hps.cesee global book talk "Balkan Cyberia: Information Age behind the Iron Curtain".

hps.cesee global book talk "Balkan Cyberia: Information Age behind the Iron Curtain". Wednesday, January 31, 18:00-19:30 Central European Time (CET) / 20:00-21:30 Kyiv/ 12:00-13:30 EST

The virtual platform HPS.CESEE: History of Science in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe is proud to present the global book talk "Balkan Cyberia: Information Age behind the Iron Curtain". Vedran Duančić (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt) will join with Victor Petrov (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) to discuss his recently published book "Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age behind the Iron Curtain" (MIT Press 2023) [1], in a discussion moderated by Jan Surman (Prague). It is part of a series of open zoom events aiming to foster the discussion of new books and approaches within the history of science and scholarship (broadly understood) in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

The meeting is free and open to the public. To receive the link, please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEqdOyqrTMoGdcp1bC80ss4afm8PK4qwGOz or write to hps.cesee@gmail.com.

[1] Victor Petrov (2023) Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age behind the Iron Curtain. Boston: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262545129

Participants:

Vedran Duančić is a historian specializing in modern intellectual history and history of science, with a particular interest in the intersection of science and politics. He has extensively written on the history of geography in Yugoslavia in the first half of the 20th century. More recently his research interests have shifted to the post-1945, socialist period.

Victor Petrov is a historian of modern Europe and Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research includes the histories of the information society on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and the histories of failures and utopias. He is currently working on projects relating to the history of Interkosmos, and the rise of occultist and mystical movements after the fall of socialism in Eastern Europe.