CFP: Academic Freedom, Integrity, and Governance in Central Asia: Theory, Practice, and Emerging Challenges

 Central Asian Affairs is seeking contributions for its upcoming special issue, “Academic Freedom, Integrity, and Governance in Central Asia: Theory, Practice, and Emerging Challenges.”

Guest editors:

Dmitry Dubrovsky, PhD, Department of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague

Feruza Madaminova, PhD, International School of Finance Technology and Science (ISFT Institute), Tashkent

Assylzat Karabayeva, PhD, College of Social Sciences, KIMEP University, Almaty

Special Issue Scope

Academic freedom—understood as a normative foundation of higher education and a precondition to produce reliable knowledge—has become both an object of intense debate and a growing field of scholarly inquiry. Classical and contemporary theories conceptualize academic freedom variously as an individual right of scholars, an institutional condition of university autonomy, and a relational practice shaped by governance, power, and professional norms. In recent years, these theoretical debates have gained renewed urgency across different world regions.

These issues were central to two panels at the conference “Academic Freedom in Flux: Purpose, Beneficiaries, and Practices in the Contemporary World,” held on 16–18 October 2025 at the Tashkent State University of Economics. Discussions highlighted a set of challenges that transcend national contexts: the managerialization of higher education; the tightening of regulatory and political oversight over universities; and shifting modes of interaction between academic institutions and the state, society, business, and civil society.

For Central Asia, these debates are particularly salient. Ongoing reforms in higher education and research, coupled with the growing prominence of science and education in national development strategies, have reconfigured the institutional environment in which academic freedom is practiced. While reform agendas are often framed in terms of global competitiveness and integration into international academic markets, they simultaneously raise fundamental questions about how academic freedom and institutional autonomy are interpreted, negotiated, and protected in practice.

This special issue approaches academic freedom not only as a legal or declarative principle, but as a socially embedded practice shaped by governance regimes, professional cultures, and informal norms. Attention is paid to the tension between formal regulation and informal arrangements in research and higher education, including state–university relations, the effectiveness of academic self-governance, and the institutionalization of academic integrity.

A new and increasingly consequential dimension of these debates concerns the rapid diffusion of artificial intelligence in higher education and research. AI-driven tools—ranging from text generation and data analysis to automated assessment and surveillance—are reshaping everyday academic practices. In the Central Asian context, these technologies raise pressing questions about academic integrity, authorship, evaluation, control, and trust, as well as about new forms of dependency, oversight, and inequality. The intersection of AI, academic freedom, and integrity thus represents a critical and underexplored area for empirical and theoretical inquiry in the region.

At the same time, Central Asia’s historical experience makes it essential to address broader structural issues, including epistemic justice, academic imperialism, and academic colonialism. Scholars working in and on the region continue to navigate global hierarchies of knowledge production that affect research agendas, publication practices, and standards of academic “excellence.” Gender equality and inclusion, while not the primary focus of this issue, remain an important contextual dimension of academic development and are welcomed as part of broader, analytically grounded contributions.

Proposal Guidelines

This special issue invites submissions that engage theoretically and empirically with academic freedom, academic integrity, and institutional autonomy in Central Asia, both historically and in the present. The editors particularly welcome contributions based on original empirical materials and approaches from sociology, political science, history, education studies, and related disciplines.

Suggested themes include:

Theories of academic freedom and their applicability beyond Western institutional contexts

Managerial reforms and their consequences for academic freedom and institutional autonomy

Governance, self-rule, and power relations within universities

State-university relations and regulatory regimes shaping research and teaching

Academic integrity: norms, enforcement mechanisms, and institutional cultures

Artificial intelligence in higher education: implications for academic integrity, evaluation, and freedom

Formal rules versus informal practices in research and higher education

Epistemic justice, knowledge hierarchies, and global academic inequality

Academic imperialism, colonial legacies, and decolonial approaches in and about Central Asia

Academic labor, precarity, mobility, and patterns of brain drain and circulation

Gender Equality and inclusion in academia as a contextual and institutional dimension

Soviet and post-Soviet legacies of higher education and their contemporary reinterpretations

Deadline: May 15, 2026

All submissions should be sent to madaminovaferuza.f@gmail.com.

Please use the subject line: “Central Asia Affairs – Special Issues“

CALL FOR PAPERS Science, Dissent, and Activism: How Non-State Actors Challenged the Cold War Order

 CALL FOR PAPERS

Science, Dissent, and Activism:

How Non-State Actors Challenged the Cold War Order

Dates: Monday, September 7 – Tuesday, September 8, 2026

Place: Prague, Czech Republic

Deadline for abstracts: April 19, 2026

Scientific Committee: Carola Sachse (professor emerita, University of Vienna, AT), Katja Castryck Naumann (GWZO Leipzig, DE), Kenji Ito (University of Tokyo, JAP), Doubravka Olšáková (Charles University in Prague, CZ, organizer), Michel Perottino (Charles University in Prague, CZ)

Rationale:

In recent years, science activism has gained renewed visibility, as scientists increasingly engage in public debates on climate change, global security, and democratic governance. These developments invite us to reconsider the historical roots of scientific activism and the longer trajectories through which non-state actors have mobilized knowledge and authority in times of geopolitical tension. 

From this perspective, the Cold War emerges as a key historical laboratory for examining these dynamics. Cold War historiography has long been dominated by state-centric perspectives that privilege diplomatic elites, military institutions, and formal international organizations. In recent years, however, growing attention has been paid to non-state actors who operated across, alongside, or in tension with Cold War power structures. Scientists, intellectuals, dissidents, activists, and expert communities played a crucial role in articulating alternative forms of authority, mobilizing knowledge for political ends, and creating transnational spaces of interaction that both reflected and contested the bipolar order.

This conference seeks to advance an analytically grounded discussion of how non-state actors used science, expertise, and moral authority to challenge Cold War logics of sovereignty, security, and ideological loyalty. Particular emphasis will be placed on the interplay between knowledge production and political agency across different institutional settings, including conferences, committees, universities and research institutes, expert networks, and non-governmental organizations. A central point of reference is the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and related initiatives, understood not only as a peace movement but as laboratories of non-state diplomacy, epistemic authority, and Cold War governance. 

In addition, we are interested in contributions that examine hybrid actors occupying the space between state and non-state authority, including intergovernmental frameworks that operated as platforms of expert governance, norm production, and monitoring rather than as traditional diplomatic actors. Institutions such as the OSCE, particularly in its late Cold War and post-Cold War configurations, invite analysis as sites where non-state practices, expertise, and moral authority were institutionalized within formally intergovernmental settings. The conference aims to situate such forums within broader histories of expertise, dissent, and activism across different political systems and world regions.

We welcome empirically rich case studies as well as theoretically informed contributions from the history of science and technology, Cold War history, new diplomatic history, political sciences, international relations, political sociology, area studies, and peace studies. Comparative, transnational, and entangled perspectives are particularly encouraged.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Non-state actors and the reconfiguration of political authority during the Cold War;

• Science as a resource for dissent, mediation, and legitimacy;

• Institutional contexts of non-state action: conferences, committees, universities, research institutes, and NGOs;

• Tensions between loyalty, autonomy, and internationalism in scientific and expert communities;

• Informal diplomacy, expert forums, and the politics of “neutral” knowledge;

• Dissenting expertise within socialist, authoritarian, and post-colonial contexts;

• Activism, morality, and responsibility in nuclear, environmental, and peace-related debates;

• Knowledge circulation, surveillance, and control across ideological borders;

• Methodological challenges in studying non-state actors, expertise, and informal power.

Financial support for participants: Thanks to dedicated funding, we will be able to cover accommodation costs in Prague for a limited number of early career researchers and researchers in need. Applicants who wish to be considered for this support are encouraged to indicate this when submitting their proposal.

Submission Guidelines: Prospective participants are invited to submit a short abstract (max. 240 words) and a brief biographical note by 19 April 2026 to doubravka.olsakova@fsv.cuni.cz 

*Acknowledgement: The conference is organized within the framework of the research grant Forging Peace in the Shadow: Czechoslovak Pugwash and Pugwash in Czechoslovakia (GA25-16159S), in collaboration with the IUHST/DHST Commission on Science, Technology and Diplomacy and in collaboration with the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe in Leipzig.

AUC HISTORIA UNIVERSITATIS CAROLINAE PRAGENSIS, Vol 66 No 1 (2026) is online!

 AUC HISTORIA UNIVERSITATIS CAROLINAE PRAGENSIS, Vol 66 No 1 (2026) is online!

URL: https://karolinum.cz/en/journal/auc-historia-universitatis-carolinae-pragensis/year-66/issue-1/issue-year-2026

Zodpovědná archivářka, obětavá vysokoškolská pedagožka, přední historička vědy a vzdělanosti Milada Sekyrková jubilující

Jiří Šouša

Bibliografie Milady Sekyrkové za leta 1989–2024

Tereza Klozová

„In scamno nobilium“. Několik poznámek o vztazích šlechty a pražských univerzit v pozdním středověku

Jan Boukal

Vznik a prvních deset ročníků časopisu Acta Universitatis Carolinae – Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis

Marek Ďurčanský, Andrea Veverková

„My tady muzeologii také doopravdy děláme…“ Národní muzeum a odborné vzdělávání muzejníků v letech 1918 až 1989

Libor Jůn

Ženy spjaté s Orientálním ústavem před válkou a v ČSAV

Adéla Jůnová Macková

Studia hudebního skladatele Josefa Kličky na pražské konzervatoři ve světle rodinné korespondence

Barbora Kličková

Možnosti výzkumu postavení asistentů a asistentek filozofické fakulty Německé (Karlovy) univerzity v Praze

Jana Ratajová

Studentská legie pražské univerzity v roce 1800 a její památky

Tomáš Sekyrka

„Neuznávám vskutku autoritativní systém.“ František Kovárna mezi lety 1945–1948 a po únorovém převratu

Marek Suk

Inaugurační projevy rektorů pražských univerzit od konce 19. do počátku 21. století

Petr Svobodný

Kolkovací akce při vzniku měny Československé republiky a účast absolventů právnické fakulty české pražské univerzity při ní: úsměvné i chmurné chvíle na základě pamětí Karla Leopolda

Jiří Šouša

Příspěvek k dějinám budovy Ústavu dějin Univerzity Karlovy a archivu Univerzity Karlovy a Archivního a depozitního střediska Lešetice

Michal Továrek

Vzdělávání učitelů a jejich provázanost s univerzitním prostředím v 1. polovině 19. století se zaměřením na (pražská) gymnázia

Zdeněk Vašek, Lenka Vašková

Lise Meitner (1878–1968) in Berlin – 30 Years of Research on Foundational Problems in Physics and the First Female Corresponding Member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences

Annette Vogt

Pozitivistická metoda dějin umění a její nepřátelé. Alfred Woltmann v diskusi

Jindřich Vybíral

Mezi Národním muzeem a Karlovou univerzitou: ke kariérním strategiím univerzitních absolventů a muzejních pracovníků v letech 1818–1938

Klára Woitschová

Michal Dragoun, Knihovna mistra Křišťana z Prachatic, Praha 2025

Blanka Zilynská

Alena Císařová Smítková (ed.), Libri boni semper amici fidi erunt…: kolektivní monografie k životnímu jubileu PhDr. Milady Svobodové, Praha 2023

Jan Boukal

Barbora Kocánová, Meteorologie a předpovídání počasí ve vzdělanosti středověkých Čech a Moravy, Praha 2025

Jan Boukal

Petr Čornej, Pekařův Žižka, Turnov 2024

Jan Boukal

Jiří Hrabal – Eva Janečková – Vladan Marenčík – Natálie Trojková (edd.), Krátká zpráva o cestě Šimona Aloise Tudecia de Monte Galea, Olomouc 2025

Jan Boukal

Daniela Lunger Štěrbová, Co jest k pravému porozumění architektury třeba. Johann Ferdinand Schor a jeho přednášky na pražské Stavovské inženýrské škole / Was zur wahren Einsicht in die Bau-Kunst erfordert werde. Johann Ferdinand Schor und seine Vorlesungen an der Ständischen Ingenieurschule in Prag, Praha 2024

Jan Boukal

Kristýna Kaucká – Tomáš Gecko, „Hrad“ ve světě lobbingu a financí. Jaroslav Preiss v korespondenci s T. G. Masarykem a Přemyslem Šámalem, Praha 2024

Andrea Veverková

Vlasta Mádlová, Stálé vojsko vědecké: Česká akademie věd a umění 1891–1952, Praha 2024

Marek Brčák

Michal V. Šimůnek, Narušená kontinuita. Česká věda, německá hegemonie a totální válka, 1939–1945, Praha 2025

Petr Svobodný

Call for articles: "From science to pseudoscience. Historical perspectives."

 The journal “Analecta. Studies and Materials from the History of Science” announces a Call for Papers for the 2026 issues of the journal. The theme for the year is:

"From science to pseudoscience. Historical perspectives."

We are looking for texts that analyze, from a historical perspective, the intricacies of scientific theories that have been verified, abandoned, or lost popularity over time. Authors are requested to submit abstracts of up to 300 words by May 1, 2026. Once abstracts have been accepted, the final texts should be submitted by September 30, 2026.

Please send emails to: czasopismo.analecta@gmail.com

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The journal “Analecta. Studies and Materials from the History of Science” announces a Call for Papers for the 2026 issues of the journal. The theme for the year is: 

"From science to pseudoscience. Historical perspectives." 

We are looking for texts that analyze, from a historical perspective, the intricacies of scientific theories that have been verified, abandoned, or lost popularity over time.

The editorial board invites submissions in Polish and English that fit one or more of the following approaches to the problem:

1. Traditional and folk medicine – herbal medicine, herbal practices, and others from an ethnological and historical perspective.

2. Dead ends in science. Defunct branches of former science: alchemy, physiognomy, phrenology, galvanism, and others.

3. Para-science, parapsychology: history, sources, and development of mediums, spiritualism, hypnotism, and others.

4.    Religious/social organizations and their relationship with science: Scientology, Christian Science, Freemasonry, and others.

5. Science and ideology. Pseudoscience and its consequences: anthropometry, hygienism, eugenics, and others)

6. Conspiracy theories: Flat Earth, moon landing, Roswell, and others. History and sources.

7. New Age as alternative science. History and sources of palmistry, astrology, crystals, and other practices in popular and scientific publications.

And other historical, cultural, and sociological approaches to the title issue.

Authors are requested to submit abstracts of up to 300 words by May 1, 2026. Once abstracts have been accepted, the final texts should be submitted by September 30, 2026.

Siobhán Hearne (ed.): Socialist Humanitarianism. Journal of Contemporary History

 Siobhán Hearne (ed.): Socialist Humanitarianism. Journal of Contemporary History, online first.

Hearne, S. (2026). Introduction: Socialist Humanitarianism. Journal of Contemporary History, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00220094251408474

Tot, D. (2025). State-Sponsored ‘Solidarity Weeks’, 1967–87: The Home Front of Yugoslav Humanitarian Internationalism. Journal of Contemporary History, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00220094251393630

Hachmeister, M. (2025). Donate Blood–Save Lives! Blood Donation in the Czechoslovak and Polish Red Cross. Journal of Contemporary History, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00220094251396914

Iacob, B. C. (2025). Overcoming Whiteness? Romanian Humanitarianism in Sub-Saharan Africa During the 1960s. Journal of Contemporary History, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00220094251393602

Zou, D. (2025). Doctoring Revolution: The Paradox of Maoist Humanitarianism in Chinese Medical Aid to Algeria. Journal of Contemporary History, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/002200942514016

Fonseca, S. (2025). The Body Politic: Leftist Humanitarianism in Latin American Social Medicine. Journal of Contemporary History, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00220094251401605

Brossard Antonielli, A. (2026). Visible and Invisible: Socialist Medical Aid to Mozambique and Angola. Journal of Contemporary History, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00220094261422179

Hearne, S. (2025). Exporting Socialist Health Care: Soviet Humanitarianism in the Global South. Journal of Contemporary History, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00220094251393617

Brotherton, P. S. (2026). Afterword: Rethinking Socialist Humanitarianism Across Geographies, Ideologies, and Scales. Journal of Contemporary History, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00220094261429047

Jakub Střelec: Od trestu k terapii Forenzní psychiatrie v poválečné obnově Evropy [From Punishment to Therapy Forensic Psychiatry in Postwar Europe's Reconstruction].

 Jakub Střelec: Od trestu k terapii Forenzní psychiatrie v poválečné obnově Evropy [From Punishment to Therapy Forensic Psychiatry in Postwar Europe's Reconstruction]. Karolinum 2026. ISBN 978-80-246-6019-6

Jak rozuměli odborníci v poválečné Evropě násilí? Kniha zkoumá přístupy psychiatrů a psychologů k násilnému chování a kriminalitě ve třech odlišných společnostech - v komunistickém Československu, západním Německu a Velké Británii v letech 1945-1970. Prostřednictvím rozboru soudně odborného vědění a psychiatrických posudků sleduje, jak se do hodnocení lidského chování a vymezování hranic trestní odpovědnosti promítaly válečné zkušenosti, dobová mentalita, společenské postavení či etnicita. Srovnání napříč železnou oponou odhaluje nejen rozdíly, ale i sdílené naděje vkládané do vědy jako nástroje utváření člověka a společnosti.

CFP: Evidence, Experience, and Authority in Contested Knowledge

 CFP: Evidence, Experience, and Authority in Contested Knowledge - Innsbruck 27.08.2026 - 28.08.2026, deadline: 15.05.2026

When we want to convince others of our beliefs, we usually offer arguments, and, crucially, evidence. Sometimes this evidence is mundane and undisputed; more often it is complex, contested, or ambiguous. But what happens when claims concern phenomena that, by their very nature, resist empirical verification?

Photographs of flying saucers, leaked documents allegedly exposing global conspiracies, first-person accounts of alien abductions or divine visions, yeti footprints, testimonies of spirit communication, rattling tables and flickering lights in séances: in many discourses, evidence is central to credibility even when no evidence in the strict “scientific” sense can exist. Yet such claims are rarely presented as groundless. Instead, elaborate forms of justification, authentication, and evidential reasoning emerge.

This workshop explores how evidence is constructed, negotiated, and evaluated in discourses about phenomena that inherently evade empirical proof. This is particularly timely, as recent political and technological developments are reshaping narratives, demanding renewed scrutiny of how evidence is framed, contested, and weaponized.

Thus, in this workshop we ask how different communities define what counts as evidence, which semiotic, linguistic, narrative, and material resources they mobilise, and how these practices interact with broader cultural, political, and media environments

Scope and Perspectives

The workshop is explicitly interdisciplinary and invites contributions from, among others:

- Linguistics

- Media and communication studies

- Cultural studies

- Religious studies

- Sociology and anthropology

- Psychology and social psychology

- Political science and extremism studies

- Science and technology studies (STS)

- History of knowledge and ideas

- Folklore and myth studies

We are particularly interested in how these perspectives can be brought into dialogue and where their analytical tools converge, or clash.

Thematic Clusters

To foster focused yet comparative discussion, the workshop will be structured around four thematic clusters. Each cluster will bring together scholars from different disciplines working on related phenomena:

1. UAPs, UFOs, and extraterrestrial encounters: From late-1940s accounts of flying saucer sightings to recent U.S. Congressional hearings featuring whistleblowers and alleged first-hand military witnesses, how has the presence - or absence - of evidence shaped public, institutional, and military discourse on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs)?

2. New religious movements, alternative spiritualities, and occulture: In contexts that, by definition, resist rationalist explanations yet often place strong emphasis on tangible demonstrations of supernatural agency, how is ambiguous evidence negotiated, interpreted, and legitimised?

3. Political conspiracy narratives: How does conspiratorial thinking emerge through alternative forms of causality, locating evidence not in rational proof but in intuition, synchronicity, and felt interconnectedness? In what ways do conspiracy narratives reify and weaponise coincidence as objective evidence? What roles do the internet, social media, and AI play in the recent resurgence and transformation of conspiracy theories?

4. Ghosts, cryptids, and paranormal phenomena: What are the complex and often nebulous relationships between evidence, hoax, and narrativisation in accounts of paranormal phenomena? How do technology and scientific discourse contribute to the construction and validation of evidence in paranormal practices such as ghost hunting?

Across all clusters, we are interested in questions such as:

- What counts as evidence, and for whom?

- How are absence, secrecy, or unverifiability turned into argumentative resources?

- Which linguistic, visual, narrative, or performative strategies are used to establish credibility?

- How do the affordances of different media environments shape evidential practices?

- How do participants anticipate, pre-empt, or counter scepticism?

Format and Goals

This will be a small, intensive workshop designed to prioritise discussion and exchange over lengthy presentations. Contributions will take the form of short, focused papers, followed by extended discussion sessions and cross-thematic roundtables.

A central aim of the workshop is to explore how interdisciplinary cooperation on the construction of evidence can be meaningfully organized across disciplines, objects of study, and methodological traditions. The workshop provides an ideal setting for launching this longer-term interdisciplinary conversation.

Submission Details

We invite submissions of abstracts (up to 300 words, excluding references) for our upcoming workshop.

Please submit your abstract by 15 May 2026 to m.polato@mmu.ac.uk and lucia.assenzi@ph-tirol.ac.at

Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 15 June 2026.

We look forward to your contributions!