Princeton University Press Lectures in European History and Culture
The TORCH/Princeton Lectures in European Culture and History is a series which aims to make manifest the commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship and public engagement which are so crucially important both to TORCH and to Princeton University Press.
The aim of the series is to attract scholars of acknowledged international recognition for lectures, and so too consequent books, which will serve as distinctively singular statements. These might be new syntheses of recent learning, explicit challenges to disciplinary thinking, or suggestions for fresh explorations on the frontiers of a subject. The pitch and register will be suited to an intellectually curious general public constituency, but should not assume expertise in any discrete area of scholarship.
The emphasis on European Culture serves both to represent Oxford’s history as a European institution and the fact that the editorial emphasis of Princeton’s humanities output is decidedly more European than British. This thematic emphasis should not, however, be thought of as limiting or in any sense exclusionary. This series welcomes approaches that critically examine its key terms, their global history, and their shifting and contested contemporary resonance.
The books which materialise out of the lectures will be of modest length of between 35,000 and 50,000 words. The format is meant to be inviting to prospective general readers and entirely compatible with what will essentially be extended essays of a provocative and indeed polemical quality.
The 2025 - 2026 lectures will be delivered by Professor Anne LaFont. More details on the content of the lectures and information on how to register will be published soon.
Previous TORCH/ Princeton University Press guest lecturers include:
Professor Homi K.Bhabha: 2024 - 2025
Professor William Marx: 2023 - 2024: Lecture Publication: Libraries of the Mind
Professor Martin Puchner: 2019 - 2020. Lecture Publication: Literature for A Changing Planet
