The first volume of the yearbook History of Intellectual Culture (HIC) has been published. HIC is a new international and interdisciplinary open access yearbook for peer-reviewed papers, published by De Gruyter and edited by Charlotte A. Lerg, Johan Östling and Jana Weiß.

The yearbook emphasizes cultural dimensions of the history of knowledge and underscores that knowledge must be regarded as a fundamental category in society. In doing so, ideas, concepts, ideologies, theories, and cognitive practices are located within their social and material contexts.

With concepts of participation discussed in multiple disciplines from media studies to anthropology, from political sciences to sociology, the first issue of the new yearbook History of Intellectual Culture dedicates a thematic section to the way knowledge can and arguably must be conceptualized as “participatory”. 

Introducing and exploring “participatory knowledge”, the volume aims to draw attention to the potential of looking at knowledge formation and circulation through a new lens and to open a dialogue about how and what concepts and theories of participation can contribute to the history of knowledge. By asking who gets to participate in defining what counts as knowledge and in deciding whose knowledge is circulated, modes of participation enter into the examination of knowledge on various levels and within multiple cultural contexts. 

The articles in this volume attest to the great variety of approaches, contexts, and interpretations of “participatory knowledge”, from the sociological projects of the Frankfurt School to the Uppsala-based Institute for Race Biology, from the Argentinian National Folklore Survey to current hashtag activism and Covid-19-archive projects. 

History of Intellectual Culture (Vol. 1) is available Open Access: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110748819/html#contents

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