Overview

This volume explores the changing field of cultural history to map out its new developments and future directions, covering major themes such as environment, (de)colonization, digitization, knowledge, heritage and embodied identity. After the rise of the ‘new cultural history’ in the 1980s, the field of cultural history is once again undergoing a time of change. This collection discusses and explains these changes, highlighting new themes from disability and race to technology and animals, and shows how the field has become increasingly entangled with other disciplines such as gender studies, science and technology studies, and critical heritage studies. Featuring an international team of experts working in cultural history today, Cultural History for a Changing World is an indispensable guide to the field. Each chapter historicizes and problematizes their topics, gives an overview of the different reactions within the field, and offers an outlook about future avenues and opportunities of research the respective topic offers. Introducing relevant case studies drawn from their own research, the authors show how these new approaches can work in practice. Also highlighting the opportunities offered by new approaches such as decolonial, environmental and digital methodologies, Cultural History for a Changing World sets out how this field has been adapting to, and sometimes instigating, shifts in society, and demonstrates how global cultural, social, political and economic changes are affecting the theories, methods and practices of cultural historians.

Full Product Details

Author:   Jochen Hung (Utrecht University, Netherlands) ,  Willemijn Ruberg (Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Academic
Dimensions:   Width: 16.20cm , Height: 2.20cm , Length: 23.80cm
Weight:   0.580kg
ISBN:  

9781350558830

ISBN 10:   1350558834
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   05 February 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Introduction, Willemijn Ruberg (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) Part I: Environment 1. Knowledge of Nature: Drawing the Line between the Human and the Natural, Flora Roberts, Richard Calis and Mette Bruinsma (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) 2. Dealing with Petrocultural Legacies and Histories Otherwise: Definitions and Directions for Cultural History and Heritage, Gertjan Plets, Colin Sterling, Rodney Harrison and Nelia Dias (Utrecht University, The Netherlands, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, University College London, UK and University Institute Lisbon, Portugal) Part II: The Digital 3. The History of Digital Cultures, Jochen Hung and Briana J. Smith ((Utrecht University, The Netherlands and Harvard University, USA) 4. Digital Archives, Historical Infrastructures, Dirk van Miert, Manjusha Kurrupath and Pim Huijnen (Utrecht University and Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands) Part III: Knowledge and Truth 5. Historical Facts as Products of Networks. A New Direction in the History of History, Pieter Huistra and Rutger van der Hoeven (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) Part IV: Embodiment 6. Feeling Human: Emotion, Experience and Disability in Cultural History, Nathanje Dijkstra, Josephine Hoegaerts and Elwin Hofman (Utrecht University and University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) 7. Bodies That Matter: New Directions in the History of the Body, Willemijn Ruberg, Danielle Kinsey and Pauline Dirven (Utrecht University, The Netherlands, and Carleton University, Canada) Part V: Labour and Population 8. Population and reproduction: Research Vistas from Europe’s Peripheries, Katerina Lišková and Ágata Ignaciuk (Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences and University of Granada, Spain) 9. Class, Labour, Work, Identity: its Place and Meaning in the Culture of Modern Europe, Ido de Haan, James Kennedy and Jeroen Koch (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) Part VI: Towards Decolonial Cultural History 10. Finding the Decolonial in Cultural History, Giti Chandra, Rachel Gillett and Angela Wanhalla (University of Iceland, Utrecht University, The Netherlands and University of Otago, New Zealand) 11. Contesting Imperial Pasts: Arts, Scholarship and Activism, Julie Deschepper, Renée Vulto, Britta Schilling and Grace Leksana (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) Afterword: Bridging Past and Future – Reflections on cultural history’s position in a changing world, Jan Bant, Caroline Kreysel and Suzanne Ros (Radboud University Nijmegen, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Utrecht University, The Netherlands)

Reviews

For anyone teaching or researching cultural history, this book is invaluable. It covers a wealth of topics from environment and post-truth to decoloniality and embodiment, with case-studies to match. If you’re looking for a text that speaks to cultural history in the 2020s, this is it. * Simon Gunn, Professor Emeritus of Urban History, University of Leicester, UK *

Author Information

Jochen Hung is Associate Professor of Cultural History at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. His research focuses on the relationship between media, culture and society in modern history. Willemijn Ruberg is Associate Professor of Cultural History at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Her research explores the cultural history of the body, gender, law, (forensic) medicine and psychiatry, as well as cultural theory. She is the author of History of the Body (2020).

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