Founded in London 18 June 1998

Melvin Richter, Fall 1998

This organization brings together all those concerned with the history of political and social concepts. It is open to individual researchers, as well as to those involved in larger projects, past, present, or planned. Its goal is to establish a forum where the many different approaches to conceptual history can be discussed; intellectual and organizational experiences shared; and comparative studies prepared.

Thanks to Henrik Stenius (University of Helsinki and Director of the Finnish Institute in London), the foundation meeting was held at the Finnish Institute in London, June 18-20, 1998. Those present came from fourteen countries and represented collective works on the history of political and social concepts in Germany, France, The Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, and Russia. The participants agreed to form an international society. This will meet regularly, publish a newsletter, and develop an archive in one or more international languages of projects and proposals, as well as interviews with, and critical reflections by those who have led and taken part in them. An e-mail network and a home page will soon be established.

The newsletter, of which this is the first issue, will be edited for the first two years by Karin Tilmans and Wyger Velema at the University of Amsterdam. They can be contacted at the following address: University of Amsterdam, Department of History, Spuistraat 134, 1012 VB Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This is the address to which those interested in joining the group should write and to which all materials for inclusion in the second issue of the newsletter should be sent.

The next international conference, planned by Jacques Guilhaumou (Marseilles) and Raymonde Monnier (Saint-Cloud) will be held in the Fall of 1999 at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Saint-Cloud, just outside Paris. Other members of the group will also organize panels at meetings of international and national organizations in disciplines involved in the study of the history of political and social concepts.

Taking part in the foundation meeting were:
Peter Baehr (St. Johns, Newfoundland),
György Bence (Budapest),
Hans Blom (Rotterdam),
Martin Burke (New York),
Dario Castiglione (Exeter),
Janet Coleman (London),
Pim den Boer (Amsterdam),
Christine Fauré (Paris),
Michael Freeden (Oxford),
Daniel Gordon (Amherst),
Jacques Guilhaumou (Marseilles),
Sisko Haikala (Jyväskylä),
Iain Hampsher-Monk (Exeter);
Matti Hyvärinen (Tampere),
Jan Ifversen (Aarhus),
Mikhail Ilyin (Moscow),
Uffe Jakobsen (Copenhagen),
Reinhart Koselleck (Bielefeld),
Raymonde Monnier (Saint-Cloud),
Jan-Werner Müller (Oxford),
Tuija Pulkkinen (Helsinki/Greifswald),
José Rosales (Malaga),
Quentin Skinner (Cambridge),
Patricia Springborg (Sydney),
Karin Tilmans (Amsterdam),
Wyger Velema (Amsterdam),
Björn Wittrock (Stockholm/Uppsala),

as well as the meeting's organizers, Kari Palonen (Jyväskylä)
and Melvin Richter (New York).

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