Ghosts of Forgotten Forms of Science – Seminar Series

Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the impact of socialist scientific advances has largely faded from public view. When considered at all, many of the USSR’s scientific pursuits are treated much like its economic system: an experiment or experiments relegated since to the far reaches of historical memory.  Yet the USSR produced an enormous – and in many ways, enormously productive – body of scientific literature and research, which did much to influence the course of 20th century science worldwide.

One field in which Soviet scientific endeavour was influential, and yet which has since avoided examination, is biomedicine.  In recent years, notably enough, Western biomedical research has begun to independently return to many of the fields previously developed by Soviet scientists, confirming, for example, the use of viral bacteriophages in treating infection, or the links between heart disease and dementia.  Although labouring in isolation from their Western colleagues (and often in quite difficult financial circumstances), Soviet biomedical researchers were making important breakthroughs in microbiology, gerontology, endocrinology, and other fields across the 20th century.

Historical research into the work conducted by Soviet doctors, researchers, and pharmacological scientists provides an opportunity to evaluate the impact and place of Soviet science more broadly and consider the influences, from socialism to international scientific networks, that drove its course.  The papers presented in this seminar series draw upon this rich body of work, demonstrating the variety, depth, and particularity of Soviet biomedical practice.  Part of the Wellcome Trust-funded project ‘Growing Old in the Soviet Union, 1945-1991’ at Liverpool John Moores University, the seminars draw upon the project’s research into Soviet gerontology and geriatrics while also encompassing many other fields.

All seminars will be held via Zoom at 16:00-17:30 BST.  Seminars are open to the public, but the organizers ask that interested parties register ahead of time by emailing i.m.scarborough@ljmu.ac.uk with their name and email address.  Links to the seminars will be distributed the day of the seminar. 

The working languages of the seminars are Russian and English.

Seminar Schedule:

May 27:  Perspectives on Soviet Gerontological Science               

Nikolai Kremenstov: Visionary Biology and Heroic Medicine: Old Age Research and Rejuvenation in Bolshevik Russia

Vladislav Bezrukov and Yurii Duplenko: The Legend of Gilgamesh: Attempts towards its Fulfilment in Soviet Gerontology.

June 3: Medical Practice and Research in the Soviet Context

Pavel Vasilev: Making Soviet Drugs in the Heart of Siberia: Clinical Trials of Rhodiola rosea in Tomsk, 1960s-1970s

Anastasia Belaeva: Vegetovascular Dystonia: An Illness Specific to Soviet Culture

June 10: Some Results of Soviet-era Research

Anna Ozhiganova: ‘Dolphin Babies’: the late Soviet project of infant swimming and the creation of ‘a new superhuman being’

Isaac Scarborough: International Echoes of Soviet Biomedical Gerontology 

Call for Papers - Summer School “Spatial turn to the wrong place? A dialogue between interdisciplinary research fields”. Tyumen State University & Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities, HSE Moscow, 23 – 28 August 2021, Deadline: July 1, 2021

 

Dear colleagues,

Center "Human, Nature, Technology" invities students, bachelors, M.A. and PhD students to our Summer school “Spatial turn to the wrong place? A dialogue between interdisciplinary research fields”

Send your abstracts and cv to spatialschoolutmn@gmail.com

See the CfP below

The coronavirus pandemic has unexpectedly aggravated the issue of space and place in our global and interconnected world. Last spring the countries all over the world were closed their borders, while movement between states and provinces was strictly limited, if not prohibited. Lockdowns and quarantines forced many people to isolate themselves in their apartments and houses. It meant a massive job loss since many people could not afford the privilege of working from home. In other words, a cohesive space between work and home were disintegrated at once causing big social problems for local neighborhoods, communities and businesses. Such an unprecedent situation has raised the question of new meanings of space in the epoch of global lockdown.

Nevertheless, this urgent issue has not appeared out of nowhere.

A French historian Fernand Braudel in his works underpinned the role of environment and space as the most important factor to analyze historical development of society. The fundamental works of Henry Lefebvre (1974) and Foucault (1972) outlined the thesis that the organization of space lies to the core of structure and functioning of modern capitalism. Harvey brought up a question of a critical revaluation of space and spatiality in the social theory. The spatial turn changed the perception of time and space, had been trying to assert a new meaning of space in its interaction with time and social structures (Soja).

Besides that, the significance of the spatial turn can be associated with the development of the postcolonial theory, that casts doubt on the familiar concepts such as “East”, “West”, “North”, “South”, ‘Center”, “center-periphery model”.

However, most of the debates on the role of space takes place out of Russia. It seems to us that the ideas and concepts of the “spatial turn” could be useful for historians and social researchers of Northern Eurasia. We want Summer School to set up this framework for exploring various spaces with a special emphasis on Ural and Siberia. Although the school is focused on a broad chronological framework, we are especially interested in the role of space and place in the history of Late Soviet and post-Soviet Siberia and Ural. We would like to specifically discuss how the Soviet development of these territories changed both their natural landscapes, urban spaces, the perception of these places and the identity and subjectivity that were formed around these perceptions. Another important problem is the presence or absence of regional specificity of the transition from the Late Soviet to the post-Soviet in Ural and Siberia.

We will try to elaborate next topics. How to study Ural and Siberia from the point of view of spatial turn? Should the space of Ural and Siberia denote only as a metaphor for the study of modernization and transformation processes in the history of Russia in the 19th - 21st centuries? How to apply modern approaches to the study of space to Ural and Siberia and what scholar outputs could be achieved?

The Summer School is open both for young social science scholars and natural scientists (master’s students, PhD candidates). 

Please send your proposals including an abstract (300 words), motivation letter, and CV. (name, email address, institutional affiliation, research interests, and disciplinary anchoring) to spatialschoolutmn@gmail.com by July 1, 2021. 

Working languages are English and Russian

We welcome abstracts related to the topics listed below: 

Approaches and methods to analyze social and natural space relying on data and sources from Ural and Siberia

Nature as a "natural" space in Ural and Siberia

Cultural landscapes, environment and man-made objects

Geoengineering projects and their role in transforming the spaces of Ural and Siberia

The importance of space in the formation of identities and subjectivity

The city as a new space

Gatscher-Riedl, Gregor: Von Habsburg zu Herzl: Jüdische studentische Kultur in Mitteleuropa 1848–1948. Berndorf: Krag Verlag 2021. ISBN: 978-3-99024-954-3

 

Über dieses Buch

Der farbentragende Student mit Band und Mütze galt im deutschsprachigen Raum bis in die erste Hälfte des vorigen Jahrhunderts als idealtypische Verkörperung des akademischen Lebens, wobei die Anzahl jener Studierender, die sich keiner Korporation anschlossen, zu allen Zeiten jene der in Verbindungen organisierten Hörer überwog. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es beinahe zwangsläufig, dass das national-jüdische Selbstbewusstsein sich in studentischen Verbindungen organisierte und den Hochschulboden beanspruchte. Dieses Buch will eine Dynamik aufzeigen: War beim Engagement jüdischer Studierender zunächst das „Unsichtbarwerden“ im habsburgischen Vielvölkerstaats das Ziel, so formte sich innerhalb der nationalen Bewegungen der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts die Selbstwahrnehmung als ethnische Gruppe heraus, die sich den von Theodor Herzl vorgedachten Weg zur staatlichen Selbständigkeit zu eigen machte. Einen wesentlichen Beitrag zum zionistischen Aufbruch leisteten dazu rund 300 studentische Organisationen auf Mittel- und Hochschulebene, die in Österreich und Ungarn existierten. Sie bildeten ein vernetztes Milieu und eine Bildungslandschaft, deren verschüttete Spuren und Beitrag zur Entstehung des Staates Israel nun nachgezeichnet werden.

Anna Mader-Kratky, Nora Fischer (eds.): Schöne Wissenschaften: Sammeln, Ordnen und Präsentieren im josephinischen Wien [Beautiful Sciences: Collecting, Ordering and Presenting in josephinian Vienna]. Vienna: ÖAW 2021. ISBN13: 978-3-7001-8642-7. OPEN ACCESS

 

[Deutsch unten]

“Beautiful Sciences” focuses on the art and natural science collections under Emperor Joseph II (r. 1765-1790), and makes them the entry point for far-reaching questions about their history and the public and scientific understanding in Vienna during the Enlightenment. Going beyond the field of collections, the essays are also devoted to the initiatives which at the same time were concerned with systematizing and ordering, and provided impulses for the arrangement and presentation of the imperial collections. From the perspective of collecting, organizing, and presenting, the book explores the extent to which the Josephine collections concentrate the ideas of the Enlightenment and translate them into practice, thus making them places of knowledge and insight.

URL: https://austriaca.at/8642-7

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„Schöne Wissenschaften“ macht die kunst- und naturwissenschaftlichen Sammlungen unter Kaiser Joseph II. (reg. 1765–1790) zum Ausgangspunkt weitreichender Fragen zur Sammlungsgeschichte, zum Öffentlichkeits- und Wissenschaftsverständnis im Wien der Aufklärung. Über das Sammlungswesen hinausgehend, widmen sich die Beiträge des Buches auch den zahlreichen Initiativen, die sich zur gleichen Zeit programmatisch mit dem Verwissenschaftlichen, Systematisieren und Ordnen auseinandersetzten, und Impulse für die Ordnung und Präsentation der kaiserlichen Sammlungen lieferten. Aus Perspektive des Sammelns, Ordnens und Präsentierens wird ergründet, inwieweit die josephinischen Sammlungen die Ideen der Aufklärung bündeln, vermitteln und popularisieren, und sie so zu Wissens- und Erkenntnisorten werden.

Střed | Centre, 2020/2 - Experts and Power. Technocracy between Politics and Business 1918-1989

URL: https://www.mua.cas.cz/cs/periodika/stred-centre-2020-2

Téma

Experti a moc. Technokracie mezi politikou a podnikáním 1918-1989 | Experts and Power. Technocracy between Politics and Business 1918-1989

Vědecké stati | Studies

Natali Stegmann: Polen und die International Organisation (ILO): Expertenwissen und Verwaltungshandeln im Umbruch von 1919 bis 1926

Radka Šustrová: "Labour that Serves the Good of All". Technocratic Ideals and Czech Experts in Cooperation with Nazis in Bohemia and Moravia

Ondřej Holub:Hledání univerza v bipolárním světě. Geneze, význam a limitytechnokratické politiky rakouśkého kancléře Josefa Klause v šedesátých letech 20. století. Seeking for the Universe in the Bipolar World. The Genesis, the Purpose and the Boundaries of the Technocratic  Policy of Austrian Chancellor Josef Klaus in the 1960s.

Vítězslav Sommer: Průvodce světem socialistické technokracie. Prozaická tvorba Stanislava Váchy jako historický pramen. The Guide to the World of Socialist Technocracy: Stanislav Váchas Fiction as a Historical Source

Recenzní studie  | Reviews Article

Jakub Rákosník: Making Europe: Jak technologie utváří Evropu? Making Europe: How Europe Was Shaped by Technology?

Recenze | Reviews of Books

BALÁSZ TRENCSÉNYI, MACIEJ JANOWSKI, MÓNIKA BAÁR, MARIA FALINA, MICHAL KOPEČEK, A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe  (Vratislav Doubek, Jan Mervart)

FILIP HERZA, Imaginace jinakosti. Pražské přehlídky lidských kuriozit v 19. a 20. století (Jiří Hutečka)

MILOSLAV SZABÓ, Klérofašisti. Slovenski kňazi a pokušanie radikálnej politiky (1935-1945) (Martin Jemelka)

LUKASZ STANEK, Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War (Jakob Marcks)

JAN KŘEN, Čtvrt století střední Evropy. Visegrádské země v globálním příběhu let 1992-2017 (Václav Šmidrkal)

VOJTĚCH KESSLER, JOSEF ŠRÁMEK (eds.), Tváře války. Velká válka 1914-1918 očima českých účastníků  (Vojtěch Szajkó)

CFP: Making the Social World Objective. Theoretical, Practical, and Visual Forms of Social and Economic Knowledge, 1850-2000, Zurich, 10.11.2021 - 11.11.2021, Deadline: 15.06.2021

 

From the 1850s onwards, “the social” gradually came to prominence as an object of study in industrializing and industrialized countries. As the “sciences of the social” acquired a growing legitimacy as disciplines, new ways of understanding and analyzing economic and social phenomena emerged. This dynamic rested on the development of new approaches to the objective observation of social facts, and these approaches were founded on methods conceived of as rational, whether or not they made use of quantification. During the same period, there was an increase in the production of economic and social statistics; the use of this tool of knowledge spread among many actors, both public and private, and became a central element in public administration, commercial enterprises, and scientific circles. Reformers, who were particularly active in the spread of these new theoretical and practical forms of knowledge, strove to give a scientific character to welfare provision for the destitute, in order to escape the pitfalls of charity. These men and women, who contributed to the introduction of the social sciences into the political arena, also actively participated in devising the categories of vulnerable, at risk, or dangerous populations, and in bringing these new classifications into the juridical and administrative spheres. In this way, the capacity to grasp the economy and society became a major issue in the elaboration of measures for social protection, even providing justification for them.

The emergence of these forms of knowledge as a guide to various forms of action (institutional or grassroot) was accompanied by the creation of means of representing and communicating them to diverse audiences. More particularly, images played a more and more important role in the ways in which general representations of the economic and social world were devised and in guiding how it was understood. For example, pioneering photographic surveys were carried out by social museums to document the living conditions of the working class, while labour and consumption statistics started to be represented visually.

The main tool for an objective approach to “the social” that was available to experts, to those involved in government administration and politics, and to subordinated or marginalized groups, was to represent it in words, numbers, or images. This conference proposes to return to these manifold strategies and methods for objectifying and visualizing the social that were developed from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards. Proposals for contributions to the conference could address one of the following three themes (though these should not be taken as exhaustive):

1. Social Objectivity at the Intersection of the Practical and Theoretical Sciences 

In the case of statistics, as in that of other tools for grasping social phenomena (e.g., empirical observations, working class family budgets, etc.), the practical and theoretical sciences met and influenced each other. These tools of knowledge were fashioned and put to use not just by the state but also by learned societies and reforming groups; and even as the science of statistics was widely adopted, it became the subject of debates and controversies, testifying to its broader social implications.

Contributions could address the following questions: How did different groups of producers of knowledge collaborate? What was the impact of the intersection of different objectives (the management of society versus the development of scientific disciplines) on the making of the social sciences and their methods? What do the discourses about these tools for apprehending reality reveal to us? In what way did they defend (or not) the ideal of objectivity or neutrality implied by these sciences? What transfers and reappropriations of knowledge were at work within and between these different groups and disciplines?

2. Practical and Activist Sciences: Objectifying the Social at the Margin

The work of observing society and the economy was sometimes carried out by groups or individuals in subordinate positions or at the margins of the sites of production of dominant systems of knowledge. Beginning in the 1850s, various actors elaborated new social sciences with the goal of objectifying their material conditions and of developing solutions and/or formulating demands, as in, for example, the work done by reforming women as part of philanthropic work focusing on disadvantaged social groups. How did “outsider” and/or subordinate actors conceptualize these newly elaborated forms of knowledge? How did activist knowledge and practical knowledge meet and articulate each other? How did tacit knowledge and common sense interact? How did the observation and analysis of social facts permit actors at the margin or in subordinate positions to legitimize a critical thinking and formulate demands? How were these forms of knowledge diffused and adopted?

3. Circulations of Knowledge about the Social World: Statistical Imaginaries and Visual Representations

From the 1850s onwards, images have played a crucial role in the objectivation and circulation of economic and social knowledge. Certain institutions, following the example of the Musée Social in Paris, contributed to giving a tangible and material form (e.g., graphical charts, photographs, reliefs, and statistical mechanisms) to principles drawn from the new sciences of the social world, and participated in giving them an existence in the public sphere. Contributions could address the conditions of production of these visual forms of social knowledge, as well as the ways in which they were adopted by some reformers, facing the conflicting imperative to make science and to contribute to the democratization of knowledge. For whom were these forms of visual representation intended, and in what social spaces were they circulated? To what extent did they contribute to forging a representation of forms of social knowledge that was considered objective, and by what means? What other tools – technical, discursive, or material – were they associated with, and how were they perceived by those who used them?

Proposals of 300–500 words, accompanied by a short biographical notice, should be sent until June 15, 2021, to the following address: claire-lise.deblue@uzh.ch

Decisions will be announced no later than July 1, 2021. 

The conference will take place at the University of Zurich in early November, 2021. Travel and accommodation costs will be borne by the conference organizers. We are considering the possibility of publishing the contributions presented at the conference.

Organizers: Dr. Claire-Lise Debluë, Dr. Alix Heiniger, and Laure Piguet, in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Matthieu Leimgruber of the History Department/Forschungstelle für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte at the University of Zurich, the Department of History at the University of Fribourg, and with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Filip Vostal (ed.): Inquiring into Academic Timescapes. Emerald Publishing Limited 2021. ISBN: 9781789739121

Description

Proliferating literature claims that academia is in a critical condition, generating armies of anxious, neurotic and time-hungry individuals which are governed by the speed imperatives integral to a modernist and capitalist rationality. This book puts the temporal ordering of academic life under the microscope, and showcases the means of yielding a better understanding of how time and temporality act both as instruments of power and vulnerability within the academic space. 

This book brings together more than three dozen scholars who collectively craft a much-needed nuanced sociologically-driven perspective of temporalities in academia. Delving into contemporary processes which are quintessentially temporal in their character, such as the increasing precariousness of jobs among junior scholars, the prevalence of grant funding, the role of evaluation systems, and the political economy of higher education, the authors offer a forensic analysis of the complex nature of academic temporalities as experienced, understood, controlled, managed and contested in various academic and research contexts.

Contents

Academic Timescapes in Focus; Barbara Adam

Introduction: On Times, Scapes and Chronosolidarity in Academia; Filip Vostal

Chapter 1. Time and the Rhythms of Academia: A Rhythmanalytical Perspective; Michel Alhadeff-Jones

Chapter 2. Rhythm and the Possible: Moments, Anticipation and Dwelling in the Contemporary University; Fadia Dakka

Chapter 3. Cultural Rhythmics inside Academic Temporalities; Gonzalo Iparraguirre

Intermezzo I: Alice in Academia; Katrina Roszynsi

Chapter 4. Temporal Navigation in Academic Work: Experiences of Early Career Academics; Oili-Helena Ylijoki

Chapter 5. Academic Times, Shortcuts, and Styles: Exploring the Case of Time for a PhD from a Gender Perspective; Emilia Araujo, Catarina Sales Oliveira, Liliana Rentiera, Kadydja Chagas

Chapter 6. Metrics as Time-saving Devices; Lai Ma

Chapter 7. Time and Academic Multi-tasking: Unbounded Relation Between Professional and Personal Time; Teresa Carvalho and Sarah Diogo

Chapter 8. Trading Time: A Hauntological Investigation; Petya Burneva

Chapter 9. Pace, Space and Well-Being: Containing Anxiety in the University; Maggie O'Neill

Intermezzo II: Interview with Jiri Skala

Chapter 10. Time as a Judgement Device: How Time Matters when Reviewers Assess Application for ERC Starting and Consolidator Grants; Ruth Mueller

Chapter 11. Time, the University and Stratification: The Historical Making of Institutional Time as a Strategic Resource; Alexander Mitterle

Chapter 12. The Temporalities of the Writing Experience of Part-Time Doctoral Researchers in Education; Phil Wood and Joan Woodhouse

Chapter 13. On the Chronopolitics of Academic CVs in Peer Review; Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner, Sarah de Rijcke, Ruth Mueller and Isabel Burner-Fritsch

The temporal fabric of academic lives: Of weaving, repairing and resisting; Ulrike Felt

Round table: University from Below. Students’ Perspectives on Russian Academia, June 7 2021, 18:00 CET/19.00 MSK/12 pm EDT

Over the last years, a growing number of independent student groups have formed at universities in the Russian Federation. Their aim is to open spaces of critique – scientific, social, political, cultural – that they find inexistent in the official academic landscape. They work under difficult circumstances, for their engagement is scrutinised by university and state authorities. In this complex landscape of firm rules pervaded with grey zones, a wide array of meetings, publications etc. are organised with great efforts. However, such work often gets brutally interrupted. Since a couple of weeks, four members of the independent student journal DOXA are under house arrest in Moscow waiting for criminal proceedings. While officially they are charged with inciting minors to protest, it is clear that their investigative work and support of student rights are behind these charges. To grasp the situation of pursuing student activism in the rough terrain of post-Soviet academia in Putin’s Russia, we asked several student organizations to present their work, their ideas and their discussions at an international webinar jointly organised by the Faculty Centre for Interdisciplinary Historical and Cultural Studies (University of Vienna), the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Science, and the Online-Platform History of Science in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (HPS.CESEE).

On Monday, June 7th, 18:00 CET/19.00 MSK/12 pm EDT, we will discuss student rights and students' influence on inner-university regulations, on anti-harassment policies, political pressure, summer schools, gender studies etc. with representatives of the following organizations:

- the student journal DOXA (Moscow)

- the “MSU Initiative Group” at Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU)

- Media “Veter”, Kazan Federal University

- the Higher School of Equality, Higher School of Economics, Saint Petersburg Campus

Please follow this link to register: https://univienna.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_L4brU5EKRd2mbqcUqtZJRA

Organisers:

Faculty Centre for Interdisciplinary Historical and Cultural Studies, University of Vienna; Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Science; Online-Platform History of Science in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (HPS.CESEE)

in cooperation with

Research Platform “Transformations and Eastern Europe”, University of Vienna; Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET), University of Vienna; Department of East European History, University of Vienna; ERC-Projekt "NTAutonomy. Non-territorial Autonomy“, University of Vienna

Anna Barcz: Environmental Cultures in Soviet East Europe: Literature, History and Memory. London: Bloomsbury 2020. ISBN: 9781350098350

About Environmental Cultures in Soviet East Europe

For more than 40 years Eastern European culture came under the sway of Soviet rule. What is the legacy of this period for cultural attitudes to the environment and the contemporary battle to confront climate change?

This is the first in-depth study of the legacy of the Soviet era on attitudes to the environment in countries such as Poland, Hungary and Ukraine. Exploring responses in literature, culture and film to political projects such as the collectivisation of agricultural land, the expansion of the mining industry and disasters such as the Chernobyl explosion, Anna Barcz opens up new understandings of local political traditions and examines how they might be harnessed in the cause of contemporary environmental activism. The book covers works by writers such as Christa Wolf, the Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich and film-makers such as Béla Tarr, Andrzej Wajda and Wladyslaw Pasikowski.

Table of contents

Introduction

Part I Unknownland: Retelling the Environmental History of Soviet Eastern Europe through Literature and Cultural Memory

Chapter 1 Narrating History across Borders

Chapter 2 History and Literature

Chapter 3 Environmental History

Chapter 4 Cultural and Environmental Memory

Part II The Tired Village

Chapter 1 Historical Background

Chapter 2 Fatigue: Platonov's Pit and the Stalinocene

Chapter 3 The Rural World is Gone: Peasants' Voices

Chapter 4 Satantango: Interconnecting the Human and Ecological Worlds

Part III The Earth's Memory

Chapter 1 Mining Narratives and Their Historical Background

Chapter 2 Unearthing the Story of Coal: Drach

Chapter 3 The Uranium Narrative: History of a Disappearance

Part IV The Persistence of Chernobyl in Cultural Memory

Chapter 1 Eastern European Risk Narrative: Chernobyl Memorial

Chapter 2 Contaminated Language: Wolf's Accident

Chapter 3 The Bees Knew: Alexievich's Chronicle

Part V Disturbed Landscapes

Chapter 1 Non-sites of Memory and the Violation of Nature

Chapter 2 Greening Sites of Memory

Chapter 3 Bialowieza Forest across Eastern Europe's Borders

Bibliography

Index

Reviews

“This book shows dazzling evidence of Anna Barcz's ability to integrate concepts and ideas from so many disciplines. And especially in the final chapters on Chernobyl and memory studies, we find some profoundly elegiac writing. This is a hugely ambitious book based on really delicate and persuasive readings of texts (including film) combined with (dis-)passionate writing controlled but deeply engaged.” –  John Morrill, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Cambridge and former Vice President for Public Engagement and Understanding at the British Academy)

Zenon E. Roskal: Planetoidy w świetle współczesnych koncepcji filozoficznych. Studia z epistemologii historycznej [Planetoids from the oint of view of contemporary philosophical conceptions. A study from historical epistemology]. Kraków: Universitas 2021. ISBN: 978-83-242-3665-7

Planetoidy to jeden z głównych celów badawczych astronomii planetarnej, ale zarazem terra incognita w filozofii. Poznaniu naukowemu tych obiektów praktycznie nie towarzyszy refleksja filozoficzna. Tymczasem jest wiele problemów, które z powodzeniem mogłyby być eksplorowane nie tylko przez filozofię nauki czy metodologię poznania naukowego, ale także przez filozofię języka czy ontologię przyrodniczą. W niniejszej pracy, z pespektywy poznawczej epistemologii historycznej, podejmowane są takie zadania jak precyzacja pojęcia śmiałej hipotezy czy poszukiwanie adekwatnego ujęcia klasycznej problematyki indywiduów na gruncie praktyki badawczej astronomii planetarnej. Głównym problemem analizowanym w niniejszej pracy jest zagadnienie synchronicznej i diachronicznej identyczności planetoid. Nadrzędnym celem jest jednak ukazanie (potencjalnej) roli filozofii w lepszym (rozumiejącym) uchwyceniu historycznego i współczesnego poznania naukowego, a także w dostarczaniu nauce narzędzi służących do precyzacji stosowanego w nauce aparatu konceptualnego.

 „Przedstawioną do recenzji pracę uważam za znakomitą. Pomimo pozornie bardzo wąskiego i specjalistycznego tematu praca jest godna polecenia wszystkim zainteresowanym metodologią naukową, filozofią nauki i historią badań astronomicznych. W polskojęzycznej literaturze specjalistycznej brakowało dotychczas porównywalnych pozycji”.

dr Waldemar Ogłoza

„Książka Zenona Roskala to znakomity przykład zastosowania koncepcji z dziedziny filozofii nauki oraz metodologii nauk do badań dotyczących natury i rozwoju szczegółowych koncepcji z zakresu nauk przyrodniczych”.

prof. dr hab. Damian Leszczyński

Prof. dr hab. Zenon E. Roskal jest pracownikiem Katedry Filozofii Przyrody i Nauk Przyrodniczych na Wydziale Filozofii Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego Jana Pawła II. W swojej pracy naukowej podejmuje problematykę z zakresu filozofii i historii nauki (astronomia planetarna) oraz epistemologii historycznej. Jest autorem licznych artykułów naukowych oraz monografii. Wydał m.in. Kosmos chtoniczny. Historyczny rozwój monistycznej interpretacji kosmosu (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL 2012, ss. 307) oraz Astronomia matematyczna w nauce greckiej. Metodologiczne studium historyczno-przyrodnicze (Lublin: RW KUL 2002, ss. 228).

 

Spis treści

 

1. Księżyce planetoid jako śmiała hipoteza

1.1. Popperowska koncepcja śmiałej hipotezy i jej krytyka

1.2. Geneza hipotezy naturalnych satelitów planetoid

1.3. Moc prognostyczna i eksplanacyjna hipotezy księżyców planetoid

1.4. Obserwacje zakryciowe w testowaniu hipotezy księżyców planetoid

1.5. Akceptacja  hipotezy o istnieniu obiektu 1978 (532) 1

1.6. Rejekcja hipotezy o istnieniu księżyca Herculiny

1.7. Akceptacja hipotezy księżyców planetoid w astronomii planetarnej

1.8. Precyzacja i modyfikacja koncepcji śmiałej hipotezy

2. Planetoidy jako indywidua czasoprzestrzenne

2.1. Indywidua a zasady indywiduacji

2.2. Filozoficzne koncepcje indywiduów

2.3. Nazwy indywiduowe planetoid i ich deskrypcje

2.4. Nazwy własne: derywaty deskrypcji czy sztywne desygnatory?

2.5. Relatywna identyczność planetoid

3. Identyczność genetyczna planetoid w praktyce badawczej astronomii

3.1. Ontologiczne pojęcie (gen)identyczności

3.2. Kryteria identyczności obiektów temporalnych

3.3. Identyczność genetyczna komet i genidentyczność planetoid

3.4. Casus identyczności genetycznej (1) Ceres

3.5. Ponowne odkrycia zaginionych planetoid

3.6. Kryteria (gen)identyczności planetoid

4. Konkluzje

5. Bibliografia

6. Indeksy

Call for Abstracts: Trust in Science, 27-28th of October 2021

Organized by the research group “Trust in information”

Trust is a central pillar of the scientific enterprise. Much work in the philosophy of science can be seen as coping with the problem of establishing trust in a certain theory, a certain model or even science as a whole. However, trust in science is threatened by various developments. With the advent of more complex models and the increasing usage of computer methods as machine learning and computer simulation it seems increasingly challenging to establish trust in science. Policy decisions that are made on the basis of such models (e.g. climate or more recently covid policies) not only require a high level of trust from their users but also from the people affected. In addition, there are increasingly visible difficulties in communicating scientific practices and results to a wider public. To mention just two points in this regard: Scientific communication as well as the scientific handling of non-knowledge often takes place differently than in everyday life. While dissent is a normal mode of scientific communication within the sciences, seen from the outside it is often perceived as a failure. The enormous degree of agreement between scientists, which forms the basis for dissent, is then overlooked. The same applies to scientific non-knowledge, which often only becomes possible based on high levels of shared knowledge. Thus, non-knowledge can at least temporarily be considered a success in the sciences. Such differences between scientific and non-scientific communication may explain some of the difficulties regarding the trust issues at hand. The question arises, however, as to what characterizes an appropriate relationship between trust and science in the first place. Blind trust in science is not a reasonable option. Skepticism is an essential moment of scientific progress; however, this should not result in elevating science and pseudoscience to the same level. This makes the question even more urgent: How and on what basis can an appropriate trust in science be built? We are interested in how trust is established in such cases of increasing complexity (of models and communication) and what could be appropriate measures to alleviate doubt.

–Topics–

Interested scientists, philosophers, sociologists, historians, mathematicians, and journalists can submit contributions on the following topics (non-exclusive):

The epistemology of trust in science (e.g. increasing trust through replication, RCTs,etc.)

Trust as an epistemic virtue

Scientist trusting scientist

Benchmarks, measures, criteria for trustworthy science

Principles, guidelines, best practices as attempts to make science trustworthy

The public trusting scientists/science (communicating scientific results)

Role of publishing raw research data for creating trust

Images of science and scientists in public

The role of trust for science in an open society

Historical perspectives on trust in science

Coping with doubt in the sciences

Trusting or doubting computer methods, especially AI and computer simulation.

Algorithmic Bias

–Dates & Deadlines–

Abstracts (max. 3,000 characters including spaces without references) can be submitted until 15th June, 21. Submissions should be prepared for anonymous review (no information identifying the author). Applicants will be notified latest by 15th July, 21. Accepted papers will be published in a proceeding volume by Springer. It is planned that the conference wilI take place at the HLRS in Stuttgart. But depending on the Covid19 situation in Autumn the conference might be held partially or completely online. Even if the conference is to be held on venue in Stuttgart, speakers will have the opportunity to give their presentation virtually.

For submissions: https://philo.hlrs.de/openconf/openconf.php . 

If you have any questions, please contact phil@hlrs.de 

Brázda Radim: Filozofové ve městě [Philosophers in the City]. Brno: MUNI Press 2021. ISBN: 978-80-210-9826-8

 

{Czech below]

The book Philosophers in the City was created on the occasion of the centenary of the founding of the Philosophical Seminar of the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno. It is dedicated to the reminder of the first nine philosophers, who gradually held the position of head of the philosophical seminary, the later department of philosophy. Their life, work and work at the head of the department are reminiscent of excerpts from their professional and popular texts, from materials stored in the Archives of Masaryk University. Selected texts provide insight into official and personal correspondence, diary entries, memories of their contemporaries and other documents related to their work and life. The texts and archives are connected and paralleled with general philosophical themes and European philosophers of the time as well as contemporary philosophers.

------------

Kniha Filozofové ve městě vznikla při příležitosti stého výročí založení Filozofického semináře Filozofické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity v Brně. Je věnovaná připomínce prvních devíti filozofů, kteří postupně vykonávali funkci vedoucího Filozofického semináře (pozdější Katedry filozofie). Jejich život, dílo a působení v čele katedry připomínají ukázky z jejich odborných a popularizačních textů z materiálů uložených v Archivu Masarykovy univerzity. Vybrané texty umožňují nahlédnout do úřední i osobní korespondence, deníkových záznamů, vzpomínek jejich současníků a dalších dokumentů spjatých s jejich dílem a životem. Texty a archiválie jsou propojeny a paralelizovány s obecnými filozofickými tématy a evropskými filozofy tehdejšího období, stejně jako s filozofy současnými.   

hps.cesee global book talk: Mitchell Ash, Dorothee Brantz, Oliver Hochadel: Science in the Metropolis: Vienna in Transnational Context, 1848–1918. May 31, 17:00 CET / 18:00 MSK / 11 a.m. EST

 

The virtual platform HPS.CESEE (History of Science in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe) is proud to present its forthcoming book talk. Dorothee Brantz (Berlin) and Oliver Hochadel (Barcelona) will join Mitchell Ash (Vienna) to comment on the recent book, Science in the Metropolis: Vienna in Transnational Context, 1848–1918 (Routledge  2021), in a discussion moderated by Jan Surman (Prague).

"Science in the Metropolis: Vienna in Transnational Context, 1848–1918  presents new research on spaces for science and processes of interurban and transnational knowledge transfer and exchange in the imperial metropolis of Vienna in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Chapters discuss Habsburg science policy, metropolitan natural history museums, large technical projects including the Ringstrasse and water pipelines from the Alps, urban geology, geography, public reports on polar exploration, exchanges of ethnographic objects, popular scientific societies and scientifically oriented adult education. The infrastructures and knowledge spaces described here were preconditions for the explosion of creativity known as 'Vienna 1900.'"

The meeting is free and open to the public. To receive the link, please register here:  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hpscesee-book-talk-science-in-the-metropolis-vienna-1848-1918-tickets-154413136849 or write to hps.cesee@gmail.com. 

Mitchell G. Ash is Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the University of Vienna, Austria, and a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities as well as the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Dorothee Brantz is Professor and Director at the Center for Metropolitan Studies, Technical University of Berlin. Her most recent book publication is: Urban Resilience in a Global Context: Actors, Narratives, Temporalities. Co-edited with Avi Sharma (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2020) open access: https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-5018-1/urban-resilience-in-a-global-context/

Oliver Hochadel is a historian of science and a tenured researcher at the Institución Milá y Fontanals de Investigación en Humanidades (CSIC, Barcelona).

Call for Papers: "Science and the Moving Image: Histories of Intermediality"

Location: Online (Zoom)

Date: November 2nd and 3rd PM (UK time), 2021

Since the advent of film in the late nineteenth century, moving images have been integral to making and communicating science. A rich interdisciplinary literature has examined such representations of science in the cinema and on television and investigated how scientists have used moving images to conduct research and communicate knowledge. Responding to growing interest in science and the moving image, this online workshop uses the concept of ‘intermediality’ as a starting point to discuss new approaches and methodologies. Intermediality, coined by media scholars to describe the interplay between different media, magnifies their multiple meanings and heterogenous interrelations. Moving images especially invite intermedial analysis because they are often composed of interrelated visuals, speech, music, and text; film can also be cut into stills for reproduction in newspapers, advertisements, and journals. Intermedial approaches thus allow scholars to assess not only the relationship between scientific practices and media forms, but also the afterlives, circulation, and reception of these media in a richer historical context. With its attention to relations and movement between media, intermediality also expands our understanding of the visual cultures of science, including in parts of the world and among groups that are underrepresented in current scholarship. We particularly invite submissions that use intermediality to engage critically with the scope and limits of science and the moving image.

Possible themes might include:

Processes of translation between different media, including film, television, radio, and print

Intermedial practices and histories of specific scientific disciplines

Moving images in science education

Transnational and comparative approaches to scientific image-making

Time-lapse, frame-by-frame analysis, and other analytical methods as intermedial practices

Representations of science in multimedia entertainment industries

The relationship between moving images of science and the history of empire and colonization

Amateur uses of moving image media, including citizen science

The cultural reproduction through scientific images of gender, race, and class. 

Keynote speaker: Dr. Tim Boon (Head of Research and Public History, Science Museum Group)

We welcome talks from postgraduate students, early-career researchers and established scholars. We are looking for abstracts (max. 250 words) for 15-20 minute talks, which will be arranged in thematic panels. Submissions should be sent to movingimagescience@gmail.com. The deadline for proposals is June 28th, 2021 and we aim to respond to proposals within four weeks.

This workshop will take place online via Zoom and is hosted by postgraduate members of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.

Organised by: Miles Kempton, Max Long, Anin Luo

Call for Papers: 4th International Congress of Polish History "Cultural Encounters"

Call for Papers and Panels

4th International Congress of Polish History 'Cultural Encounters' 

Kraków, 19-22 October 2022

The 4th International Congress of Polish History, entitled ‘Cultural Encounters’, is inviting papers for presentation and proposals for Congress sessions. The Congress centres around the mutual relations and interactions between cultures, patterns and social norms that have been present in Poland for centuries. The question of the dynamics, scale, and complexity of these interactions, together with the main directions of transmission and retransmission of cultural patterns, constitute the central research problem guiding the Congress.

The Congress seeks to examine themes relating to various periods of Polish history, as perceived through the lens of such disciplines of the humanities and social sciences as historical sciences, archaeology, art history, anthropology and sociology. We particularly welcome proposals of papers that are innovative, interdisciplinary and prepared by international research teams.

Submissions of papers should include: 

    ▪ paper title,

    ▪ abstract of no more than 1200 characters,

    ▪ a short bio and contact details of the author.

 

    Panel submissions should include:

    ▪  session title,

    ▪  contact details of the moderator(s),

    ▪  a description containing the main research problem, the proposed form of the meeting,

    the subject area of individual presentations; the description should not exceed 2000

    characters

    ▪  names and affiliation of the speakers.

    The topics of the proposed sessions should not overlap with the already suggested panel themes (a list follows). The planned duration of the session should not exceed 3 hours, including the time for discussion.

    Applications for sessions and paper submissions should be sent via the online form by 10 July 2021. The Organising Committee members will select the papers for presentation at the Congress by 5 September 2021.

    The organisers are making every effort to ensure that all speakers will be provided with accommodation during their stay in Krakow and that selected participants will be fully or at least partially reimbursed for their travel costs. Further information regarding the participation costs and fees will be announced in the early months of 2022.

In case of any questions, please contact the Organising Committee at sekretariat.ivkongresu@gmail.com.

Organisers: Krakow Branch of the Polish Historical Society, Jagiellonian University, Pedagogical University of Krakow

Attachments [below]

▪ - Congress invitation ▪ - List of panel themes

 

Invitation

4th International Congress of Polish History ‘Cultural Encounters’

Kraków, 19-22 October 2022

Every five years since 2007, Kraków has hosted the International Congress of Polish History, and each of these remarkable events has brought together hundreds of scholars from all over the world to share their interests in Poland‘s history, culture, and language. From its beginnings, the main aim of the congress has been to provide a forum for developing dialogue, exchanging experiences and inspiration, and popularizing research into Polish history.

We are now starting our planning for the continuation of this project, and we invite you warmly to be part of this, the fourth International Congress of Polish History. In spite of the uncertainty and unpredictability that the pandemic has brought, we are going ahead with the organization of the congress, firm in the belief that it will be possible for us all to meet safely in Kraków in October 2022.

The theme of our congress this time will be ‘Cultural Encounters’. We set out to look at the history of the Polish lands through the lens of the mutual relations and interactions of the many cultural currents and models that have been present here for decades and even centuries. Ideas and assets, customs and models, identities and languages, have come together here as if in a crucible, a laboratory, or a transhipment port. Cultural, ethnic, linguistic, religious, economic, demographic, and social diversity has always been the dominant note in Poland’s past, and has left lasting traces in our cultural legacy and collective identity. As we invite our fellow scholars with research interests in Poland to Kraków, we hope to explore the dynamics, scale, and complexity of these interactions, probe the main channels of transmission and retransmission, and consider the outcomes for Poland of these cultural encounters We have pledged to adopt the broadest possible definition of culture, to take account of both its elevated and popular registers.

We hope that in defining our subject in this way we will attract interest from a broad base, and provide a forum for lively dialogue on Polish history in the global context. As in previous years, we therefore extend our invitation to our sessions, discussions, and lectures to proponents of a range of disciplines, from historians, archaeologists, art historians, and anthropologists, to sociologists, linguists, and literature and cultural studies scholars. Alongside our preparations for the congress itself, we are also launching the fourth edition of our competition ‘Pro Historia Polonorum’, for the best foreign book on Polish history published in recent years, and there will be several other related events.

With this invitation to support and be part of our fourth congress, we venture to share our fervent hope that, as in previous years, our meetings in Kraków will foster the discovery and development of new research perspectives, vibrant debate, and above all authentic togetherness and dialogue.

the Organizing Committee

 

Panel Themes of the 4th International Congress of Polish History ‘Cultural Encounters’

    Archive as a cultural phenomenon [in Polish]

    Counting diversity: What do we know, what do we need to know about the Polish

    demographic past? [in English]

    Cultures of Polish Jews / Jews in Polish culture [in English and Polish]

    Diffusion. Transnational Circulation of Knowledge and Culture in East-Central Europe, 1956-1989 [in English]

    Encounters of European academic cultures: transfer, impact, transnationality? [in Polish and English]

    Environment and culture [in English]

    From Poland to the world: cultural encounters between migrants/refugees and local

    populations [in English]

    Hybrid identities as a subject of biographical research in the cultural borderland. The Galician case [in Polish]

    Misfits and masks – interpretations of cultural choices made by the inhabitants of Central and Eastern Europe in the times of historical politics and the Internet [in English and Polish]

    Museum as the meeting place of cultures. Memory, heritage and future of the Republic of Poland in museums around the world. [in Polish and English]

    Musical Poland beyond the borders. Migrations, circulations and cultural encounters [in English]

    Peasant culture [in Polish]

    Poland as Prometheus? How our political myth was perceived by other nations [in

    Polish]

    Returning wave. Exporting Polish modernity in the Twentieth Century (in the 20th century?) [in English]

    The royal court – the noble court – the aristocratic salon. Cultural values and revaluations [in English and Polish]

    The wealth of diversity. The phenomenon of multiculturalism in interwar Poland (1918–1939) [in Polish]

    The working-class culture between exclusionary self-description, stigmatizing label and corrupted analytical category [in English]

    Towns as spaces of standardization and differentiation of cultural patterns [in Polish]

    Transfer of Ideas in East-Central Europe, 19th-20th Centuries? [in English]

    War and diversity beyond the battlefield. Cultural encounters in the Polish lands 1914–1923 [in English]

[Image: http://szkola.izba.krakow.pl/lekcje-3-4-poznajemy-dziedzictwo-kulturowe-krakowa-w-mck/]

Call for Papers: "Science Popularization as Cultural Diplomacy: UNESCO (1946-1958)", 13-14 December 2021, deadline 15. June 2021

 

/Organised by the Institut d’Història de la Ciència (IHC), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and the Centre Alexandre Koyré (CAK), CNRS-EHESS-MNHN, Paris./

This is a call for participation to an international on-line workshop exploring the role of science popularization as cultural diplomacy at UNESCO.

 From its creation after World War II, UNESCO became a political battleground in which different visions of science and the world order fought for hegemony. As it is well known, Julian Huxley (1887-1975) and Joseph Needham (1900-1995) were the first General Director and the first Director of the Natural Sciences Division. Their administration stressed the "social implications of science" -through the influence of Bernalist Marxism- and the "periphery principle" in international relations. They also included science popularization in its priorities, but UNESCO's popularization program would only start once the Cold War increased in intensity and Huxley and Needham's policies were substituted by the leadership of the physicist Pierre Auger (1899-1993) as new head of the Natural Sciences Division.

The goal of the workshop is to explore the history of international science popularization policies and practices at UNESCO as tools for governance and cultural diplomacy from the Huxley-Needham administration to the end of Auger's leadership in 1958. Who were the main actors behind the global science popularization program at UNESCO? What were their political agendas? What were their specific approaches to science, internationalism, diplomacy and popularization? How were UNESCO's popularization policies actually implemented around the world in different national and local contexts? What was the role of science popularization in the global reconfiguration of international relations?

Historiographically, the workshop engages with the literature that has focused on the politics of science popularization, the literature which is reassessing scientific internationalism as a historically and ideologically situated practice and the renovated interest in science and diplomacy.

Papers dealing with science popularization as cultural diplomacy in other periods-contexts will be considered if they can dialog in productive ways with the main focus on UNESCO.

We ask for contributions in the form of a *20 minutes presentation in a webinar format.***

The workshop will take place online on *13-14 December 2021*. If circumstances allow, it might be later followed by an in-person event in Barcelona/Paris for the preparation of an eventual collective publication.

Interested persons are asked to submit a *title and abstract (approximately 200 words)* to Jaume Sastre-Juan [Jaume.Sastre@uab.cat], Andrée Bergeron [Andree.Bergeron@cnrs.fr] and Agustí Nieto-Galan [Agusti.Nieto@uab.cat] by *15 June 2021*.

Thank you and best wishes,

Jaume Sastre-Juan (IHC)

Andrée Bergeron (CAK)

Agustí Nieto-Galan (IHC)

History of science and technology (Kiev), 2020, 2 (open access, English)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32703/2415-7422-2020-10-2

Oleh Pylypchuk, Oleh Strelko, Yulia Berdnychenko, PREFACE, 160-162

History of technology

Sneha Bakshi, Manager Rajdeo Singh: A petrochemical study of Mughal plasters of Quila-I-Ark, Aurangabad with respect to technology and repair, 163-184

Ángel Calvo: Liberalisation of telecommunications and broadening of the value chain in Southern Europe. Telefónica, 1982–2000, 185-216

Oleg Khoroshylov, Valentyna Kuryliak, Oleg Podoliak: Stages of technological improvement of the process of continuous casting of iron-carbon and copper billets, 217-249

Hryhorii Luparenko: Motorcycle MT10-36 as a landmark of science and technology, 250-265

History of science

Ihor Dvorkin, Artem Kharchenko, Svitlana Telukha: The establishment of the Kharkiv Practical Technological Institute in the context of modernization, 266-280

Stefano Eramo, Giancarlo Barraco, Paolo Zampetti: The forgotten contribution of J. E. Purkyně to dentistry, 281-292

Volodymyr Grechenko, The contribution of Kharkiv University scientists to the development of historical and legal science (first half of the XIX century), 293-303

Olena Khramova-Baranova: Formation of the architecture of Ukraine based on longstanding measurement standards, 304-314

Mahyuddin Khairuddin Matyuso Nasution: The birth of a science, 315-338

Vira Okorokova, Olha Likhachova: Formation components of technical science in Ukraine in the 60‒70s of the XIX century, 339-352

Maryam Seyidbeyli: Life and activity of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, 353-367

Liubov Soloviova, Svitlana Hurinchuk, Yuliia Berdnychenko, Oleh Strelko: Professor V. Ye. Timonov – the formation of the scientific worldview, 368-382

Elena Tverytnykova, Maryna Gutnyk, Halyna Salata: Professors of the Kharkiv Technological Institute: unknown pages of biography, 383-399

Anna Borgos: Women in the Budapest School of Psychoanalysis: Girls of Tomorrow. New York: Routledge 2021. ISBN 9780367650865 (available for pre-order)

 

Book Description

This book explores the life, scholarly oeuvre and intellectual connections of the significant ‘first generation’ Hungarian female psychoanalysts, situating their lives within the wider context of social history and the history of psychoanalysis.

Budapest was one of the main centres of psychoanalysis in the early 20th century – in a period which was also central regarding women’s changing roles and possibilities. Favourable social circumstances met a new, freshly developing profession’s need for receptive followers regardless of their sex. This book shines a light on the social and professional factors on the life and work of these first women psychoanalysts, examining documentary evidence of their lives and drawing upon the literature of psychoanalysis, social history, and gender studies. Through their life stories, the author examines the history of psychoanalysis, but also the processes of women’s history and the social-political developments in Hungary and the region. Key psychoanalysts examined include Lilly Hajdu, Edith Gyömrői, Alice Bálint, Vilma Kovács, Lillián Rotter and twelve further women analysts.

This important book will be of interest to researchers in gender studies, the history of psychoanalysis, women’s and gender history, and Eastern European history.

Authors' Biography

Anna Borgos is a psychologist and women’s historian, working as a research fellow in the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Budapest. She holds a PhD in psychology from the University of Pécs. She is the editor in chief of the Hungarian psychoanalytic journal, Imágó Budapest. She published several books and articles in Hungarian women’s history, mostly connecting to literature, psychoanalysis and sexuality. Most recently she co-edited a volume with Ferenc Erős and Júlia Gyimesi, Psychology and Politics: Intersections of Science and Ideology in the History of Psy-Sciences (2019).

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements

Chapter One: Psychoanalysis in Hungary

Chapter Two: Women in the Budapest School of Psychoanalysis

Chapter Three: From the Galileo Circle to the Pavlov Committee: Lilly Hajdu

Chapter Four: Against the Current: Edit Gyömrői

Chapter Five: Attachment and a Sense of Reality: Alice Bálint

Chapter Six: The "Guardian Angel" of Hungarian Psychoanalysis: Vilma Kovács

Chapter Seven: Child Development and Female Sexuality: Lillián Rotter

Chapter Eight: A great promise of Hungarian psychoanalysis: Erzsébet Kardos

Chapter Nine: Further Portraits

Erzsébet Révész

Kata Lévy

Alice Hermann

Margit Dubovitz

Fanny Hann

Lucy Liebermann

Klára G. Lázár

Therese Benedek

Margaret Mahler

Barbara Lantos

Júlia Mannheim

Chapter Ten: Conclusions

CFP: One Biography, Multiple Places: The Life and Work of Shmuel Hugo Bergmann Between Prague and Jerusalem (1883–1975)

In recent years, there is growing interest amongst scholars in various aspects of Shmuel Hugo Bergmann’s life and thought. Notwithstanding his importance and impact as a philosopher, theologian, political thinker, and academic leader, relatively little research was dedicated to him. Therefore, the first international Bergmann conference reflects that gap and intends to contribute to the study of his political and intellectual activities.

Event Rationale

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Centre for the Study of the Holocaust and Jewish Literature Faculty of Arts, Charles University, 11000 Prague (Czech Republic)

03.11.2021 - 05.11.2021

Deadline: 30.06.2021

The  conference  will  address  the  multiple  aspects  of Shmuel  Hugo Bergmann’s political, scholarly,  and  cultural  activities. Originally  from  Prague,  where in  the  first  two  decades  of  the  20th century  he  took  part  in  the  Jewish-cultural  renaissance  of  the  local  German  speaking  community, Shmuel Hugo Bergmann moved to Palestine in 1920, where he assumed an influential role within the Jewish yishuv. He soon became a leading institutional figure associated with the development both of the Jewish National Library (of which he was the first director) and the Hebrew University (where he served as the first rector). At the same time, in light of his active advocacy of bi-nationalism and Arab-Israeli  dialogue,  and  by  virtue  of  his  participation  in  various  other  political  and  labor  organizations, Bergmann emerged as an important point of reference for left-wing Israeli discourse.

In Prague Bergmann studied philosophy with Anton Marty, a member of the Brentano School, and was influenced by the philosophy of Bernard Bolzano, to whom he dedicated his first monography. After  graduation  Bergmann  worked  as  librarian  in  the  Charles  University  Library  in  Prague  between 1906  and 1919.  In Prague,  Bergmann was  an  active member of the cultural  and  philosophical  Salon of Berta   Fanta (his   mother-in-law),   along   with   other   Jewish   intellectuals   of   his   generation including Felix Weltsch, Max Brod, Albert Einstein, and Franz Kafka. Bergmann also counted among the leaders of the Bar Kochba movement, an association for Jewish students at the Charles University that through the help of Martin Buber contributed to the cultural renewal of Western-European Jewry at the  beginning of the 20th century.  Bergmann  served as  the  chair  of  Bar Kochba  in 1903  and  in  that year  played  also  an  important  role  in  coordinating  the  activity  of  all  Jewish  students  organizations belonging to the Austrian Empire.

Immediately  after  the  first  world  war,  Bergmann  first  served  in  the  delegation  representing Czechoslovak Jewry at the Paris Peace Conference and then moved to London, where he worked as an employee  at  the  Educational  Department  of  the  World  Zionist  Organization.  Later  on,  in  May  1920 Bergmann emigrated with his family to Palestine and settled in Jerusalem where he was appointed the first  director  of  the  Jewish  National  and  University  Library  (1920–1935).  From  1928  on  Bergmann lectured  in  modern  philosophy  at  the  newly  established  Hebrew  University  and  in  1935  he  was nominated full professor in the Department of Philosophy. In the same year he was elected the first Rector of the Hebrew University (1935–1938). During his office, Bergmann contributed greatly to the enhancement of the University’s stature and helped to determine the direction of its academic activity. During  the  visit  of  T.  G.  Masaryk,  the  first  Czechoslovak  President,in  Palestine  in  1927,  Bergmann became  his  guide.  Immediately  after  World  War  II,  Bergmann  came  to  Prague  and  organized  in cooperation  with  the  Prague  Jewish  Museum, together  with  Gershom  Scholem, the  transport  of valuable Hebrew books that were collected by the Nazis in Theresienstadt to Palestine.

Bergmann soon became  a leading philosopher and cultural figure in Israel and in the Jewish world  as  a  whole;  he  was  responsible  for  the  translations  of  Germany  philosophy  into  Hebrew, participated in the national public debate, was a founding member of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and was twice granted the Israel prize (in 1954 for his work in humanities, and in 1974 for his special contribution  to  society  and  the  State of  Israel).  Besides  his  interest  in  philosophy, mathematics  and natural sciences, Bergmann also showed great interest in religion, mysticism, and Western esotericism. His influences included Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Sri Aurobindo.

Starting from the late 1920s, Bergmann’s became one of the leading intellectual voices in the contemporary  pre-state  and  later  Israeli  political  debate,  always  in  favor  of  a  peaceful  solution  and advocating  a  separation  between  religion  and  the  state,  cautioning  his  readers against  abandoning Judaism altogether for the sake of a secular Zionism devoid of spirituality. In particular, from the late 1920s, Bergmann was active (together with Gershom Scholem, Judah Leon Magnes, Martin  Buber and others) in the Brit Shalom movement, which called for a dual-national state, and advocated peaceful coexistence of Jews and Arabs in Israel/Palestine.

Coorganizers:

Centre for the Study of the Holocaust and Jewish Literature, Faculty of Arts, Charles University

Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture – Simon Dubnow

S. H. Bergmann Center for Philosophical Studies at the Hebrew University 

The Masaryk Institute and Archive of the Czech Academy of Sciences 

The Moses Mendelssohn Center for European Jewish Studies, University of Potsdam

CFP: Online-Workshop “International Knowledge Transfer within the Brewing Industry of the 19th and 20th Century”, October 1, 2021

Before global brands and multinational firms began to dominate the brewing industry during the second half of the 20th century, the production and consumption of beer was a local and regional phenomenon – at least according to the familiar narrative found in some of the literature. However, this view obscures previous international exchange and transfers when, for instance, German technological advances accelerated the worldwide development of a highly professionalized industry. In turn, U.S.-American breweries have provided innovative marketing impulses since the early 20th century.

These are just two examples emphasizing the importance of the transnational transfer of brewing expertise. Participants of the workshop are asked to provide further examples from multiple countries by examining (local) preconditions and backgrounds of change and adaptations as well as (mutual) influences. The goal of the workshop is to overcome the all too frequently applied national frame of analysis, highlighting translocal and transnational connections in order to complicate our historical understanding of the entanglements of the international beer industry.

We welcome contributions from a range of fields such as economic, entrepreneur, consumption, and cultural history. Overall, contributions may address the following questions as guidelines (though this is certainly not a limited list but will be worked on continuously during the workshop):

What were the impulses for international exchange and transfer and at what levels did it occur (personal/individual, company, network, research, organizations, migration, media etc.)?

What kind of adaptations to regional/national conditions were necessary? In which directions did the transfer take place (East-West, North-South, West-South etc.) and which role did transfer play for the expansion of breweries into international markets?

In how far could transfer be considered as mutually agreed upon or as industrial espionage? Did interdependencies occur?

What kind of opportunities (or limits) did different forms of communication provide (e. g. who profited from the advent of brewing trade journals in the 19th century)?

What role did “disruptive factors” play, i. e. intercultural and/or organizational (such as translation problems, opposition, corrections, “lost and found” knowledge) as well as crises (such as war times and along with it, resource scarcity and state regulations)?

On which factors hinged a “successful” transfer? How do we evaluate success (e. g. competitive advantages, higher productivity, better quality, more attractive products) and how were long-term innovation processes initiated?

The workshop will be held online, the program will be published in July and the conference language is English.

Please send a short exposé (ca. 500 words) and CV (1 page) by June 30, 2021 to:

Dr. Jana Weiß (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster), weissjana@uni-muenster.de &

Dr. Nancy Bodden (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), nancy.bodden@rub.de.  

We strongly encourage applications by younger scholars. A selected group of contributions will be published in a special issue of the Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte/Economic History Yearbook (the deadline for the manuscript is mid-February 2022).

Contact Info: 

Dr. Jana Weiß (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster), weissjana@uni-muenster.de

Dr. Nancy Bodden (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), nancy.bodden@rub.de  

Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowships in Early Modern Thought at the University of Bucharest - Expressions of Interest

The research group in Early Modern Thought at the University of Bucharest invites expressions of interest from candidates wishing to apply for a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship in Early Modern Science, Philosophy, and/ or Intellectual History. Information about the 2021 call will be soon available at the following link:

https://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/node_en.

The research group in Early Modern Thought is a very active interdisciplinary group of scholars working on a variety of aspects of the Renaissance and the early modern period (philosophy, literature, religion, science, etc.). Our members do research and teach in several faculties at the University of Bucharest (Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Philosophy, the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest-ICUB. For more details, please visit: https://icub.unibuc.ro/.../early-modern-cluster-at-the.../). We coordinate various research projects, and we organize early modern conferences and colloquia in Early Modern Philosophy and Early Modern Science, including the Bucharest-Princeton Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy. The working atmosphere is very friendly and supportive, and we are committed to international events.

We are looking for candidates working on any topic related to the early modernity (broadly conceived) and highly determined to be involved in the dynamic group we have built in Bucharest. Potential applicants are invited to send a letter of interest to Dana Jalobeanu (dana.jalobeanu@filosofie.unibuc.ro) and Mihnea Dobre (mihnea.dobre@unibuc.ro).

For any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us!

Dana Jalobeanu

Mihnea Dobre

Dana Jalobeanu, PhD

Associate Professor, Faculty of Philosophy

& Coordinator of the ICUB-Humanties

University of Bucharest 

Dana Jalobeanu

Mihnea Dobre, PhD

https://unibuc.ro/user/mihnea.dobre/?lang=en

Associate Professor. M.A. program in Religious Studies | http://hir.lls.unibuc.ro/

Academic Coordinator, Researcher. Humanities Division of The ICUB

Историко-биологические исследования / Studies in the History of Biology, Том 13, №1, 2021

OPEN ACCESS, Russian and English with English abstracts

URL: http://shb.nw.ru/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/IBI_2021_01-1.pdf

Содержание / Contents

Исследования / Research

Рожнов В.В., Найденко Св.В. История биологической науки в истории академического здания на Ленинском проспекте в Москве. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Viatcheslav V. Rozhnov, Svetlana V. Naydenko. The history of biological science in the history of the academic building on Leninsky Prospekt in Moscow

Сытин А.К., Сластунов Д.Д. В.Л. Комаров и авторы «Флоры СССР». . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Andrej K. Sytin, Dmitry D. Slastunov. Vladimir Komarov and the authors of “Flora of the USSR”

Документы и публикации / Documents and publications

Наточин Ю.В. Академик Евгений Михайлович Крепс (страницы подлинной биографии). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Yuri V. Natochin. Academician Evgeny Mikhailovich Kreps (Pages from his True Biography)

Фокин С.И. Н.П. Вагнер. Воспоминания о Казанском университете. . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Sergei I. Fokin. N.P. Wagner. Memories of Kazan University

Краткие сообщения / Short messages

Колбина Л.М., Осокина А.С. Колхозное пчеловодство Можгинского района Удмуртии в 1930-е годы. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Lidia M. Kolbina, Anastasia S. Osokina. Collective-farm beekeeping in the Mozhga Raion of Udmurtia in the 1930s

Воспоминания и интервью / Memoirs and Interview

Фандо Р.А. «Перелистывая страницы жизни…». Интервью с профессором Е.Б. Музруковой. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Roman A. Fando. “Turning the pages of life...”. Interview with Professor E.B. Muzrukova 

Памятные даты / Anniversaries

Рижинашвили А.Л. Развитие экосистемных представлений в экологии и продукционные аспекты исследования биосферы. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Alexandra L. Rizhinashvili. The development of ecosystemic views in ecology with the production aspects of the biosphere research

Рыбакова Е.В. От фотосинтеза к хроматографии (к юбилею историка науки д.х.н. Е.М. Сенченковой). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Elena V. Rybakova. From photosynthesis to chromatography (towards the anniversary of birth of E.M. Senchenkova, historian of science, Doctor of Chemical Sciences)

Conference: Exploiting Nature. Making an Empire: Natural Resource Extraction in Late Habsburg Empire, online/Paris 20.05.2021 - 21.05.2021

 

The conference aims at consolidating environmental history as part of the history of Habsburg Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century by exploring various forms of resource exploitation from multiple, but connected, perspectives including ecology, economy, governance and labor.

Exploiting Nature. Making an Empire: Natural Resource Extraction in Late Habsburg Empire

The contributions link environmental-historical concerns into the broader theoretical frame of imperial governance, subject-ruler relations and the expansion of capitalist structures under imperial rule. This is done by providing a platform of exchange for researchers who work on natural resource extraction in different parts of the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed diverse ecologies and positions in the world economy. The diversity of languages in which sources are available, their geographical dispersion and the differences between national historiographies make historical writing on an empire-wide scale a real challenge. For the first time, it will be possible to relate the different research results to each other and discuss them from a supra-regional perspective. Historians and environmental scientists working on the Habsburg Empire will explore multidisciplinary methods that combine environmental history of empire and human ecology. Their approaches will be discussed with Swedish scholars working on other imperial spaces. In that way the conference promotes cooperation among scholars working on imperial history and strengthens internationalization among Swedish academics.

Programm

Thursday, 20 May 2021

09:30 Introduction

Iva Lučić & Jawad Daheur

10:00 Keynote lecture

Manufacturing versus Resource Extraction. Unequal Division of Labour and Regional Shifts in Core-Periphery Relations in the Habsburg Monarchy (18/19th c.)

Andrea Komlosy – University of Vienna

11:00 Break

11:10 Panel I

Get Out of Our Forest! Rural Societies, National Mobilization, State-Building and Modern Forestry in Transylvania 1900-1940

Gábor Egry – Institute of Political History, Budapest

Imperial, Regional, and Local Regulation of Water and its Inter-Imperial Entanglements

Jana Osterkamp – Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

Chair: Iva Lučić

Commentator: Margaret Hunt – University of Uppsala

12:40 Lunch Break

13:40 Panel II

The Establishment and Management of the Investment Fund of Croatian-Slavonian Military Border as an Example of the State Forest Management during the Reign of Franz Joseph I.

Robert Skenderović – History Institute, Slavonski Brod

Securing the Forests: A Relational Approach to Transborder Conflicts and Contestations in the Late Ottoman and Habsburg Empires

Selçuk Dursun – Middle East Technical University, Ankara

Chair: Jawad Daheur

Commentator: Ana Sekulić – European University Institute, Florence

15:10 Break

15:30 Panel III

Indian Mongooses in the Adriatic: Knowledge, Infrastructure and Improvement

Wolfgang Göderle – Karl Franzens University, Graz

Traditional and Innovative Agroforestry during the Late Habsburg Empire in Hungary

Anna Varga – Rachel Carson Centre, Munich

Chair: Iva Lučić

Commentator: Ségolène Plyer – University of Strasbourg

Friday, 21 May 2021

09:30 Panel IV

Was there an Interplay between Ethnic Composition, State Intervention and the Patterns of the Commodification of Timber in Forested Areas? Two Regional Examples from the Carpathians, 1890-1919

Róbert Balogh – University of Debrecen

Contested “Rights in Nature”: Practices of Forest Use Regulation in Habsburg Bosnia-Herzegovina on the Crossroad between Private Capital, Local Population, and the Imperial State

Iva Lučić – University of Uppsala

Chair: Jawad Daheur

Commentator: Pieter Judson – European University Institute, Florence

11:00 Break

11:10 Panel V

Bark Beetle and the Natural Resources Exploitation in the Böhmerwald Region (1868–1877)

Kristýna Kaucká – Masaryk Institute and Archives, Prague

Resource Governance in Time of Drought: The Struggle over Fodder Exports in Cisleithania at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Century

Jawad Daheur – Center for Russian, Caucasian and Central European Studies, Paris

Chair: Iva Lučić

Commentator: Gunnel Cederlöf – Linnaeus University, Växjö

12:40 Lunch Break

13:40 Panel VI

State versus Peasants? The Forest Transition in Late Habsburg Austria

Simone Gingrich and Martin Schmid – University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna

Chair: Jawad Daheur

Commentator: Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist – University of Stockholm

14:40 Break

15:00 Roundtable discussion: Imperial Statehood, Nature, and Private Capital

Gunnel Cederlöf – Linnaeus University, Växjö

Per Högselius – KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm

Pieter Judson – European University Institute, Florence

Moderation: Iva Lučić & Jawad Daheur

16:00 End of the conference

Contact (announcement)

Iva Lučić

iva.lucic@edu.uu.se

Jawad Daheur

jawad.daheur@ehess.fr

Call for Papers: Second Baltic Conference on the Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences (BALTEHUMS II), Estonian Center for Environmental History, 01.11.2021 - 02.11.2021, Deadline 31.05.2021

 

The interest in interdisciplinary cooperation between humanities, arts and social sciences in the study of environment has been constantly rising all over Europe, and the same holds also true for the Baltic region. First Baltic Conference on the Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences (BALTEHUMS I) brought together close to 100 scholars in Riga, Latvia, in 2018.

Second Baltic Conference on the Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences (BALTEHUMS II)

The interest in interdisciplinary cooperation between humanities, arts and social sciences in the study of environment has been constantly rising all over Europe, and the same holds also true for the Baltic region. First Baltic Conference on the Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences (BALTEHUMS I) brought together close to 100 scholars in Riga, Latvia, in 2018, resulting in a vivid exchange of ideas, new contacts and collaborations. It left many of us wishing for more, but the conference planned for 2020 for Kaunas had to be unfortunately cancelled due to the pandemic.

On the last day of October this year, KAJAK, the Estonian Centre for Environmental History celebrates its 10th birthday. Now, to celebrate its 10 rich and exciting years, KAJAK invites everybody interested in the environmental humanities and social sciences of the Baltic region to join them for their anniversary conference. The conference will be held online, on November 1-2, 2021, organised by KAJAK at Tallinn University.

We will stick to a classical conference format with 15 minutes presentations and the following Q&A. To submit a paper or a session abstract, send your 300-word abstract to baltehums@gmail.com by May 31, 2021. Please indicate full names, affiliations and E-mails of all authors. You are even welcome to submit sessions in alternative formats or ideas for online networking but you need to keep in mind that the format must be compatible with the online medium. In this case, send your 300-word description together with full contact and affiliation data and a 200-word description of the technical solutions proposed for the event.

Kontakt

baltehums@gmail.com

Quarterly Journal of the History of Science and Technology (Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki), 2021, issue 1 is online (open access). English and Polish with English abstracts

 URL: https://www.ejournals.eu/KHNT/2021/1-2021/

Artykuły

Jarosław Barański, Wojciech Mackiewicz: Absurdity in Medicine. Stanisław Trzebiński’s Philosophy of Medicine, s. 9–23

DOI 10.4467/0023589XKHNT.21.001.13385

Sławomir Łotysz: Niewykorzystany kapitał. Pomoc międzynarodowa a początki rehabilitacji zawodowej w Polsce po II wojnie światowej, s. 25–54

DOI 10.4467/0023589XKHNT.21.002.13386PEŁNY TEKST:

Piotr Rataj: Franciszek Rychnowski (1850–1929) – niedoceniony geniusz, maniak czy obłąkaniec? s. 55–107

DOI 10.4467/0023589XKHNT.21.003.13387

Ewa Wyka: Mechanik Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego Władysław Antoni Grodzicki i jego skraplarki gazów, s. 109–134

DOI 10.4467/0023589XKHNT.21.004.13388

KOMUNIKATY I MATERIAŁY

Iwona Arabas, Larysa Bondar, Lidia Czechowicz: Nie tylko kurs historii naturalnej. Księżnej Anny Jabłonowskiej zbiór „wszystkich przedmiotów dociekań rozumu człowieka”,  s. 137–160

DOI 10.4467/0023589XKHNT.21.005.13389

Piotr Daszkiewicz, Dominika Mierzwa-Szymkowiak: Listy Władysława Taczanowskiego do Aleksandra Straucha w zbiorach Rosyjskiej Akademii Nauk – interesujący przyczynek historii zoologii w XIX wieku, s. 161–186

DOI 10.4467/0023589XKHNT.21.006.13390

Gabriela Frischke, Roksana Wilczyńska, Wojciech Ślusarczyk: Wyposażenie „PRL-owskiej” izby recepturowej ze zbiorów Muzeum Okręgowego im. Leona Wyczółkowskiego w Bydgoszczy. Genius loci czy suma przypadków?,  s. 187–203

DOI 10.4467/0023589XKHNT.21.007.13391

Renata Elżbieta Paliga: O potrzebie badań nad historią hematologii, s. 205–221

DOI 10.4467/0023589XKHNT.21.008.13392

RECENZJE

Recenzje

Olga Gaidai, Michał Przeperski, s. 225–235

DOI 10.4467/0023589XKHNT.21.009.13393

2021/1 of the journal Вопросы истории естествознания и техники//Voprosy Istorii Estestvoznaniia i Tekhniki [all articles in Russian with English abstracts, in OPEN ACCESS]

URL (RU): https://vietmag.org/issue.2021.1.1/

URL (ENG): https://vietmag.org/issue.2021.1.1/?sl=en

From the History of Technology

The Genesis of Electrical Telegraphy in Germany (1810s – 1840s), Nina Borisova, 9-28

The Noginsk Tram: The Pending Anniversary Ce­lebration without a Hero, Nikolai Semenov, 29-45

Lessons from History

The Revolutionary Tens and Twenties: A Bird’s­Eye View of Physics from Copernicus to Modern Times, Vladimir Vizgin, 46-70

Mathematical Works of K. Marx: A Century-­Long History of Search, Deciphering and Analysis, Tatyana Laskovaya / Konstantin Rybnikov / Olga Chernobrovina, 71-88

Sources for the History of Science and Technology

From the History of Exploration of the Territory of the Pechora­Ilych National Biosphere Nature Reserve: A Study by V. A. Varsanofieva, Olga Valkova, 89-116

Towards the History of the Soviet Atomic Project: A. M. Marinov’s Memorandum on the Problems of Modernization of the Urals Power Systems to Meet the Needs of the Nuclear Complex, Alexander Bedel / Mikhail Mikheev, 117-127

Institutions and Museums

Central Geographical Museum: The Beginnings, Vera Savenkova / Marina Shleeva, 128-140

Discussions, Meetings, and Interviews

M. A. Krasnosel’skii: Man, Teacher, Mathematician. An Interview with M. I. Kamenskii, Egor Bogatov, 141-153

Calendar of Jubilee Dates

Calendar of Jubilee Dates, Marina Shleeva, 154-157

Book Reviews

Tryndin, E. N. Optomechanical Firms in Russia in the 19 th and Early 20 th Century (Moscow, 2019), ISBN 978­-5-­98962­-035-­7Vasily Borisov158-164

Mukhin, M. Yu. Generation “0”. Research and Development Works in the Field of Jet-Propelled Aviation in the USSR During the Great Patriotic War (Moscow, 2019), ISBN 978-5-8055-0349-9, Dmitrii Sobolev, 165-168

Ufimtseva, M. D. (ed.) The History of the Department of Biogeography and Environmental Protection at St. Petersburg State University (St. Petersburg, 2018), ISBN 978-5-9909806-2-4, Valerian Snytko, 169-172

Shifrin, M. E. 100 Stories from the History of Medicine: The Greatest Discoveries, Heroic Deeds, and Crimes in the Name of Our Health and Longevity (Moscow, 2019), ISBN 978-5-9614-1398-4, Nikolay Shevlyuk, 173-176

Books in Brief

Books in BriefMarina Shleeva177-180

Academic Life

The 9 th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science in Bologna, Dmitrij Bayuk, 181-183

The Second International Congress of Russian Society for History and Philosophy of Science, Andrei V. Rodin, 184-187

Events in Brief

Events in Brief, Editorial Office of the Voprosy Istorii Estestvoznaniia i Tekhniki journal, 188-190

In Memoriam

Irina Aleksandrovna Tyulina (3.II.1922 – 29.VI.2020), Editorial Office of the Voprosy Istorii Estestvoznaniia i Tekhniki journal, 191-193

Vladimir Vasilievich Balabin (1.XII.1925 – 1.X.2020), Editorial Office of the Voprosy Istorii Estestvoznaniia i Tekhniki journal, 194-196

Call for Papers: Drawing the Line: Border Commissions in Eastern Europe, 1699-1921. 26.11.2021, Frankfurt (Oder) (online), deadline 15.06.2021

 

Drawing borders is as difficult, as each individual case is exceptional. For nation-states in particular, establishing internationally recognized borders is a core attribute of statehood. The ongoing conflict over Kosovo and its border with Serbia is one of the most striking contemporary examples. In the aftermath of the First World War, the fall of empires and rise of nation-states in Eastern Europe posed a unique set of challenges, involving almost every country in the region and ultimately sowing the seeds of future conflict. However, not only nation-states have had clearly defined boundaries. Multi-national empires also gradually established visibly marked borders. The rise of scientific method facilitated a shift in the meaning of sovereignty from a jurisdictional to a territorial concept.

Despite the fact that borders often followed "natural" geographic features, such as mountain ridges or rivers, they still relied on negotiated agreements between central authorities, provincial representatives, and the local population. While monarchs, ministers, and ambassadors hashed out agreements in grand state rooms, area specialists, surveyors, and military officers met in bilateral commissions on the frontiers in question to work through the details of the new borders. Thus, experts, that is to say, trained professionals or practitioners from the parties involved, had to come together and settle contentious issues.

The aim of our workshop seeks to focus on such commissions: Who were the members of these commissions? How did they perceive their work? And how did they gain their expertise? Did such experts constitute an epistemic community bound by professional standards, similar values, and a common way of thinking? Did they share similar mental maps, as they discussed and delineated new borders? And more importantly, were they, by means of their expertise, able to influence, even reshape, the outcomes of diplomatic agreements?

This workshop seeks to explore the emergence of the borders that separated European empires and states over the centuries and shaped the daily life of those living in border regions. Sometimes, this process lasted centuries and passed through various stages from "allocation" to "delimitation" and "demarcation". However, it was seldom a linear process, as borders shifted in the wake of natural disaster or military-political upheaval. Spatially, our workshop centres on the border-making process between the Habsburg, Ottoman, and Russian Empires, whose borders in particular expanded and contracted over the centuries. Our timeframe embraces the period from the Peace of Karlowitz in 1699, when the sultan sent the first-ever representative to a bilateral Ottoman-Habsburg border commission, and ends with the First World War and the Versailles Peace Conference, when these three empires came to an end, and European and American statesmen tried to establish a new post-war order by means of several international peace treaties.

We regard official treaties not as the end but the starting point of an intricate and multi-layered negotiation process that converts the terms of the treaties into visible markers on the ground. Thus, we adopt an explicit grassroots perspective and follow commission members as they walk the border region staking out state boundaries, eliminating enclaves, deciding access to roads, rivers, and railways, as well as natural resources, and creating the basis for tax jurisdictions. In numerous cases, such border commissions established borders that disregarded international agreements and significantly altered their content.

We are looking for submissions on the following dimensions of political border-making:

Shifting identities of border commissioners: Who were the members of this apparently all-male community who actively drew the borders? Over the centuries, they evolved from generalists or universal scholars to specialists in narrower fields such as geography, astronomy, cartography, and hydrology. While the members of the first commissions derived legitimacy from monarchs and were beholden to their sovereigns, later appointees belonged to impersonal state bureaucracies and enjoyed greater freedom of inquiry and action. Formal education and the professionalisation of their craft brought greater recognition, even prestige. How did these changes affect the methodology and practice of making borders?

Knowledge and the scientific enterprise of border-making: How did these experts create, organise, and disseminate knowledge that contributed to the development of border-making as a professional specialization? Perceiving themselves chiefly as scholars, border experts produced maps, surveys, and statistical data based on first-hand observations. Did they relate to each other as rivals or as peers? Were imperial rivalry and the transfer of knowledge and expertise mutually exclusive? Could we consider border commissions as information hubs for circulating knowledge on a global scale?

Negotiating border demarcation: Another relevant question pertains to the interactions of commission members with statesmen and the local population. Were they able to convert their expertise in political influence? Did engagement with locals alter outcomes? Commission members had to balance competing prerogatives, such as geopolitical considerations and defence needs, on the one hand, and local economies and property rights, on the other. One factor complicating decision making was that border commissions were often established shortly after an armed conflict amid considerable destruction and distrust. When did commissions fail and when did they succeed?

We invite graduate students and established scholars to submit an abstract of 300 words and a short CV by 15 June 2021 to Luminita Gatejel (gatejel@ios-regensburg.de). Notices of acceptance will be sent out by end of June 2021. Participants will be expected to circulate their presentation before the conference. Selected papers will be considered for publication as part of a special issue of a historical journal (further details to follow).

Since we do not expect a return to normal international travel by this fall, the workshop will take place on-line on 26 November 2021.