In Humanities Theory (2025, with Amanda Anderson), Simon During offers a suggestive mapping of a “humanities world” – a loosely linked “conglomeration of practices, interests, comportments, personae, offices, moods, purposes and values” that inhabit “various settings, disciplines and institutions”. The “humanities world” is plural and diverse; it has no essence or centre, even as it is threaded by shared – if contested – histories, understandings and commitments. It transcends disciplinary lines and geographical formations. Vitally, it also embraces a flourishing “extramural” humanities – of books, artworks, exhibitions, performances, films, TV shows, and podcasts – that bears only loose relation to the professional humanities ensconced in universities.

For this inaugural conference of the new Swiss Law and Humanities Hub, we take the idea of a ‘humanities world’ as a prompt to reflect again on the place(s) of the legal humanities. We call on contributors to give new and further thought to where law and humanities work is performed and pursued, and to the ways in which such work comes to be done in the ‘beyond’ of academia. What happens when we shift our purview away from universities to public spaces, cultural institutions and other locations of collective life? How might this reorientation reshape our understanding of theory, method and practice? More broadly, the conference aims to encourage reflection, collaboration and the sharing of creative approaches that (re-)think legal critique and critique of law through different forms of humanities work – public, popular, and vernacular.

Full call for papers here. Deadline: 12 June 2026.

Contact: steven.howe@unilu.ch