Henning Trueper

European University Institute Department of History and Civilisation
Via Boccaccio 121
50133 Firenze (Fi)
Italy

email: henning.trueper@eui.eu

Historians at work. François-Louis Ganshof and his learned friends at home and abroad

This project will provide a close examination of the ethical norms and values guiding work and, in particular, writing processes in the academic discipline of history in the period ca. 1920-70. It will focus on the medievalist François-Louis Ganshof (1895-1980), his works and their scientific contexts, and his scholarly environment in his native Belgium and abroad. By concentrating on various complexes of ethical rules and customs - such as the ideal of objectivity; intimacy, friendship and loyalty among colleagues; nationalism and internationalism; personality formation in the discipline; teaching and popularisation responsibilities - the project will pursue three aims. Firstly, it will attempt to provide a conceptual framework for describing the ethical practices in question. Secondly, it will attempt to explore the role of these practices in the authoring of historical explanations and their contribution to scientific change in the discipline of history. Thirdly, it will pursue changes in scholarly ethics itself in Ganshof's times.