The 2025 S-USIH Annual Conference will be held in Detroit, Michigan, on November 6-8, 2025, at the DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Detroit Downtown – Fort Shelby. The theme is “Creativity and Renewal: Art, Ideas, and Culture in Conversation.” Our conference co-chairs are Chloe Hawkey, Paul Murphy, and Greg Sumner.
One hundred years ago, Detroit seemed like a capital of the modern world—the symbol of machine-age modernity, mass culture, and a new, pluralistic national identity. As it turned out, the modern world was more ruthless and less predictable than boosters suggested, which the citizens of Detroit know better than most. Despite these challenges, post-industrial Detroit remains a place where people, ideas, technology, cultures, and capital mix, and renewal occurs, particularly in the last few years.
This year’s theme invites papers about creativity and renewal; the crossing of borders—of race, gender, class, nationality, religion, and culture—and the hybridized forms that result; the ways in which art, music, and dance become vehicles for intellectual debate and resistance; the nexus of capital, labor, and technology in the modern era; the dreams and failures of mid-twentieth century liberalism and urban policy; and the intersection of religion and social justice.
We invite scholarship about the ways in which social, political, and environmental distress can plant seeds of a better future. How do moments of crisis foster new ideas, policies, art, music, conceptions of modernity? How have intellectuals and artists encountered and embraced technological change? We welcome papers addressing the state of intellectual history today—its relation to cultural history and the creative arts, its definition in terms of method and topic, and how the future of the field relates to its past. Where are the signs of renewal in our field?
We invite submissions that respond to the conference theme, but also welcome proposals that deal with any other aspect of U.S. intellectual history, broadly defined.
Due to the prohibitive costs of hybrid events (in combination with the challenges of making such events pleasant for participants), there will be no hybrid options for presentation or attendance. Within those parameters, we plan to facilitate a conference that is accessible and welcoming to all. Details: https://s-usih.org/2025/02/s-usih-2025-cfp-creativity-renewal/