Histories and Futures of French Travelling Concepts

Understanding the development of the humanities and social sciences as intellectual adventures, the network will follow the lineages and afterlives of the French conceptual legacy. Although originating in academic French philosophy, the four central concepts we have selected have proven particularly adept at travelling across disciplinary, institutional, geographical and linguistic borders, thus constituting clear examples of “travelling concepts” in the sense proposed by Mieke Bal.

The objectives of the network are: i) to explore the status of the French conceptual legacy as a theoretical basis for current scholarship in the humanities; ii) to show how four now widespread concepts  from four domains—language (écriture), politics (l’universel), ethics (l’autre), and history (événement)—have travelled and mutated; iii) to draw methodological lessons on transdisciplinarity, international reception and concept formation from the use of French philosophy as “theory” in diverse academic and political contexts; and iv) to envisage possible futures for these concepts in the necessary responses to the challenges faced by new generations.

Anchored at the Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies at the University of Copenhagen, the network also includes Aarhus University, Stockholm University, Leiden University, and L’École des Hautes Études des Sciences Sociales, as well as associated members from other institutions.

Feel free to contact the organising group if you are interested in becoming a affiliated with the network.

Amanda Grimsbo Roswall, Kristian Olesen Toft and Anna Cornelia Ploug.

The network will meet regularly once each semester from 2025-2028. Meetings will consist of open lectures for the public and closed workshops for members of the network.

• The inaugural meeting took place on 19-20 March 2025 at the University of Copenhagen under the rubric “What is a French Travelling Concept?”
• A second meeting took place on 26-27 August 2025 at the University of Stockholm, and treated the French travelling concept L’autre, with public talks by Mladen Dolar and Mara Lee.
• A third meeting took place on 12-13 March 2026 at the Centre for Applied Ecological Thinking in Copenhagen, and treated the French travelling concept L’universel, with a public talk by Geneviève Pruvost.
• A smaller public seminar on the French travelling concept polycrise will take place in Copenhagen on 11 June, with talks by Lotte List and Agnethe Brounbjerg Bennedsgaard.
• A fourth network meeting is scheduled to take place in Aarhus in August 2026, and will treat the French travelling concept Le contemporain. More information to follow.

For information on future events, please sign up to our mailing list by sending an email to Kristian Olesen Toft, Anna Cornelia Ploug, or Amanda Grimsbo Roswall. Please also contact us with any inqueries about the network.