IMC 2025: Sessions

This represents the third in a series of three round table discussions celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Journal of Medieval History, which began publication in 1975. Each round table discussion queries and re-evaluates the meaning of components of the Journal's title. The first two round table discussions considered, respectively, the terms 'Journal' and 'Medieval'. This considers 'History'.

This round table discussion invites scholars to reflect how the field of history has changed across the past fifty years, and prospects for the future. The landscape is a complicated one, with reasons both for optimism and trepidation. We will consider what it means to do 'history' in 2025 and the array of different methodological approaches on offer. Speakers will reflect on their own relationship to the discipline and what they hope the future might hold. The round table discussion will consider how the practice of history is shaped by the needs of different audiences, both inside and outside academia: from conversations between specialists to teaching to podcasting and public history. The round table discussion will also invite the speakers and audience to reflect on the ways in which the institutional structures of academia both support and undermine the development of historical scholarship.

Participants include Lars Kjær (Faculty of History, Northeastern University London), Laura Slater (Peterhouse, University of Cambridge), Dyan Elliott (Department of History, Northwestern University), Niamh Wycherley (Department of Early Irish (Sean-Ghaeilge), Maynooth University)