What might it mean to defamiliarize the concept of "the peasant"? On this episode of In Theory, Navyug Gill addresses this question, among others, while speaking with Disha Karnad Jani about his book "Labors of Division: Global Capitalism and the Emergence of the Peasant in Colonial Panjab."

Labors of Division: Disha Karnad Jani Interviews Navyug Gill

by Disha Karnad Jani

web.sas.upenn.edu

As Alexander Aerts writes for the blog, it was Russo-French philosopher Koyré who first conceptualized the end of history, using it to ask questions about what imparts meaning to human time. His student and friend, Kojève, went on to equate the end of history with the end of politics.

Alexandre Koyré and the Beginning of the End of History

by Alexander Aerts

web.sas.upenn.edu

For Summer 2026 Reading Recommendations, we asked members of the JHI community to suggest texts related to intellectual history, broadly conceived. Responses spanned ecology and animality, the material life of texts, Asian feminisms, and the concepts of work, excess, and accountability.

What We’re Reading: Summer 2026

By the JHI Community

web.sas.upenn.edu

On the Blog, Christian Jacobs recovers a forgotten type of “Europeanization” in the early 1980s that expanded rather than stabilized European identities: the intercultural Moussem festivals organized by Moroccan workers’ organizations. @christianjacobs.bsky.social

“European and immigrant cultures”: The Moussem Festival Series in the 1980s

by Christian Jacobs

web.sas.upenn.edu

For the blog, Anin Luo interviews Felix A. Jiménez Botta about his book, Latin America and Human Rights Politics in West Germany, 1973–1990. @felixjimenezbotta.bsky.social @universitypress.cambridge.org

Latin America’s Cold War and the Battle to Redefine Human Rights in Postwar Germany: An Interview with Felix A. Jiménez Botta

by Anin Luo

web.sas.upenn.edu

In this essay for the JHI Blog, Mayaki Kimba uses his experience conducting research on Réunionnais and French Antillean activists in the early 1970s as an opportunity to reflect on how one might write a history of political thought based on the adversarial archives of the security state.

Ideas Under Lock and Key: Political Thought in Police Archives

by Mayaki Kimba

web.sas.upenn.edu

Disha Karnad Jani interviews Tony Wood about his latest book, "Radical Sovereignty: Debating Race, Nation, and Empire in Interwar Latin America," and his examination of ideas about race, empire, and sovereignty among the Latin American Left in the interwar years. @princetonupress.bsky.social

Radical Sovereignty: Disha Karnad Jani Interviews Tony Wood

by Disha Karnad Jani

web.sas.upenn.edu

The April issue of the journal includes an article by Lea Cantor and Jonathan Egid: "An Ethiopian Lucretius? Giusto da Urbino and the Origins of the Ḥatäta Zärʾa Yaʿɘqob Controversy." Read it here: muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic... @leamundi.bsky.social

Jochen Schmon interviewed Jensen Suther about his book, True Materialism: Hegelian Marxism and the Modernist Struggle for Freedom and ongoing research. @jochenschmon.bsky.social @jensensuther.bsky.social @stanfordpress.bsky.social

Materialism and Critical Theory: An Interview with Jensen Suther

by Jochen Schmon

web.sas.upenn.edu

In an essay for the blog, Nicolás Ignacio Rojas writes that the status of semi-autonomous “vassals,” which was accorded by Spain to Chile's Indigenous Mapuche in 18th- and 19th-century treaties, challenges received dichotomies between sovereignty and subjugation. web.sas.upenn.edu/jhiblog/2026...

Negotiated Vassalage on the Chilean Frontier

by Nicolás Ignacio Rojas

web.sas.upenn.edu

For the blog, Rose Facchini interviewed Roger Chartier about his book Won in Translation: Textual Mobility in Early Modern Europe (2022), which traces the travels of early-modern texts across linguistic and cultural borders, and his current research. @rosefacchini.bsky.social @pennpress.bsky.social

Elusive Movements of the Printed Word: An Interview with Roger Chartier

by Rose Facchini

web.sas.upenn.edu

The latest issue of the journal includes an article by Hannah Anderson: "The Useful Caribbean: Settlers’ Botany and Plantation Cultures," available to read here: muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...

There are twelve days left to submit a proposal to the JHI’s fall graduate symposium. You can find the call and recommended reading here: www.jhiblog.org/2026/05/07/j...

The latest issue of the journal includes an article by Matti Leprêtre: "Paracelsus’s Doctrine of Signatures Reconsidered." Read it here: muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...

In an essay for the blog, Chris O'Kane presents the latest edition of Marx’s Capital as yet another attempt by translators to crystallize a particular political interpretation of Marx—this time, the novel synthesis misapprehended as a straightforward “Marx revival.”

Towards a Critical Materialist Analysis of Capital’s Translations

by Chris O'Kane

web.sas.upenn.edu

Paola Zichi's article "Race, Redemption, and Reform: The Interplay of Eugenics, Antisemitism, and Feminist Anti Trafficking Efforts in Early Twentieth-Century Italy" is the final piece in the JHI's cluster of articles on "Race: Histories of an Idea." Read it here: muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...

In this JHI Blog interview, Leslie James discusses her latest book, “The Moving Word,” and how it reframes the relationship between newspapers and decolonization in Anglophone West Africa and the Caribbean. @harvardpress.bsky.social

Moving Words, Shifting Visions: An Interview with Leslie James

by Tomi Onabanjo

web.sas.upenn.edu

The new issue of the JHI includes a cluster of articles on "Race: Histories of Idea." Shruti Balaji's contribution is "'The African Problem Is a World Problem': (Dis)locating Race in Late Colonial Indian Intellectual Thought." Read it here: muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic... @shrutibalaji.bsky.social

For the In Theory podcast, Disha Karnad Jani interviews Samuel Rutherford about his book “Teaching Gender: The British University and the Rise of Heterosexuality, 1860–1939,” which explores how English and Scottish universities constructed gender and sexuality in early 20th-century Britain.

Teaching Gender: Disha Karnad Jani Interviews Samuel Rutherford

by Disha Karnad Jani

web.sas.upenn.edu

The new issue of the JHI includes a cluster of articles: "Race: Histories of an Idea." Ian Stewart's contribution, "Pan-Celticism and Racial Thought at the Fin de Siècle" is available to read here: muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...

On the blog, Jack Crosswaite argues that John Rawls’s influential theory of political liberalism relies on a secularized Whig history of the seventeenth-century Puritan liberty of conscience. As a result, Rawls cannot ground citizens’ commitment to his liberalism.

John Rawls’s Conscientious Historical Fable

by Jack Crosswaite

web.sas.upenn.edu

The new issue of the journal features a cluster of articles on “Race: Histories of an Idea.” Read Meleisa Ono-George’s contribution, "'In me you see the Almighty’s wondrous Power': Amelia Newsham, Race, and Black Women’s Intellectual History in Georgian Britain": muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...

Vishal Verma interviews Luna Sabastian about her recent book, “Fascism in India: Race, Caste, and Hindutva,” which traces the emergence of Hindu nationalism—with its corresponding ideas of religion, race, and caste—to "the global fascist moment" of the interwar years. @harvardpress.bsky.social

A Fascism of “Violent Absorption”: An Interview with Luna Sabastian

by Vishal Verma

web.sas.upenn.edu

The primary editors of the JHI Blog have prepared an extensive bibliography on "Prophecy, Prediction, and the Politics of Futurity," the theme of the upcoming JHI Graduate Symposium (see our open call for proposals).

Reading List: Prophecy, Prediction, and the Politics of Futurity

by Zac Endter, Tomi Onabanjo, and Mrinalini Sisodia Wadhwa

jhiblog.org

In an interview for the blog, Natasha Piano reflects on her new book, Democratic Elitism, which argues that American political science came to equate "pure democracy" with competitive elections by misreading the Italian School of Elitism. @harvardpress.bsky.social

Democracy and Government Under Elitism: An Interview with Natasha Piano

by Matias X. Gonzalez

web.sas.upenn.edu

The new issue of the journal includes articles by Matti Leprêtre, Hannah Anderson, and Lea Cantor & Jonathan Egid, and a cluster on "Race: Histories of an Idea" organized by Sarah C. Dunstan and Ian Stewart, with contributions by Meleisa Ono-George, Ian Stewart, Shruti Balaji, and Paola Zichi.

JHI 87.2 Now Available!

The new issue of the journal is now available to read on Project MUSE.

jhiblog.org

Our annual JHI Graduate Symposium will be held virtually on October 17. The theme is "Prophecy, Prediction, and the Politics of Futurity.” Members of the journal’s editorial board will offer constructive feedback on students’ papers. Proposals are due June 22.

JHI Graduate Student Symposium, 2026: “Prophecy, Prediction, and the Politics of Futurity,” Call for Proposals

The Journal of the History of Ideas and the JHI Blog invite graduate students to propose papers for our eighth annual Graduate Student Symposium, to be held via Zoom on October 17, 2026.

web.sas.upenn.edu

Congratulations to Kirsten Macfarlane, winner of the JHI's Selma V. Forkosch Prize for the best article published in the journal in 2025. Macfarlane's article, "Written in the Stars? Alphabets and Angels in Early Modern Europe," is an "eye-opening accomplishment."

Congratulations to Kirsten Macfarlane, winner of the Selma V. Forkosch Prize

The winner of the JHI's Selma V. Forkosch Prize for the best article publlished in 2025 is Kirsten Macfarlane for "Written in the Stars? Alphabets and Angels in Early Modern Europe."

web.sas.upenn.edu

Lea Cantor and Jonathan Egid reflect on their experience conducting archival research for their article in the new issue of the journal (“An Ethiopian Lucretius? Giusto da Urbino and the Origins of the Ḥatäta Zärʾa Yaʿɘqob Controversy”) and offer an appendix for future work. @leamundi.bsky.social

Looking for an Ethiopian Lucretius: Giusto da Urbino, the Origins of the Ḥatäta Zärʾa Yaʿɘqob Controversy, and Reflections on Archival Research

by Lea Cantor and Jonathan Egid

web.sas.upenn.edu

One week to submit! The JHI Blog welcomes pitches for a forum on the conceptual history of technology. Submit a proposal by May 7. Read the call for complete information: www.jhiblog.org/2026/03/18/c...