In the first of two essays for the JHI Blog, Peter Bloom examines four early-modern European political theories, arguing that productive contradictions emerge from such ideas' attempts to stabilize material crises of social organization.
For the JHI Blog, Nilab Saeedi interviews Selim S. Kuru about his various contributions to the study of Ottoman literary culture and how recent scholarship in the field has led to a critical reconsideration of questions ranging from gender performance to sexual identity to pre-modern desire.
For Spring 2026 Reading Recommendations, we asked members of the JHI community to suggest texts related to intellectual history, broadly conceived. Responses spanned histories of childhood, imperial bureaucracy, the concept of work, creativity and AI, and boundaries between literature and history.
The JHI Blog has released a call for submissions to its forum on the “Conceptual History of Technology.” Pitches are due on May 7.
Durba Mitra returns to the In Theory podcast to talk with Disha Karnad Jani about her new book, "The Future That Was." They discuss canon formation, post-colonial yearning, and "Third World" feminism in the late 20th century.
@durba.bsky.social @princetonupress.bsky.social
A quote from the article: "In light of the recent rise of right-wing populism, 'fake news,' and anti-intellectualism, as well as a renewed interest in Marcuse and the New Left, this article analyzes the response to Marcuse in Brazil, focusing on the phenomenon of conservative moral panic."
The new issue of the JHI includes an article by Caio Fernandes Barbosa: "Subversive Eros: The Conservative Reception of Marcuse in the Brazilian Dictatorship (1968–69)": muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...
Today's episode of In Theory covers topics from the geopolitics of emancipation to the political thought of enslaved people in Brazil. Disha Karnad Jani interviews Isadora Moura Mota about her recent book, "Freedom's Horizon: Black Abolitionism in Nineteenth-Century Brazil."
@pennpress.bsky.social
A quote from the article: "Dayal's political experiments with the nation form, unsuccessful and muddled as they are, illustrate this complex and largely unexplored history lurking beneath the nationalism-federalisım binary shaping our understanding of decolonization in South Asia."
The latest issue of the journal includes an article by Shaivya Mishra: "Who Needs the Federation? Lala Har Dayal and the Hindu Right in a Decolonizing World": muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...
@manchesterup.bsky.social
In an interview with Dimitrios Mitsopoulos for the JHI Blog, Georgios Giannakopoulos discusses his book, The Interpreters (Manchester UP, 2025), which uncovers how British scholars, journalists, and travelers used southeastern Europe as a laboratory for rethinking liberalism between 1870 and 1930.
Covering books by
@uwapress.uw.edu @uncpress.bsky.social @sunypress.bsky.social @ubcpress.bsky.social @univnebpress.bsky.social and University of Arizona Press
A quote from the article: "The seven works explored in this essay mark a distinct turn in the intellectual history of ethnography. These books and essays ask what ethnographic materials are for, and what their future will be. They also indicate a rising tide of feminist interventions in ethnographic studies."
The new issue of the JHI features a review essay by Naomi Sussman: "Building the Future with the Past: Indigenous Authorship and the Function of Ethnography": muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...
This article is now free to read without a subscription.
A quote from the article: "While several charitable associations and individuals promoted philanthropy as an activity aimed at validating social hierarchies, there were differently philanthropic societies and militants for whom the highest demonstration of 'love for mankind' involved not the preservation of social order but rather its revolutionary overhaul."
The latest issue of the JHI includes an article by Matilde Cazzola: "Toward a Conceptual History of Radical Philanthropy:
Spenceanism and the Ragged-Trousered Lovers of Mankind (Imperial Britain, ca. 1790–1820)."
This article is now accessible for free on Muse:
muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...
Concluding the blog's forum on political economy, Disha Karnad Jani reflects on intellectual history's methodological relationship to the "aggregate" in the generations that built upon and revised the social history of ideas. What kind of aggregate, if any, can address contemporary horrors?
Furkan Elmas interviews A. Tunç Şen about his book "Forgotten Experts: Astrologers, Science, and Authority in the Ottoman Empire, 1450–1600," which, by studying astrologers, sheds light on early-modern Ottoman patronage networks for science beyond grand institutions.
@stanfordpress.bsky.social
A quote from the article: "The English working schools made those ideas the basis of their pedagogy, with students emulating the moral examples around them and imitating their peers' skills in textile spinning. By learning from one another, these students could contribute to the economic project of England's emulation and competition with rivals in trade."
The new issue of the journal includes an article by Simon Brown: "Emulation, Edification, and Labor in English Working Schools, 1670–1725": muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...
We're sharing this again, because there may have been a glitch with the link last week. You can find In Theory, the JHI podcast, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Soundcloud.
Disha Karnad Jani interviews Esmat Elhalaby about his book, "Parting Gifts of Empire: Palestine and India at the Dawn of Decolonization." Their conversation charts the relationship between Arab and Indian intellectuals during the era of decolonization.
@esmat.bsky.social @ucpress.bsky.social
A quote from the article: "Locke's early political essays address the long-standing political-theological conflict that engulfed early modern England by appealing separately to the two major parties to that conflict: the subjects and the sovereign."
The latest issue of the JHI includes an article by Nathaniel Mull: "John Locke’s Early Tolerationism: A Critique of the Conversion Narrative": muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...
Disha Karnad Jani interviews Esmat Elhalaby about his book, "Parting Gifts of Empire: Palestine and India at the Dawn of Decolonization." Their conversation charts the relationship between Arab and Indian intellectuals during the era of decolonization.
@esmat.bsky.social @ucpress.bsky.social
A quote from the article: This essay is about the history of an idea: the idea that the ancient Jews invented drama, and the Greeks thereafter stole it from them. How did the father of the 100 Protestant revolution and a Jewish theatre director, on either side of the Alps, thirty years apart, marshalling different religious and literary traditions toward we may presume) different goals, come to make the same outlandish claim? And why?
The new issue of the JHI includes an article by Micha Lazarus, "The B’rith of Tragedy: Jewish Roots of a Stolen Genre in Early Modern Europe": muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...
In the forum on political economy, Jonathon Catlin asks what a public debate about the Frankfurt School's legacy among prominent former students of Martin Jay—the "Berkeley School"—tells us about the future relationship between political economy and intellectual history.
@joncatlin.bsky.social
The new issue of the JHI includes articles by Micha Lazarus, Nathaniel Mull, Simon Brown, Matilde Cazzola, Shaivya Mishra, Caio Fernandes Barbosa, and Naomi Sussman. Happy reading! @pennpress.bsky.social
Tomi Onabanjo interviews Jeanne-Marie Jackson about “The Letter of the Law in J. E. Casely Hayford’s West Africa,” her new book on the pan-Africanist and the relationship between ideas of the law, textuality, and comportment in colonial-era Ghana. @jmja.bsky.social @princetonupress.bsky.social
Today on the JHI Blog, Bhadrajee Hewage follows the nineteenth-century rise and fall of the “Ceylonese Buddha,” an English bookseller’s theory of the Buddha’s Sri Lankan origins—revealing a broader effort to naturalize history through geography by fixing living traditions to verifiable sites.
Jackson Herndon interviews Michael Lazarus about his book "Absolute Ethical Life." They discuss Marx's Aristotelian-Hegelian ethics, Arendt's and MacIntyre's concepts of the ethical, and the enduring significance of "species-being" to Marx.
@michaellazarus.bsky.social @stanfordpress.bsky.social
For the forum on political economy, Lars Cornelissen answers Samuel Moyn’s call to conceptualize the social side of ideology by turning to Stuart Hall’s idea of ideology as “practical reason,” examining the material networks that led neoliberalism further rightward.
@lcornelissen.bsky.social
