Intellectual History

Intellectual history is the study of human knowledge and the diverse contexts that shape its production and circulation. While intellectual history once referred primarily to the study of elite intellectuals largely in Europe and North America, in recent decades, it has expanded in critical and more inclusive ways. One factor that makes our department's thematic field in intellectual history especially strong is its transnational and global reach.

Those working in intellectual history may be informed by methods from fields as diverse as anthropology, sociology, literary and critical theory, science studies, legal studies, religion and philosophy. Some intellectual historians work on formal and informal institutions of education; others examine the work of ideology and/or discourse in the flow of ideas and their dynamic relationship to social and political developments; still others continue to work on canonical intellectuals, doing non-canonical readings of canonical texts.

Intellectual History faculty list