The BGHS organises an Annual Seminar that is dedicated to specific topics of interest for both disciplines. The seminar aims at doctoral students in history and sociology, offering them the opportunity to discuss their research projects with established scientists from both fields. Graduates are encouraged to enrich their dissertations with interdisciplinary perspectives.

This year´s Annual Seminar is titled "End of Messages? The State of the Dialogue between History and Sociology" and deals with the past, present and future relationship between the two disciplines.

Part of the conference are six themed workshops, each led by a tandem of eminent scientists from both disciplines. The workshops are open to doctoral students in history and sociology, offering them the chance to present their research projects and benefit from sociological and historiographical expertise. We welcome any contribution that match the workshop topics and are located at the interface between history and sociology.

Workshop topics and leaders are:

- Semantics (Urs Stäheli, Willibald Steinmetz)
- Knowledge (Alfons Bora, Sybilla Nikolow)
- Communication/Media (Tilmann Sutter, Jörg Requate)
- Social Inequality (Martin Diewald, Thomas Welskopp)
- World Society/Transnational History (Bettina Heintz (invited), Angelika Epple)
- Ethnicity (Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka (invited), Christian Büschges).

For participants from outside Bielefeld the BGHS provides grants to cover expenses for travel and accommodation.

Doctoral students interested in participating should send an exposé of their dissertation project of no more than 600 words to klaus.nathaus@uni-bielefeld.de until Friday, November 14th. Please include your name, academic affiliation and full address as well as the title of the preferred workshop. A committee is going to select the participants who will then be asked to prepare a paper of no more than ten pages. This has to be sent to the named address until January 16th and will then be forwarded to the leaders and the other participants of a respective workshop. The number of participants in each workshop is limited to six, three from each history and sociology. One third of the places are reserved for graduate students from outside Bielefeld.