Despite the many intersections between intellectual and literary history, the two traditions of scholarship are rarely considered together. While (global) intellectual history has recently been reinvigorated, the same has not been true of literary history. Why is this the case? This workshop aims to bring into conversation the stakes of intellectual and literary history and to develop a methodological synergy between the two. What does intellectual history enable us to do that literary history does not, and vice versa? How are the relations between the textual and the social conceived in both fields? (How) do they mediate between historical social realities and textual or terminological archives? What is the place of readers in the methods of both fields? How can methods of intellectual history and literary history be thought of as complementary to better understand the problem space under historical investigation? In the workshop, we address these central questions, paying close attention to the relation between the textual and the social, as well as the act of reading across temporal and linguistic differences.

A detailed program will follow.