A growing body of scholarship suggests that historiography of the humanities unnecessarily limits itself if it takes a given knowledge center -- often Europe -- as its main focus. For this special issue we are interested in contributions that help to recognize a poly-centric or decentralized perspective on the history of the humanities. For example through investigations that highlight the circulation of humanistic knowledge between multiple centers in different parts of the world, or through the study of scholarship from places none of which can be called a center.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Comparison of philological methods between pre-modern Europe and China
• The impact of the Arabic curriculum Studia Adabiya on the European Studia Humanitatis
• Toward a decolonized history of the humanities: challenges and opportunities
• Traditions of art connoisseurship in different regions compared
• Historiography of music from a poly-centric perspective

Practical information

Deadline for submissions: October 15, 2020
Notification of acceptance: March 15, 2021
Deadline of final paper: May 15, 2021
Date of publication: October 2021 (issue 6.2 of History of Humanities)

Maximum word length (including notes): 8,000

Manuscripts must be submitted via the website of History of Humanities, www.journals.uchicago.edu/hoh/, adding under the title of the manuscript: “Submitted to the Special Issue on Decentralizing the History of the Humanities”