Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 197.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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        Date: 2025-11-01 08:59:53+00:00
        From: Marieke Gelderblom <m.h.gelderblom@UU.NL>
        Subject: CfP HSS/ESHS 2026 panel: Data visualisation and the history of statistics

Data visualization and the history of statistics
European Society for the History of Science / 
British Society for the History of Science
https://eshs.org/2026-eshs-hss-joint-meeting/

Panel on ‘Data visualization and the history of statistics’.
-----

Dear Colleagues,

For the upcoming HSS/ESHS joint meeting in Edinburgh, 13–16 July 2026,
we call for papers to be included in our proposal for a panel session on
‘Data visualization and the history of statistics’.

Statistical graphics are visual representations of statistical data,
such as charts, diagrams, and quantitative maps. Around 1850, these
visualizations began to gain traction –first in Europe, then the United
States, and eventually beyond– creating new ways to give meaning to
statistical data. Far from being neutral images, they have functioned as
communicative, rhetorical, and reasoning tools, actively shaping the
ways in which data were interpreted, legitimized, and circulated.

This panel aims to investigate how visualizations acquired authority and
trust, and how data visualization intersected with issues of
uncertainty. The papers explore how conventions of clarity, precision,
and what Theodore Porter has termed “trust in numbers” were produced
through visual practices; in data visualizations, quantitative
procedures intersected with historically specific aesthetic trends, the
entanglement of which shaped how people encountered statistical ways of
knowing. In keeping with the conference theme “Shifting Perspectives:
Plural Worlds, Contested Sciences,” this panel aims to historicize data
visualization practices. Our papers embrace a plural understanding of
statistics, where mathematical, aesthetic, rhetorical and political
practices come together, in recognition that mathematical statistics
evolved through diverse epistemic cultures. In so doing, our papers
contribute to the understanding of the visual foundations of scientific
knowledge and reflect on the ways in which data visualization continues
to structure epistemic authority today.

To propose a paper, please send us an abstract of 2,000 characters or
fewer (approximately 250 words) accompanied by a short biography by 20
November 2025. For more information about the conference, see the
official CfP (https://hssonline.org/page/2026cfp).
Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions.

Best regards,

Marieke Gelderblom, Freudenthal Institute, Utrecht University
m.h.gelderblom@uu.nl
Brianne Wesolowski, Institute for History, Leiden University
b.m.wesolowski@hum.leidenuniv.nl



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