épistémologique
Published on Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Abstract
Taking the example of Marc Bloch as its starting point, this workshop is not intended as a tribute to the man he was, nor as an exegesis of his work. Rather, it invites us to engage in a kind of role-playing, in which we take up Marc Bloch's question: are we in a position to propose new appraisals for the historian’s craft? This workshop is organized around two major themes: the epistemology of history today, and the experience lived by the professional researcher in troubled times.
Announcement
Argument
In 2026, Marc Bloch will enter the Pantheon. His contribution to the renewal of historian praxis is considerable, and there are many reasons to reflect on his life and reread his work. From a strictly historiographical point of view, he is, along with Lucien Febvre, the founder of the Annales school and the history of mentalités, with the intellectual posterity that we know. But Bloch is also one of the few historians to have left us systematic reflections on the praxis of history. Thus, between the historian's praxis and the researcher's reflexivity, we discover the experience of history. Indeed, his life was marked by the two world wars, as a soldier, a member of the Resistance and as a simple individual living through difficult times. And Bloch is fully aware of this. From the trenches of the Great War, he detected the phenomenon of spreading false rumors and wrote a book about it. What a strange coincidence with today's post-truth era! During the dark years 1939-1943 - when he was successively a defeated soldier, an academic excluded from teaching as a Jew, then reinstated as a professor in Montpellier, and finally a member of the Resistance movement's general board - he wrote his magnificent Apologie pour l'histoire (engl. transl. The Historian's Craft) a posthumous work published in 1949 by his alter ego, Lucien Febvre, to whom he dedicated the manuscript:
“Long have we worked together for a wider and a more human history. Today our common task is threatened. Not by our fault. We are vanquished, for a moment, by un unjust destiny. But the time will come, I feel sure, when our collaboration can again be public, and again be free.”
Taking the example of Marc Bloch as its starting point, this workshop is not intended as a tribute to the man he was, nor as an exegesis of his work. Rather, it invites us to engage in a kind of role-playing, in which we take up Marc Bloch's question: are we in a position to propose new appraisals for the historian’s craft?
This workshop is organized around two major themes: the epistemology of history today, and the experience lived by the professional researcher in troubled times.
1. The epistemology of history today
As we have already emphasized, Apologie pour l'histoire ou Métier d'historien is a landmark work. It is part of a genealogy that runs from Langlois and Seignobos to Paul Veyne via Henri Irénée Marrou. Unfortunately, this genealogy does not include many names, as historians often leave epistemological reflection on historical practice to philosophers. We would like to encourage such reflection, and welcome proposals addressing questions such as:
- Are we witnessing any “comebacks”, such as the resurgence of the event, of the political lens, or of positivism?
- Is there anything new in assessing the notion of document or trace?
- How does historical explanation work today?
- How is the causality currently envisaged?
- What is the role of seriation?
- What is the significance of case studies?
- What is the place of detail in historical reasoning?
- What is the critique of anachronism?
- Does the researcher's approach include an examination of his own subjectivity?
These questions are not exclusive, and any other proposal questioning the epistemology of history will be considered.
2. The professional historian in troubled times
At a time when armed conflicts are shattering our lives, whether in the flesh or in the mind, when the spectre of dictatorship is resurfacing in expected and unexpected places, how do researchers live through the experience of troubled times?
- What is their day-to-day intellectual life?
- What are their plans for the future as "professionals"?
Submission guidelines
Send an abstract of 250-300 words clearly describing the issue addressed for a 30-minute presentation.
Proposals may be in French or English.
Mailing address: mihaela-madalina.vartejanu-joubert@inalco.fr, nicolas.pitsos@bulac.fr
Timeline
Deadline for submission: June 15, 2025
- Response from the organizers: June 30, 2025
- Workshop : November 24th 2025 at INALCO, Paris (France)
Scientific coordination
- Madalina Vartejanu-Joubert (PLIDAM)
- Nicolas Pitsos (BULAC)
Scientific Committee
- Simona Corlan-Ioan, (University of Bucarest)
- Blanche El-Gammal, (University Paris Nanterre)
- Didier Francfort, (University of Lorraine)
- Cristina Ion, (French National Library)
- Aleksandra Kolaković (Institute for political science, Belgrade)
- Frosa Pejoska-Bouchereau, (PLIDAM/Inalco)
- Nicolas Pitsos (CREE/Inalco, BULAC)
- Madalina Vârtejanu-Joubert (PLIDAM/Inalco)
Subjects
Places
- Pôle des langues et civilisations - 65 rue des Grands Moulins
Paris, France (75013)
Event attendance modalities
Hybrid event (on site and online)
Date(s)
- Sunday, June 15, 2025
Keywords
- historiographie, épistémologie
Contact(s)
- Madalina Vartejanu-Joubert
courriel : mihaela-madalina [dot] vartejanu-joubert [at] inalco [dot] fr
Reference Urls
Information source
- Nicolas Pitsos
courriel : nicolas [dot] pitsos [at] bulac [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Praise for the historian’s craft: What's new? », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Wednesday, May 14, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/13x0a
