received from Dr. Michelle Pfeffer (Magdalen College, University of Oxford) Dates: 11-12 July 2025 Location: Seminar Room, Radcliffe Humanities Building, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG Programme Registration Overview – Conference Theme and Goals Historians have studied extensively how sciences begin—but how do they end? This is a crucial question for understanding how the labour of knowledge-making evolves. Previous attention to the founding, disciplining, and professionalisation of individual sciences has provided robust frameworks for thinking through the birth and growth of knowledge-making communities. Far less attention has been directed toward how those same communities decay, dissipate, or evolve beyond the contemporary boundaries of science. This conference seeks to cultivate case studies of the ends of sciences, and thereby to motivate a new approach to thinking about the developmental trajectories of scientific disciplines, communities, institutions, and the ordering of expert knowledge. A further aim is to strengthen the community of scholars with a shared interest in studying the ends of sciences. A small lunch will be provided on both days of the conference. If you have any dietary requirements, please email Michelle at michelle.pfeffer@history.ox.ac.uk. We hope to arrange a conference dinner for Friday 11 July following the keynote lecture. […]

by Dr. Robert Yee (Wadham College, University of Oxford) The University of Oxford convened a two-day conference on the history of political economy, capitalism, and global governance between 7 and 8 April 2025. Co-organised by Patricia Clavin, Aled Davies, and Robert Yee, the conference brought together 15 speakers for a discussion on the future of the field. In recent years, scholars have assessed the history of global economic governance from multiple perspectives. They have focused on the rise of development initiatives, the impact of wars on the global order, and the tensions between national interests and international cooperation. Together, these works have broadened our understanding of the evolving role of individuals, ideas, and institutions in shaping the world economy. Our conference reflected on these topics and suggested new directions for the field. We were particularly interested in examining the ways in which the idea of the world economy has been contested, debated, governed and restructured during moments of crisis and change. We also explored the time and temporality of crises, considering the various speeds at which different types of crises, from financial to environmental, proliferated. The conference consisted of five panels, each with three presentations. Our first panel focused on […]