The BI Business History seminar - The political role of the historian

Organized by the Centre for Business History

Abstract

Debates about history have never been strictly confined to the world of scholarship and has as such also been at the centre of political controversies in society. ‘The problem for professional historians’, Eric Hobsbawm once observed, ‘is that their subject has important social and political functions’. ‘This duality’, he noted, ‘is the core of our subject’.

This seminar offers some reflections on the political role of historians, exploring the relationship between their scholarly work and their involvement in political debates through a presentation and discussion of the recently published paper The Political Role of the Historian in Contemporary European History by David Motadel.

We invite those interested in history, politics, and law to engage in this open discussion surrounding the fundamental the role of the historian and the relationship between scholarly research and society.

Paper presenter:

David Motadel, Associate professor at the Department of International History at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Discussant:

Sverre August Christensen, Associate professor at the Centre for Business History at BI Norwegian Business School

Moderator:

Yvette Lind, Professor at the Department for Law and Governance and the Centre for Business History at BI Norwegian Business School

You may read the paper open access here.