Report on the Premods Workshop: Culture/Cultural History, University of Turku, Finland

Abstract

The Premods network (PREMODern Doctoral Students) at the University of Turku, Finland, organized a three-day workshop, which took place in September, focusing on the themes, definitions and problems of cultural history within the context of Nordic medieval and early modern historical studies and academic institutions. All participants and organizers of the network were doctoral students. The workshop was organized as a series of discussion sessions in which the participants were divided into four groups. Based on the participants' submitted papers, the themes for the first discussion session were gender, politics, communication and religion. For the second session all four groups were asked to reflect on the question ‘What is cultural history?’. The third (and final) discussion was entitled ‘The Problems/Basics of Cultural History’ and comprised four different themes: sources, theory, methods and ethics of cultural history. The workshop revealed the need for extensive discussion on the special characteristics of the whole field of cultural history in order to deconstruct the bias associated with the field. The direction of cultural history evoked debates, particularly about its all-encompassing nature. Mainly owing to these two previous points, the usefulness of cultural history inspired critical discussion among the participants.