CERGU - Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg is very pleased to be organising the conference "The Century of Sputnik and Chernobyl: Science and the European Left during the Twentieth Century". This conference will be held online via the platform Zoom. A link will be posted here closer to the conference date.
This conference is organised by the Centre for European Research of the University of Gothenburg (CERGU) and sponsored by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (F19-1548). The goal
of the conference is to explore the reciprocal influences between science and the European left, with the hypothesis that the historical development of one can be explained by the other. While the two topics have been explored separately, we argue that showing the connections between the two can provide new explanatory tools to history and social science.
The conference brings together established scholars and early-career researchers alike from different disciplines and nations.
The conference was originally scheduled for April 2020, but it had to be postponed due to Covid-19. Despite this temporary obstacle, the event is more urgent than ever. Indeed, the global pandemic revealed how science influences politics and what role scientific expertise play in a democracy.
Following Benedetto Croce’s maxim that “All history is contemporary history”, we will have a free discussion at the end of the first day to discuss how the experience of Covid-19 changed the perception of the interaction of scientific expertise, scientific issues and democratic politics and what insights we can apply to the study of the past.
How to participate: to attend the conference, view the speeches and ask questions, visit the CERGU website (https://www.gu.se/en/european-research/events), Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/events/251000709994533/) or write to the conference organisers:
Ettore Costa: ettore.costa@lir.gu.se
Angelica Sohlberg: angie.sohlberg@gu.se
Birgitta Jännebring: birgitta.jannebring@cergu.gu.se
For more information please email the conference organizer, Ettore Costa.
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
Tuesday 20 April 2021
8:30-9:00: Introduction
9:00-10:30: Panel 1: From Lenin to Gagarin: Communist imagination of science
D. Steila, “Science and Revolution in Russian Marxism (1900-1920)”
G. Bassi, “The Italian Communist Discourse on Soviet Scientific Propaganda (1949-1969)”
M. Schwartz, “The limits of communism. Imaginations of progress and society in Soviet science fiction of the post-Stalin period”
10:30-12:00 Panel 2: Scientific Progress and Human Progress
A. Chakraborty, “Nehru’s Science and 'Scientific Temper': Tracing the Optimism of Socialist Science Backwards”
S. Salvia, “In the Name of Galileo: Scientific Progress, Social Emancipation, Political Struggle, and Cultural Hegemony in the Italian Marxist Left (1957-1968)”
J. Gärdebo, “Old and New Space Aid: The Swedish Space Corporation’s Production of Satellite Data Amidst Shifting Political Priorities of the Left, 1968–1998”
12:00-13:15: Lunch pause, mingling in Zoom
13:30-15:00: Panel 3: Predicting the Future, Mastering the Future
G. O’Hara, “Imagining the Planned future: the British Government's Very Long Term Planning Committee in the 1960s”
E. Rindzeviciute, The science of forecasting and prediction in the Soviet Union
15:00-15:30: Coffee pause, mingling on Zoom
15:30-17:00: Roundtable: “Can Covid-19 help us reread the past of science and politics?”
Wednesday 21 April 2021
9:00-10:30: Panel 4: Scientists as Political Actors and Policy-Makers
E. Costa, “The Bee and the Architect: Scientists against Scientism in Italy, Britain and West Germany (1977-1988)”
M. Emanuel, “Science Diplomacy, Technology Transfer, and Cold War Neutrality: Swedish Collaboration in Astrophysics with the USSR, 1965–1976”
P. Lundin, “Science and Social Democracy: Court Politics in the Shadow of the Cold War”
10:30-12:00: Panel 5: Science and New Politics
S. Topçu, "From resistance to co-management? A social history of contestations over the French nuclear complex (from 1970s to present)”
J. Scholz, B. Kolboske, “At the Intersection of Biopolitics, (Male) Legal Expertise and Women’s Liberation Movement: The West German Abortion Debate and Subsequent Criminal Law Reform in the 1970s & 1980s”.
12:00-13:15: Lunch pause, mingling in Zoom
13:30-15:00: Panel 6: From the Society of Tomorrow to the Society of Risks
K. Ekberg, “A question of scale? - climate change science, nuclear power and the Social Democrats in Sweden 1970-1980”
C. Götter, “Fissionable Fears – Fearful Perspectives on the History of Nuclear Power”
C. Laucht, “The 'New Urban Left' and Anti-Nuclear Politics in Britain, 1980-85” 15:30-16:30:
Discussion on conference findings and publication strategy
Themes and Questions
Exploring the connection between the European left and science opens up a wide range of queries, centred around the following topics:
Science and the Society of Tomorrow: the conference explores the role of science in the imagination of the future by the European left, how it shaped its political programme, rhetoric and culture. It also explores how sociotechnical imaginaries evolved in response to political developments. Particular emphasis is given to the two main branches of the European left in the twentieth century — social democracy and communism —, but the influence of European concepts in decolonised countries will also be covered.
Scientists as policy-makers and political actors: Political and intellectual history usually ignore natural scientists as public intellectuals — unlike artists and literary figures — but recent historiography has shown how they influenced politics and policies acting as advisors, opinionmakers or activists. Focus is given to how expertise was used in policy-formation, legislation, debates — as the twentieth century saw declining trust in experts and growing demand for democratic accountability and citizens’ participation.
Science and the new politics: In Ulrich Beck’s Risk Society, the goal of politics is no longer achieving positive goals, but preventing the worst, since the future was not a blank slate to be shaped, but a source of threats — including technological threats. The conference explores how technological risks became more politically salient across the century, undermining the old left — more concerned with the activist state — and creating new openings for political mobilisation and democratic engagement. This allowed the emergence of a new politics from below and new political actors concerned with health and the environment.
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