Thinking Across Contexts:
Disciplinary Knowledge and Its Limits
Exeter – Fudan Global Thought Network Conference 2026:
Call for Participation
17 – 19 June 2026
University of Exeter
How is knowledge shaped by where it is produced, and what happens when disciplinary frameworks travel across historical, cultural, and political contexts? Across the Humanities and Social Sciences, scholars increasingly confront the limits of universalising theories and the renewed importance of locally grounded, historically situated forms of understanding.
Throughout most of the 20th Century, Social Science disciplines have taken more universalising approaches to knowledge by proposing sets of concepts and interpretive frameworks (Foucault 1979), and generally valuing universal or general theories over the more empirical and situated forms of knowledge (Milutinovic 2020; Kaczmarska and Ortmann 2021). Disciplines in the Humanities, such as History, Art History, Literature, Classics and Anthropology, have been more open to contextualism and transhistorical approaches (Harrison 1997; Summers 2003). And, while Area Studies has its roots in colonial expansion (Brown 2016) and the Cold War drive to “know your enemy” (Engerman 2009), it has nevertheless straddled traditional disciplinary divides, and its emphasis on extended fieldwork has foregrounded local meanings and epistemologies (Szanton 2004; Grosfoguel 2011).
Yet, over the last decade or so, theoretical, political, and economic developments have made these epistemological debates increasingly urgent. At the level of theory, the decolonial turn has encouraged scholars to interrogate Western-centrism in disciplinary frameworks and methodologies, and explore concepts, narratives and subjectivities whose roots like in the Global South (Mignolo and Walsh 2018). At the level of politics, global events, such as new wars, climate breakdown and technological disruption, demonstrate the need for contextually sensitive knowledge. And, when it comes to the economy, Western governments’ systemic underfunding of grounded, interpretive and Humanities research risks limiting our capacity for mutual understanding across contexts (Hoffstaedter 2025).
The 3rd Exeter-Fudan Global Thought Network Conference 2026 aims to interrogate the entanglements between contextual and disciplinary knowledges in the Humanities and Social Sciences. It therefore seeks contributions that foreground local, situated, and transhistorical processes, meanings and subjectivities from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.
Papers might address the following themes:
· Contextualism, transhistoricism and situated knowledge in a given discipline or field
· Decolonial and/or non-Western epistemic practices in a given discipline or field
· Intercultural, comparative and/or multi-sited studies that bring together situated knowledges across contexts
This is an intentionally wide call that aims to bring together similar conversations happening in different disciplinary contexts across the Humanities and Social Sciences and to allow participation from a diverse range of colleagues from across our two institutions.
The format of the Symposium will be comprised of moderated panel discussions, bringing together an expected three to five scholars from Exeter and Fudan. Panellists will be allocated to refined panel themes upon selection of papers. Panellists should prepare to deliver paper presentations of approximately 15 minutes, followed by open discussion and Q&A.
Participants may also be asked to moderate other panels and will be asked in the application form for an expression of interest in this role.
Submitting your paper proposal
To submit your proposal, please complete the application form at:
Call for Papers Exeter-Fudan Global Thought Network Symposium 2026 – Collaboration
Or please download the pdf file below and send to Ms. WANG Ying <wang_ying@fudan.edu.cn>
Please note the submission deadline of 15 April 2026. Applicants will be notified of the outcome by 30 April 2026.
In the application form, you will be able to indicate your availability on each of 17, 18 and 19 June, to aid in finalisation of the programme by the selection committee. Please note that the Symposium will be held in person in Exeter and will not comprise a hybrid/online component. Delivery of papers should be in English.
With any questions, Exeter colleagues can please contact HASS@exeter.ac.uk and Fudan colleagues can please contact <wang_ying@fudan.edu.cn>
Application Form Exeter-Fudan Global Thought Network Symposium 2026.pdf
Exeter Fudan Global Thought Network 2026 CFP (For Fudan Review FEB 2026) 20.02.docx
References
Brown, Ian (2016) The School of Oriental and African Studies: Imperial Training and the Expansion of Learning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Engerman, David C. (2009) Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America’s Soviet Experts (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Foucault, Michel (1979) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage Books).
Grosfuguel, Ramon (2011) ‘Decolonizing Post-Colonial Studies and Paradigms of Political-Economy: Transmodernity, Decolonial Thinking, and Global Coloniality’, TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, 1(1).
Harrison, Faye V. (ed.) (1997) Decolonizing Anthropology: Moving Further Towards an Anthropology for Liberation, Third Edition, (Arlington, Virginia: American Anthropology Association)
Hoffstaedter, Gerhard (2025) ‘The great rebalancing of area studies’, East Asia Forum, 11 October 2025, Available at: https://eastasiaforum.org/2025/10/11/the-great-rebalancing-of-area-studies/
Kaczmarska, Katarzyna and Stefanie Ortmann (2021) ‘IR theory and Area Studies: A plea for displaced knowledge about international politics’, Journal of International Relations and Development 24, pp. 820–47
Milutinovic, Zoran (ed) (2020) The Rebirth of Area Studies: Challenges for History, Politics and International Relations in the 21st Century (IB Tauris: London).
Summers, David (2003) Real Spaces: World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism (London: Phaidon Press)
Szanton, David (ed.) (2004) The Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Disciplines (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).
Mignolo, Walter D. and Catherine E. Walsh (2018) On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis (Durham: Duke University Press).