Cultures of Fire

Deadline: 30 September 2026

Fire occupies a central and ambivalent place in the history of humankind. Conceived as one of the four classical elements and mythologically represented as a gift wrested from the gods, it lies at the foundation of human civilisations, providing flame, warmth and light that structure forms of sociability, relations with nature and symbolic expression, whilst persisting as a source of danger and destruction. As both a condition of human life and a threat to its integrity, as a sign of creation, knowledge, purification, violence and devastation, fire shapes material practices and cultural repertoires – whether political, legal, scientific or artistic.

Over the course of history, the relationship between societies and fire has been reconfigured. With industrialisation, the professionalisation of science, the establishment of the modern state and the transformation of rural and urban spaces, fire gradually disappeared from everyday contexts and became subordinated to new institutional and technological regimes. To a large extent, fire came to be framed as risk, accident or crime, in addition to chemical reaction. Practices that had long incorporated fire into agriculture, pastoralism, ritual or community life were marginalised or regulated, transforming it into a phenomenon increasingly understood as an “external factor” to ecologies and sociability.

Contemporary wildfires may be understood within the framework of this transformation. The escalating scale and frequency of rural fires do not merely represent the result of climate change and landscape transformation but also signal a rupture in the relationship between fire and society. In this regard, Portugal constitutes a particularly significant case, ranking first among European countries for the highest proportion of burned area, with an annual average three times that of Greece, which occupies second place in this index. Between July and August 2025, the northern and central regions of Portugal were affected by a wave of major fires that devastated approximately 250,000 hectares of forest stands, scrubland and agricultural crops. Far from being an exception, last summer’s fires are part of an established pattern.

Research in this field has progressively recognised fire as a socio-ecological phenomenon, integrating historical, social, political and cultural dimensions into the analysis of evolving fire regimes. Current major fires intersect with long-term changes such as the expansion of forest monocultures, agricultural abandonment, the widening of the rural–urban interface and the progressive loss of traditional knowledge. More broadly, some scholars have situated this process within a new geological era – the Pyrocene (Stephen J. Pyne) – to account for the effects associated with the energy transition from wood and charcoal to fossil fuels.

Building on these developments, this thematic issue seeks to focus on the cultural, epistemic and political frameworks through which fire has been experienced, contested and represented across time. By gesturing towards a cultural history of fire, this call aims to gather contributions that re-examine the very terms of the “wildfire problem” and to stimulate alternative ways of thinking about modern coexistence with fire. The volume welcomes contributions from history, sociology, anthropology, geography, cultural studies, environmental humanities, political ecology, artistic and literary studies and related fields. Empirically grounded and historically informed research addressing fire as a cultural phenomenon is encouraged, particularly around the following topics:

– Material, social and symbolic uses of fire in agricultural, religious or ritual contexts;
– Fire as a means of political action, protest and social conflict;
– Professional cultures of fire (firefighters, technicians, experts);
– Fire in literature and the visual arts;
– Historical constitution of scientific cultures of fire;
– (Cultural) history of energy: public lighting, electrification, railways, etc.;
– Social and legal representations of the arsonist through time;
– Local emergence of new fire regimes;
– Persistence and discontinuities in popular cultures of fire;
– Fire and modernity in the Anthropocene;
– Cultures of fire in the Iberian world and beyond.

Article proposals will be subjected to double-blind review. Texts should be submitted through the Open Journal Systems until 30 September 2026, and must be written in strict compliance with the norms published on the web page of the Revista de História das Ideias.

Coordinators: Frederico Ágoas (CICS.NOVA — NOVA FCSH) and Miguel Carmo (IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)