Sciences humaines et photographiques.

Humanities and photography

Cross-overs on the multiple and heterogeneous uses of photography in the humanities and social sciences

This international symposium aims to seize the opportunity of the bicentennial of photography to propose a common reflection on photography as it is perceived., used and adapted in the humanities and social sciences. In considering it as a scientific activity, but also a cultural one, in the anthropological sense of the term, it is a question of convoking the texts and reflections that have surrounded its practice, its evolution over the last two centuries and its contemporary uses by actors from different disciplines. By choosing this all-encompassing approach, we want to avoid limiting the apprehension and study of photography to the mere dimension of recording and archiving. The relationships between the photographic image – and all its derivatives – and these different disciplinary fields invite many questions of which we wish here to make an inventory. It is also a question of initiating a reciprocal reflection on how photography leads to methodological and conceptual reconsideration of the human sciences and how, conversely, the latter also lead to redefining it. The call for papers, issued in the autumn of 2026, will build on these preliminary remarks to develop its argument.

The organization of this conference is part of the FdL’s tradition of interdisciplinary research, but also of the ICP as a whole. The research unit “Religion, Culture and Society” (EA 7403), created in 2013 and recognized by the Ministry of Éducation Nationale, Higher Education and Research in 2015, aims to promote transdisciplinary and multisectoral research. In this spirit, several teachers-researchers from other ICP bodies, including the Faculté de Théologie, the Faculty of Education and Training (FacEF) and the Faculté de Sciences social, economic and law (FASSED) will be involved in the scientific organization of this event. Under the direction of a guest photographer. e, it is around these figures and researchers outside the ICP that the scientific committee of the symposium will be composed. The organizing committee, in addition to several teacher-researchers, will include a team of three to five master’s students. They will participate as much in the preliminary scientific exchanges, as in the logistical organization of the conference and in the follow-up of the publication of the annals.

From a logistical point of view, this international colloquium will take place over three days (Wednesday 7, Thursday 8 and Friday 9 April 2027; dates to be confirmed) and will give the floor to about twenty teacher-researchers and speakers from different fields of the humanities and social sciences. The set will be structured into a session of two or three communicators, who will intervene around a common theme that we will determine according to the proposals received. Accessible as a hybrid (with live streaming on Vimeo), each communication should last 20-25 minutes approximately. At the end of the session, a discussion with the auditors will allow to deepen the themes addressed. Two guests (photographer, journalist, etc.) will conclude the days of Wednesday and Thursday with exceptional conferences of 45-60 minutes. The programs of two conferences organized by the FdL, in collaboration with other faculties, have added to the application for illustration: “The thought of the sensitive” in 2021 and “Sport/Corps/Culture” in 2025.

More specifically, as part of our triple proposal in connection with the bicentenary of photography, this symposium takes over from the annual cycle of conferences of the Days of Art, whose theme will be: “(Re)-See the world: 200 years of collaboration between art, archaeology and photography”. In addition, a round table, accompanied by the presentation of posters, will be devoted to the presentation of the archival and online curatorial work conducted by two or three groups of Master students from the photographic collections of the Fels library (those whose subject will open the most to approaches from other humanities and social sciences). This will give visibility to the different Masters involved in the triple project supported by the ICP.

Finally, a paper publication is envisaged in the wake of the symposium, for the winter 2027-28, ideally with the editions Mergoil (with whom the FdL has an agreement). This will make it possible to compose a scientific reference work on the subject, both from the point of view of the themes addressed and the methodologies developed.