Conference: Academic Authority and the Politics of Science and History in Eastern Europe. Leipzig, March 20-21, 2020.

The workshop is the fifth in a series of sessions organized by the Erfurt/Leipzig/Moscow working group on Political Epistemologies of (Eastern) Europe and focusses on academic authority and the scholar as the central figure of knowledge production. Observing a basic diversity and continuous transformation of epistemologies along with the emergence as well as destabilization or decline of epistemic authorities, the workshop discusses the history of epistemological shifts in Central and Eastern Europe over the past fifty years. While directing its gaze at a recently contested expert of knowledge production – the scholar, it aims to investigate historical challenges of (academic) scholarship’s role as the paramount producer of scientific truth.

The workshop covers a broad spectrum of topics related to this field. We will analyze challenges, transitions, liminalities, and practices concentrating on the socialist and post-socialist systems of humanities in Eastern Germany, Russia, Hungary, Romania, Czechia and Poland.

Friday, March 20, 2020

14.00–14.45 WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

Friedrich Cain (Erfurt), Dietlind Hüchtker (Leipzig), Karin Reichenbach (Leipzig)

14.45–16.15 CHALLENGING EPISTEMOLOGIES

Chair: Karin Reichenbach (Leipzig)

Miglena Nikolchina (Sofia): Is Literary Theory Dead? Andrea Pető (Budapest): Making Illiberal Memory Politics via Creating Alternative Systems and Institutions of Academic Authority Comment: Jan Surman (Moscow)

16.15–16.45 Coffee Break

16.45–18.15 ACADEMIC AUTHORITY: POLITICS AND MEDIA PRACTICES

Chair: Friedrich Cain (Erfurt)

Anna Mazanik (Munich): Climate Change Communication and the Soviet Media during the Détente Doubravka Olšáková (Prague): Who Owns the Knowledge? Travelling »Knowledgeable Bodies« Comment: Bernhard Kleeberg (Erfurt)

Saturday, March 21, 2020

9.30–11.45 TRANSITIONAL AUTHORITY AND SCHOLARS

Chair: Dietlind Hüchtker (Leipzig)

Anne Kluger (Münster): »Honecker’s Vassal« or a Prehistorian in Service of Science? The Concept of »the Scholar« in the Debate on Joachim Herrmann and the Evaluation of Former East-German Researchers in Reunified Germany Ionuț Mircea Marcu (Bucharest): The Historiographical Field in Post-Socialist Romania: Institutions, Careers and Epistemic Innovations Ella Rossman (Moscow): Gender and Gender History in Post-Soviet Russia: Depoliticization of Terminology and Disciplinary Marginalization

Comment: Friedrich Cain (Erfurt)

11.45–12.45 Coffee Break with Refreshments

12.45–14.45 LIMINALITIES OF ACADEMIC KNOWLEDGE

Chair: Bernhard Kleeberg (Erfurt)

Michał Pawleta (Poznań): In the Shadow of the Omnipresent Past: The New Approach of the Contemporary Poles to the Past Andreas Langenohl (Gießen): History and the Memory Wars of the Wild 1990s: The Case of Russia

Comment: Karin Reichenbach (Leipzig)

14:15–15:00 CONCLUSIONS AND PERSPECTIVES

Anna Echterhölter (Vienna), Bernhard Kleeberg (Erfurt), Jan Surman (Moscow)

The Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) carries out comparative historical and cultural research on the region bordering the Baltic, the Black, and the Adriatic Seas from the Early Middle Ages to the present. There are currently around 40 research scholars associated with the Institute conducting work both in Germany and abroad from across the range of humanities disciplines. In its activities, the Institute relies on a dense network of cooperative partnerships with Eastern and Central European as well as international research organizations. www.leibniz-gwzo.de

Venue GWZO, Specks Hof (Entrance A), 4th floor Reichsstraße 4–6, 04109 Leipzig

Concept Dietlind Hüchtker (GWZO, Department »Culture and Imagination«) Friedrich Cain, Bernhard Kleeberg (Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt) Karin Reichenbach (Leipzig University) Jan Surman (Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow)

Organization Ines Rößler (GWZO, Department »Knowledge Transfer and Networking«) ines.roessler@leibniz-gwzo.de In collaboration with the Max Weber Center, University of Erfurt and the Poletayev Institute, Higher School of Economics, Moscow

Funded by the Forum for the Study of the Global Condition