PLAN

History under Debate:

The Magazine

Since the first conference six years ago, we have had the intention of creating a stable expressive medium for History under Debate (HaD). However, the International Survey on “The state of History”, the preparation of HaD II, and our scarce resources, have postponed the publication of an internacional magazine that responds to the style of HaD, and that likewise inspires, as did magazines like “Annales” and “Past & Present”, in their early days.

We aim at publishing two issues a year, increasing the frequency in the future according to the response received. In contrast to our conferences – punctual actions centered on the difficul task of reflection – in the magazine we will try to combine historical thoungt and ideas with the practice of investigation, while maintaining the interactive character of our relation to the world community of historians.

The unique character of, great turn out for, and exciting results of the International Congress, History under Debate, registers the necessary of establishing a new international magazine of history at this time. The space that the magazine “History under Debate” must cover extends to questions regarding the relationship between methodology and theories of history, philosophy and history, history and literature, politics and history, and history and civil society... We will not ignore the professional problems of historians (because without historians, there isn’t history), and our pages will remain open to estabilished and younger scholars alike. Moreover, because we believe the moment has arrived to overcome linguistic chauvinism, especially in the academic field, we will publish articles in several languages.

We intend for History under Debate – the conferences, the web page, and now the magazine – to be a place to meet and a means to stay connected with each other, with developments thoughtout the discipline, and with relevant developments across the other humanities and social science disciplines. As well, we seek to provide a venue to deliberate questions of historical research, historical teaching and pedagogy, and public history. Only in this way, will we know where history is going and begin to work out where we want it to go.

Sections that our magazine could have:

1.-Historical thought.

Works of historic methodology and historiography (also historiography of the present), theory and philosophy of history.

2.-New investigations.

Empirical works that truly contribute to the development of new sources, new methods, and/or new interpretations of historical facts.

3.-History of the present.

Works of historical or historiographic analysis about contemporary politics, society, economy and recent happenings, including historically-informed social criticism.

4.-Topics for debate.

Discussions empirical or theoretical by way of diverse formats (texts, counter positions, round table, etc.).

5.-Interdisciplinary deliberations.

Interdisciplinary exchange between historiographic genres, between history and social sciences, between history and natural sciences, between history and literature...

6.-Professional questions.

Academic, professional, or labor questions of the historian.

7.-Books for debate.

Critical reviews of history books, or books about historical ideas and methods, or books from other fields of interest to historians.

8.-Agenda

Diverse news about academic, scholarly and/or professional activities...

9.-Letters to the editor.

Space allowing colleague-readers to address the magazine with concrete proposals, critiques, praises, opinions...

Our ultimate objective is to contribute to the development of a convesation in the international community of historians. We seek to revitalize and reconstruct our discipline and profession in order to confront history in, and of, the XXI century.

Interaction and free exchange es very important. The magazine will be open to critiques or defenses of works published in the magazine. (Of course, the author that has generated the polemic will always have the last word).

Of course, we will want to place the magazine on the Internet (by means yet to determined (we welcome suggestions on all mathers).

You might think that this plan is too ambitious and/or overly optimistic. Nevertheles, we feel confident we are on the right track. In order to carry out the project, we need your support: Give us your thoughts about the magazine, its objectives and content; and please contribute to its material sustenance.

Obviously, material support is fundamental. We know, thought the experience of the conferences, that there will be many great works to publish abd that we will have to be selective. Yet, in the end, the feasibility of the magazine will depend on the market economy. As long as we don’t have sufficient subsidies our periodical publication can only be sustained from subscriptions, which means your support, which we don’t doubt. If History under Debate can organize a conference like this, why can we not create a sucessful and exciting international magazine?