The Norwegian Historians Conventions is the largest meeting place for historians in Norway.
Here, historians from across disciplines and areas of interest meet—from archives, libraries, museums, peace and human rights centers, schools, and universities—for annual discussions on current issues related to historical developments.
In 2026, the event will be organized in cooperation between the Department of Archeology, Conservation and History at the University of Oslo (UiO) and HIFO Østlandet. OsloMet and the National Library of Norway are represented on the organizing committee. UiO: Democracy and Fritt Ord have contributed funding for the conference.
Please visit the Norwegian Historians Conventions norwegian web page for registration and detailed information about the program.
Contact: norskehistoriedager2026@iakh.uio.no
Main theme
In a time marked by daunting democratic challenges, the Norwegian Historians Convention 2026 aims to shed light on how critical voices have historically reflected on as well as helped shape social, political, cultural, and economic constellations.
We invite you to join us for a debate on Critical Voices in a historical perspective, particularly within the following areas:
- Critical engagement, co-determination, and participation on local, national, and global scales
- Voices, culture and identity: inclusion, representation and political divides
- Silent voices, quiet resistance, oppressed groups: social justice and democratic representation
- Censorship, freedom of expression and opposition: conditions for democratic public life
- Artificial voices, technology and communication: new platforms for democratic participation
- Non-human voices, animals, nature and history
- History, the use of history, and identity politics
- Science, historiography, and democracy
Keynote I: Democracy: What can go wrong?
We are pleased to announce that Joanna Innes, Professor Emeritus of Modern History and Senior Research Fellow at Somerville College, University of Oxford, has agreed to give a keynote lecture at the Norwegian Historians Convention 2026.
Innes is the author of a number of outstanding books on democracy as both concept and practice. As the long-standing head of the international research project Re-imagining Democracy (together with Mark Philp), she has traced changing attitudes and practices related to democracy in Europe and the Americas from 1750 to 1870. The project examines how democracy was understood, imagined, and processed intellectually, practically, and institutionally through various movements for and against reforms. Project findings have, among other places, been published in three anthologies with OUP (Re-imagining Democracy in the Age of Revolutions: America, France, Britain, Ireland 1750−1850 [2013]; Re-imagining democracy in the Mediterranean, 1780−1860 [2018]; Re-imagining democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean, 1780−1860 [2023]. The group's ongoing fourth and final book project is Re-imagining Democracy in Central and Northern Europe (2027), which also sheds light on Scandinavian cases.
At the Convention, Joanna Innes will give a keynote lecture entitled ‘Democracy: What can go wrong?’ The lecture will be followed by an interdisciplinary panel discussion.
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Participants: Kristin Asdal (UIO/TIK), Dag Michalsen (UiO/JF), Eirik Vatnøy (UiO/INL) and Terje Rasmussen (UiO/IMK). Chair: Ruth Hemstad (NB/UiO.
Keynote II: Listening for the voices of medieval travellers in Norway
Tatiana Petrukhina, Doctoral Research Fellow at UiO, and Anders Winroth, professor of Medieval History at UiO, will give a joint keynote titled "Listening for the voices of medieval travellers in Norway". Abstract follows shortly.
