Mapping a global humanities dialogue.
Founded in 2003, the Network grew as a forum where established traditions meet emerging practices—building a traveling conference alongside journals, books, and year-round community.
Since its first gathering at the University of the Aegean, Rhodes, the conference has convened with partners including the Monash University Centre in Prato, the University of Cambridge, the University of Carthage in Tunis, the American University of Paris, the University of California, Los Angeles, the Universidad de Granada, Centre Mont-Royal in Montréal, Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Universidad CEU San Pablo in Madrid, the University of British Columbia, the University of Illinois at Chicago, Imperial College London, the University of Pennsylvania, Sorbonne Université, Sapienza University of Rome, and the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, among others. These partnerships anchor the Network’s global reach and multilingual exchange.
Plenary programs have featured Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Juliet Mitchell, Tariq Ali, Tom Nairn, David Christian, Sir Jack Goody, Krishan Kumar, Patrick Baert, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Ted Honderich, Joan Copjec, Kate Soper, Douglas Kellner, Barbara Eckstein, Ewa Domańska, and Gabi Lombardo, among others—voices that situate the humanities as analytic practice and public good.
Guided at inception by Founding Chair and Editor Tom Nairn, whose scholarship framed the Network’s early editorial and thematic agenda, and since 2016 by Asun López-Varela as Chair, the Network has broadened geographically and intellectually—linking convenings with structured peer review and CGScholar collaboration to sustain inclusive, rigorous, and globally connected humanities research.
We are thankful for the leadership of the following Research Network Chairs. Founding Chair: Tom Nairn. His work on nationalism and modernity helped define the Network’s editorial ethos and public-facing mission. Current Chair: Asun López-Varela (Universidad Complutense de Madrid). The Advisory Board offers strategic counsel on conference themes and editorial standards, ensuring rigorous, practice-informed scholarship.
Current Chair and Editor
(2016 - )
Founding Chair and Editor
(2003-2015)
The International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities has a rich history of featuring leading and emerging voices from the field, including:
Professor, Columbia University, New York, USA
(2003, 2007)
Director, Expanded Doctoral School in Psychoanalytic Studies, University College London, London, UK
(2003, 2005)
Writer & Filmmaker, London, UK
(2003, 2006)
Research Fellow, Durham University, Durham, UK
(2003)
Professor, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
(2004)
Professor, St John’s College, Cambridge, UK
(2004, 2005)
Professor, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
(2004, 2007)
Head of Department of Sociology, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
(2005)
Professor, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
(2005)
Professor Emeritus, University College London, London, UK
(2005, 2007)
Professor, Brown University, Providence, USA
(2006)
Visiting Professor, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK
(2006)
Distinguished Professor, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
(2010)
Assistant Professor, Digital Humanities, University of British Columbia at Okanagan, Canada
(2015)
English Department and the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA
(2016)
Associate Professor, Department of History, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland; Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, USA
(2017)
European Alliance for Social Sciences and Humanities, Director, Brussels, Belgium
(2019)
Partnerships extend the scholar-led mission of the Network—linking universities, societies, and cultural institutions to reimagine the humanities for changing publics. Recent and recurring collaborators include:
