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Description

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.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Entanglements in cultural history Willemijn Ruberg

1 Environment
1.1 Knowledge of nature: Drawing the line between the human
and the natural Flora Roberts, Mette Bruinsma and
Richard Calis
1.2 Dealing with petrocultural legacies and histories otherwise: Definitions and directions for cultural history and heritage, Gertjan Plets, Rodney Harrison, Nélia Dias and Colin Sterling

2 The digital and 'post-truth'
2.1 "e history of digital cultures Jochen Hung and Briana J. Smith
2.2 Digital archives, historical infrastructures Pim Huijnen, Manjusha Kuruppath and Dirk van Miert
2.3 Historical facts as products of networks: A new direction in the history of history Pieter Huistra and Rutger van der Hoeven

3 Embodiment
3.1 Feeling human: Emotion, experience and disability in
cultural history Nathanje Dijkstra, Josephine Hoegaerts and Elwin Hofman
3.2 Bodies that matter: New directions in the history of the body, Danielle Kinsey, Willemijn Ruberg and Pauline Dirven

4 Labour and population
4.1 Population and reproduction: Research vistas from Europe's peripheries, Katerina Lisková and Agata Ignaciuk
4.2 "The cultural history of work and the identity of labour, Ido de Haan, James Kennedy and Jeroen Koch

5 Towards decolonial cultural history
5.1 Finding the decolonial in cultural history, Giti Chandra, Rachel Gillett and Angela Wanhalla
5.2 Contesting imperial pasts: Arts, scholarship and activism, Julie Deschepper, Grace Leksana, Britta Schilling and Renée Vulto

Afterword: Looking back, moving forward. Reflections on the field of cultural history, Jan Bant, Caroline Kreysel and Suzanne Ros
Index

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published Jan 22 2026
Format Ebook (PDF)
Edition 1st
Extent 288
ISBN 9781350558847
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 10 bw illus
Series Cultural History and Historical Culture
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Jochen Hung

Jochen Hung is Associate Professor of Cultural His…

Anthology Editor

Willemijn Ruberg

Willemijn Ruberg is Associate Professor of Cultura…

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