Historicizing Calendar Age: Workshop

Workshop Logo "Historicizing..."

Date and Time

April 17 - April 18, 2026
All day

Location

Harvard University, Department of the History of Science

This workshop is generously sponsored by the 
Harvard University Department of the History of Science, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions of the European Union

 

Calendar, or chronological, age is a pillar of modern society, law, and identity: it determines age boundaries, structures the institutionalization of the life cycle, and informs self-perception across all stages of human lives. Our familiarity with calendar age — to the point that it is hard to conceive of age without it — is the starting point of the inquiry this workshop seeks to contribute to, aiming at the historicization of this fundamental social category.

The workshop invites contributions from fields as diverse as the history of medicine and science, the history of the state, and social and cultural histories that highlight how such a category was used in practice. The chosen chronological arc stretches from the early modern period into the twentieth century, focusing on North America and Europe, but also looking beyond.

Program and Conference page
Keynote Lecture Poster


Organizers: Hannah Marcus, Ludwig Pelzl, and Ben Maldonado.
Any questions should be sent to Johannes.Pelzl@eui.eu and bmaldonado@g.harvard.edu.

 

 

 

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