History of Concepts Group

About the History of Concepts Newsletter 1998-2003

From the Introduction to Volume 1, Contribution to the History of Concepts "The expanding horizons of conceptual history: a new forum" - by João Feres, Jr.

"The History of Political Social Concepts Group was created in 1998, during a conference organized by the Finnish Institute in London"… "The participants at that conference agreed to form an international society that would meet regularly, publish a newsletter, and establish an e-mail network. Since the foundation of the HPSCG, meetings have been organized annually, each time in a different country, and in collaboration with local scholars and institutions. The newsletter was edited from 1998 to 2001 by Karin Tilmans, Wyger Velema, and Freya Sierhuis at the Huizinga Instituut of the University of Amsterdam; then, from 2001 to 2003, Henrik Stenius, Kari Saastamoinen, Suvi Ervamaa, and Jani Marjanen at the Renvall Institute for Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki, were responsible for editorship. Meanwhile, the HPSCG kept enlarging its mailing list of group members and other scholars interested in conceptual history and related disciplines. The newsletter published articles and essays on methodological and substantive research and also disseminated news about conferences, new research projects and works in progress, publications, and other related matters"...

"As HPSCG’s membership increased, its goals expanded. Members also organized smaller events and conferences in several European countries and in the United States. This process led also to disciplinary encounters between the methodological approach of German Begriffsgeschichte and other ways of doing historical research such as metaphorology, the theory of iconology, historical semantics, the history of ideas, etc. At the last of HPSCG’s executive committee meeting, held during the VII International Conference in Rio de Janeiro, the members decided that it was time to launch a publication with more ambitious goals. The name, chosen after much discussion, was Contributions to the History of Concepts."