URL: https://math-and-society.webnode.page/
In the post-war history of Czechoslovakia, 1968 is an indisputable milestone. The political history of the year has been described in private memoirs, analysed by historians, and served as inspiration for literary works. Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being was published for the first time by 68 Publishers, the publishing house founded by another émigré writer, Josef Škvorecký. 1968 was the year that instilled hopes, but also damped them in August of the same year after the arrival of the Warsaw pact armies.
The fates of scientists and scientific institutions reflect and sometimes magnify what happened throughout the country. Although intellectuals never stopped leaving their native country because of their disagreement with the communist regime, the wave of emigration following the August 1968 invasion had a major impact on the community.
Those who did not leave the country despite having spoken in favour of the changes instigated by the abolishment of censorship early in 1968 — not only the politicians and the economists, who were behind the proposed societal changed known as "socialism with a human face", but also "ordinary" scientists, leading personalities of university departments — were dismissed from their leading positions, if not from the universities.
The developments in Czechoslovakia, however, also affected scientific institutions in the West. After the period of blossoming cooperation during the 1960s, most opportunities faded away. Still many Czechoslovak scientists found a new home in the West, e.g. Bohuslav Diviš, the winner of the first International Mathematical Olympiad in 1959, did not return from his stay in Western Germany and later pursued his career in the US, Vlastimil Dlab decided in the last moment of his return journey from Australia to prefer Carleton in Canada to Charles University in Prague. Petr Vopěnka, on the other hand, described the advantages and disadvantages of work in isolation, pointing out that isolation provided him with a possibility of plunging deeply into research, which resulted in cognition, while he felt dissatisfaction and anxiety in personal life.
We invite researchers to submit proposals for papers relevant to the history of science and technology in the 1960s and in the 1970s. While the changes in Czechoslovakia may seem more pronounced, the atmosphere in other countries was influenced by the clear sign that at least in Europe and Northern America, the world remained divided into "the West" and "the Soviet bloc". How did this status quo influence the functioning of international organisations like the UNESCO, the International Union for History and Philosophy of Science, and the International Mathematical Union?
We welcome proposals for papers on
connecting scientific development and the underlying political issues;
modes of co-operation (within international organisations as well as outside of those);
styles of scientific exchange between the West and the Soviet bloc;
differences and similarities between the two blocs in science and technology;
impact of cultural and social development on scientific cultures;
other themes relevant to the conference topic.
Please, submit your abstracts through EasyChair (https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=mas23) at your earliest convenience. Authors will be notified within a week from their submission.
Final date for a submission is 11 June 2023. Registration open: from 1 May to 15 June 2023.
Conference fee: EUR 30 or CZK 600, payable on site or through bank transfer.
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