Experts in Transition: Political Epistemologies of 1980s–2000s East Central Europe

July 9–10, 2026, Institute of Contemporary History, Ljubljana

Deadline March 15, 2026.

Research on experts and expertise in state socialism has developed, in recent years, from national case studies embedded in overarching accounts of “Cold War expertise,” to transnational histories of knowledge production, to a renewed appreciation for thick descriptions of the political, social, and epistemological contexts of expertise as developed in and for the purposes of socialism. In particular, work in social history and the history of labor, the history of science, and intellectual history has been addressing the role of experts in the political economy and class structure of socialist countries in the region. This has also inspired efforts to revisit the conceptual and theoretical approaches to expertise with the insight of the historical legacies of anti-capitalist political epistemologies from East Central Europe. At the same time, new research has focused on the 1980s and 1990s as part of broader processes of transformation, combining perspectives on the shifts in global capitalism and the development of international expertise with accounts of political, economic, and social change on the semi-peripheries and theories of elite transformation. Taking stock of this scholarship and uniting approaches developed by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie research project “Trans/Socio: Transnational Sociology and Concepts of Social Expertise in Eastern Europe, 1970s–2000s” (Institute of Contemporary History, Ljubljana) and the project “Political Epistemologies of Central and Eastern Europe” (PECEE), the “Experts in Transition” conference explores expertise at the end of state socialism in East Central Europe from three interconnected perspectives. Focusing on socialist experts, the experts of transition, and expertise after the end of socialism, we examine different understandings of the expert and the role of expertise through periods of transformation.

1. Who were the socialist experts and what were they experts of?

The workshop will inquire into what types of experts and kinds of expertise were engendered by socialism specifically, whether or not historical actors would have described the particular configuration of material determinations, social relations, and images of science that they were engaged in as “socialist expertise.” This involves reconstructing the political epistemologies of the 1980s from a historically grounded understanding of the functioning of socialism at the level of institutions and practices, including in terms of processes of class formation among the intelligentsia. We are interested in how the very role of the expert and the concept of expertise were developed from socialist positions and in relation to Marxist epistemology, and ask what were the state supported, socially recognized, as well as informal types of expertise stemming from the context of state socialism—its economy, politics, and society.

2. Who were the experts of transition? 

The workshop aims to revisit the debate over the role of experts in the late socialist and postsocialist periods by looking beyond economic expertise in the context of the global consolidation of neoliberalism, which has largely dominated research on experts in transition, and turning to social expertise in particular, but not exclusively. By looking at how expertise about social transformations has been constructed in socialism from as early as the 1950s and how it developed politically into the 1980s, the workshop aims to tease out the divergent understandings of social change, social inequality, and social justice already present before the transitions to liberal democracy and market economy in the region. We ask what was the accumulated knowledge regarding the “social costs” of economic and political transformation, and how this knowledge was mobilized over the 1980s and 1990s. This includes discussions about limited social mobility, lack of political engagement among the youth, poverty and social exclusion, or gender inequality, among others. We explore the extent to which these informed policy making in the late socialist and postsocialist periods, and how state expertise was established, challenged, and reconstituted in the process.

3. What happened to expertise on socialism since 1989?

Finally, the workshop is concerned with what became of the expertise specific to socialism after 1989—in terms of individual biographies of experts, the shifting “geographies of expertise” from centers to peripheries, the institutional and non-institutional continuities in cultures of expertise, and the ebb and flow of critical expertise, particularly Marxist. At the same time, it looks at the kind of expertise developed in and for transition. On the one hand, this means recognizing how the political epistemologies engendered by the decades-long practice of socialism endured and were repurposed after socialism, in different configurations, with different framings, and at different speeds across disciplines and topics of expertise. On the other hand, it involves asking how radical rupture was instrumentalized in the 1990s to establish new fields and networks of expertise, in explicit opposition to the political epistemologies of socialism. This includes questions about the transnational embeddedness of experts from the late socialist and postsocialist periods, how epistemic inequality was perceived and negotiated beyond the national contexts, in regional, transregional, and global contexts, and the beginnings of long-standing debates about the role of local and foreign expertise in East Central Europe.

The workshop aims to bring together early career scholars (including PhD students) and established researchers interested in exploring the questions of experts and expertise in transition in East Central Europe along these broadly defined lines. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

-         case studies of individual experts in all areas of science;

-         specific debates around concepts, theory, social, and scientific practice;

-         inequality research during and after socialism.

-         the role of experts and expertise in policy making;

-         the interplay between local, transnational, and international expertise;

-         perspectives on transition as a concept and process up to the early 2000s.

The workshop will take place on July 9–10, 2026, at the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana. To apply, please send the title and abstract (up to 500 words) of your proposed presentation, together with a short bio, to adela.hincu@inz.si and pecee.initiative@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is March 15 and the program will be finalized at the beginning of April. Participants without institutional resources will be offered support within the limit of available funding.

The workshop is funded by the European Union through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie research project “Trans/Socio: Transnational Sociology and Concepts of Social Expertise in Eastern Europe, 1970s–2000s” at the Institute of Contemporary History (Ljubljana); the Chair of History of Science, Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Erfurt (Germany); the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture in Eastern Europe (Germany); the Faculty Center for Transdisciplinary Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna (Austria); and the Lumina Quaeruntur fellowship “Images of science” in Czechoslovakia 1918-1945-1968” at the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences (Prague).

Call for Papers: Socialist Techno-Optimism and Governance of Economic Development, 1955–1991

Call for Papers: Socialist Techno-Optimism and Governance of Economic Development, 1955–1991

Slavic-Eurasian Research Center at Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

September 15–16, 2026

The Slavic-Eurasian Research Center at Hokkaido University and the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana, in collaboration with the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, invite proposals for a dual workshop devoted to two interconnected themes: techno-optimism, understood as positive expectations about the transformative power of science and technology, and knowledge-driven models of economic governance and environmental management under state socialism.

The first part of the workshop examines socialist techno-optimism as a discursive, cultural, and epistemic formation. It explores how expectations surrounding science and technology emerged, circulated, and were contested in official, sanctioned, and unofficial discourses, as well as in popular culture. Socialist techno-optimism was articulated through narratives of the Scientific-Technical Revolution, automation, and computing as symbols of a transformed future, while simultaneously generating skepticism and irony. Particular attention is given to popular science magazines, science fiction, film, television, and visual media that both promoted socialist futurisms and exposed their contradictions. These cultural forms blurred the boundaries between imagination and reality and sustained hopes for technological progress even amid growing systemic disillusionment.

The second part of the workshop addresses socialist technocracy as a key approach to governing economic development between 1955 and 1991 and, increasingly, environmental processes. It treats socialist technocracy as a historically specific alignment of expertise, institutions, and political authority that rendered economic processes legible, measurable, and open to algorithmic governance and management. This part explores the role of planning, cybernetics, environmental management, and consumption policies in strategies of socialist development. Contributions analyze how these approaches informed economic reform and modernization within socialist states, structured development models introduced in the Global South, and connected domestic economic management with international development agendas. By integrating conceptual, institutional, and empirical perspectives, this part of the workshop situates socialist technocracy within Cold War debates on economic development, expertise, and democracy, and highlights its lasting impact on post-socialist political economies and contemporary discussions of technocratic decision making.

The organizers welcome paper proposals that engage these themes from conceptual, institutional, and empirical perspectives, with particular interest in contributions on Asian socialisms, as well as comparative, transnational, and globally connected approaches. Proposals should consist of an abstract of up to 300 words and a short biographical paragraph. Please note that the organizers are unable to cover travel or accommodation costs. Selected papers are planned for publication in a peer-reviewed edited volume. Abstracts and biographical notes should be submitted by February 28, 2026, to ivan.sablin@inz.si.

Augusta Dimou: Contesting Copyright. A History of Intellectual Property in East Central Europe and the Balkans. CEU Press 2026

Augusta Dimou: Contesting Copyright. A History of Intellectual Property in East Central Europe and the Balkans. CEU Press 2026. ISBN 9789633866146

The creative sector, including the cultural industry, is key for today’s economy. Copyright has the capacity to fix the roles and tasks of the actors involved and determine the direction of cash flows within this sector. The study of the evolution of copyright helps understand and adjust the regulation and commercialization of creative labor. Augusta Dimou provides a thoroughly researched, interdisciplinary and comparative study of the historical development of copyright regimes in three countries – Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria. She examines the function and significance of copyright in the institutionalization, development, and regulation of modern culture in East Central Europe and the Balkans during the diverse political regimes of the modern era, and at the interface between the various nationalization and globalization processes of the 20th century.

Author

Augusta Dimou

Augusta Dimou specializes in the Modern History of East and Southeast Europe from a comparative, transnational perspective. She is Privatdozentin at the Institute for the Study of Culture of the University of Leipzig and has held academic positions at the University of Ioannina, Humboldt University in Berlin, IOS-Regensburg and GWZO in Leipzig. She has been a fellow at Maison des Sciences de l’ Homme (Paris), IWM (Vienna), FRIAS (Freiburg), CAS (Sofia) and New Europe College (NEC) in Bucharest.

online event: Animals In and Beyond Wartime

 online event: Animals In and Beyond Wartime

How does war shape the lives of animals, ecosystems, and the natural world?

We invite you to consider this question and reflect on life and resilience with leading scholars, including Dr. Tanya Richardson, Dr. Arita Holmberg, Olha Matsko, and Dr. Julia Malitska, as part of the 𝘙𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘜𝘬𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦’𝘴 𝘌𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵: 𝘞𝘢𝘳, 𝘌𝘤𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘉𝘦𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘥 international seminar series.

𝗔𝗻𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗜𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗪𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲

𝟭𝟮 𝗙𝗲𝗯𝗿𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲

𝟭𝟬 𝗮.𝗺. 𝗠𝗦𝗧 (𝗘𝗱𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗼𝗻) / 𝟭𝟮 𝗽.𝗺. 𝗘𝗦𝗧 (𝗧𝗼𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗼) / 𝟭𝟴:𝟬𝟬 𝗖𝗘𝗧 (𝗪𝗮𝗿𝘀𝗮𝘄) / 𝟭𝟵:𝟬𝟬 𝗘𝗘𝗧 (𝗞𝘆𝗶𝘃)

𝗢𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 | 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗱

Read the discussion abstracts, learn more and register: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/canadian-institute-of-ukrainian-studies/projects/seminar-series-rethinking-ukraines-environment/animals-in-and-beyond-wartime.html

__________

Hosted by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS), this international seminar series is a joint initiative of the EnvHistUA Research Group and CIUS, with further support from the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (Södertörn University), Center for Governance and Culture in Europe (University of St. Gallen), and the European Society for Environmental History (ESEH). 

Call for Papers: Subverting Hierarchies through Women’s Intellectual History in Eastern Europe in the Long Twentieth Century

 Call for Papers: Subverting Hierarchies through Women’s Intellectual History in Eastern Europe in the Long Twentieth Century

Call for Papers

for a special journal issue to be submitted to History of European Ideas

Subverting Hierarchies through Women’s Intellectual History in Eastern Europe in the Long Twentieth Century

Editors: Isidora Grubački (Institute of Contemporary History, Ljubljana), Zsófia Lóránd (University of Vienna), Emily Steinhauer (independent scholar)

Call for Papers (download):  WIH CfP (https://inz.si/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/WIH-CfP_final_L.pdf)

In Eastern Europe, the long twentieth century—the period roughly between the 1890s and the 2000s—was marked by struggles for women’s rights, abruptly changing gender regimes, and a maelstrom of diverse as well as often monolithically dominant –isms. In these various contexts, women intervened into various male-centered discourses from a women-centered position, while writing, thinking, and arguing about processes of emancipation, education, (forced) modernization, the break with the traditional rural community, and many other themes which speak not only toward European but global processes too. As a recent collection of texts and contexts from the history of feminism and women’s rights in East Central Europe has shown, women’s interventions in the public sphere encompassed topics including war, sexuality, and the politicization of motherhood, to name only three.[1] Yet, women from Central and Eastern Europe still remain marginal in the fields of European and global intellectual history, falling between the cracks of studies on the Western part of the Northern hemisphere, but also those, still largely male-dominated, of Central and Eastern Europe and even of the Global South. This omission means that the contributions of women from Eastern and Central Europe remain largely absent—not only in relation to the experience of the decades-long emancipation project of real existing socialism, but also in terms of longer-term negotiations with other ideologies such as agrarianism, nationalism, and anarchism, as well as the ways in which identity and belonging have been shaped by migration and shifting borders in this post-imperial space. These dynamics make the region specific and relevant as a region on a global scale.

This special journal issue examines women’s intellectual history in Central and Eastern Europe throughout the long twentieth century. However, rather than merely addressing an existing gap, it seeks to challenge and redefine the field as such by engaging with carefully selected case studies of women’s political thought in the region. The inclusion of women from Central and Eastern Europe into intellectual historical investigations means revisiting the gender of who produces intellectual discourses worthy of attention, from where they can speak, and through which fora (i.e. type of sources) they communicate. In this context, rethinking the methodology of intellectual history from the perspective of Eastern and Central European women can help us think about research in intellectual history beyond the traditionally practiced methods. Even more importantly, this also means thinking beyond traditionally used sources, a call articulated for decades by intellectual historians of women’s thought.

This journal issue identifies and hence engages with two major tasks. Women’s intellectual history must reflect upon the existing power-structures that have shaped the interpretation of material and so canonized some texts and dismissed others, namely on the basis of gender and region. Archival sources must be brought back into the methodological framework of intellectual history. This also means opening up the field to new genres of texts, as well as new understandings of text- and knowledge-production, such as the collaborative processes behind textual genesis. In this context, this collection of articles contributes to the ongoing scholarly effort to challenge the hierarchy of gender while additionally seeking to subvert two enduring hierarchies that have traditionally shaped intellectual history: hierarchies of regions and hierarchies of sources.

We invite papers focusing on women’s thought from / in Eastern and Central Europe (including émigré histories) in the long twentieth century (1890–2000) that engage with methods and approaches from intellectual history and the history of political thought.

Please send proposals, which include an abstract (max. 1 page) with a short bibliography (including references to theory and methods) of your planned paper and a short CV, by April 17, 2026, to the following address: heressee.zeitgeschichte@univie.ac.at

Contributors will receive a longer concept paper which outlines the intellectual scope of the special journal issue as well as further practical guidance. An initial online meeting of all contributors and editors is scheduled for mid-June 2026 and will provide the opportunity to workshop papers before the deadline for finished papers: October 15, 2026.

[1]Zsófia Lóránd, Adela Hîncu, Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc, and Katarzyna Stańczak-Wiślicz, eds., Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights: East Central Europe, Second Half of the Twentieth Century (Budapest–New York: Central European University Press, 2024).

Call for Papers: Socialist Techno-Optimism and Governance of Economic Development, 1955–1991

 Call for Papers: Socialist Techno-Optimism and Governance of Economic Development, 1955–1991

Slavic-Eurasian Research Center at Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

September 15–16, 2026

The Slavic-Eurasian Research Center at Hokkaido University and the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana, in collaboration with the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, invite proposals for a dual workshop devoted to two interconnected themes: techno-optimism, understood as positive expectations about the transformative power of science and technology, and knowledge-driven models of economic governance and environmental management under state socialism.

The first part of the workshop examines socialist techno-optimism as a discursive, cultural, and epistemic formation. It explores how expectations surrounding science and technology emerged, circulated, and were contested in official, sanctioned, and unofficial discourses, as well as in popular culture. Socialist techno-optimism was articulated through narratives of the Scientific-Technical Revolution, automation, and computing as symbols of a transformed future, while simultaneously generating skepticism and irony. Particular attention is given to popular science magazines, science fiction, film, television, and visual media that both promoted socialist futurisms and exposed their contradictions. These cultural forms blurred the boundaries between imagination and reality and sustained hopes for technological progress even amid growing systemic disillusionment.

The second part of the workshop addresses socialist technocracy as a key approach to governing economic development between 1955 and 1991 and, increasingly, environmental processes. It treats socialist technocracy as a historically specific alignment of expertise, institutions, and political authority that rendered economic processes legible, measurable, and open to algorithmic governance and management. This part explores the role of planning, cybernetics, environmental management, and consumption policies in strategies of socialist development. Contributions analyze how these approaches informed economic reform and modernization within socialist states, structured development models introduced in the Global South, and connected domestic economic management with international development agendas. By integrating conceptual, institutional, and empirical perspectives, this part of the workshop situates socialist technocracy within Cold War debates on economic development, expertise, and democracy, and highlights its lasting impact on post-socialist political economies and contemporary discussions of technocratic decision making.

The organizers welcome paper proposals that engage these themes from conceptual, institutional, and empirical perspectives, with particular interest in contributions on Asian socialisms, as well as comparative, transnational, and globally connected approaches. Proposals should consist of an abstract of up to 300 words and a short biographical paragraph. Please note that the organizers are unable to cover travel or accommodation costs. Selected papers are planned for publication in a peer-reviewed edited volume. Abstracts and biographical notes should be submitted by February 28, 2026, to ivan.sablin@inz.si.

Petr Pavlas, Lenka Řezníková, Lucie Storchová (eds.) Cognitive Metaphors and Encyclopaedic Knowledge: Exploring Semantic Transformations in Early Modernity

Petr Pavlas, Lenka Řezníková, Lucie Storchová (eds.) Cognitive Metaphors and Encyclopaedic Knowledge: Exploring Semantic Transformations in Early Modernity. Praha: Filosofický časopis a Filosofia, 2025 ISBN: 978-80-7007-810-5 

Special Issue of The Philosophical Journal 1/2025. OPEN ACCESS: https://filcasop.flu.cas.cz/images/PDF_NA_WEB/MC_2025_01/FC-2025-1-special-issue.pdf

Metaphors in science, philosophy, and the arts are fundamental to the history of thought, serving not only to simplify complex matters but also to foster invention, speculation, and theory. Among other functions, they played an important role in the emergence of modern ideas of the encyclopaedia and encyclopaedism, thereby contributing to programs of universal knowledge, general education, and, more recently, open science. While conceptual history is widely recognised as crucial and has been thoroughly studied, the history of metaphors has so far remained in the background. This publication aims to bring it to the forefront.

Petr Pavlas, Lenka Řezníková, Lucie Storchová: Editorial

Alessandro Nannini: Georgics of the Mind: Cultivation of the Self as Agriculture in the Early Modern Age

Petr Pavlas: From Circle to Book: The Evolution of Metaphors and the Birth of Early Modern Encyclopaedism

Lenka Řezníková: The Metaphor of Harmony in Early Modern Knowledge Organisation: Comeniusʼ Pansophy Caught between Aesthetics and Mechanics

Lucie Storchová: Metaphors of the Human Heart and Their Epistemological Shifts after 1600: A Case Study in Changes in Wittenberg Natural Philosophy and Discourses of Power

Martin Žemla: See, Hear, Taste: Sensory Metaphors and Their Use before and in Paracelsianism

Márton Szentpéteri: Metaphors of Universal Architecture and the Architecture of Vanities in Miklós Bethlen’s Works