Call for papers: XI World Congress (International Council for Central and East European Studies)

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International Council for Central and East European Studies (ICCEES) (British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies / UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies), WC1H 0AL London (United Kingdom), 21-25 July 2025, Deadline: 31.10.2024. URL: https://www.iccees2025.org/ .

‘Disruption’

The International Council for Central and East European Studies (ICCEES) is proud to announce that its upcoming XI World Congress will be hosted by University College London around the theme of “disruption”. The regions covered by ICCEES are currently navigating a period of profound change and rupture, particularly in the aftermath of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Recent events have shown the need to disrupt conventional approaches to thinking about, studying, and researching these regions – their histories, cultures, languages, politics, economics, infrastructures, and societies.  Place-specific knowledge is as vital as ever in understanding how local and regional processes interact with transregional and global dynamics. At the same time, the need to reassess our methodologies, assumptions, and perspectives has never been more urgent. It is against this backdrop of transformation that we invite scholars, researchers, and practitioners to engage in conversations that push the boundaries of conventional understandings of past events and contemporary developments.

Hosted by University College London (UCL), an institution synonymous with disruptive thinking since its establishment in 1826, and the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), whose mission is to promote multidisciplinary, critical area studies, the ICCEES 2025 World Congress will provide an ideal setting for a conference centring on the idea of disruption. SSEES is the UK's largest institution for research and teaching on Central, Eastern, and South-East Europe, the Baltics, Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The School is home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of academic staff devoted to the study of this broad cluster of regions, with some 80 academics engaging in teaching and research in the fields of politics, sociology, economics, business, history, languages, literature, and culture, all underpinned by a commitment to language-based, critical area studies.

ICCEES welcomes paper, panel, and roundtable proposals with an area-specific focus as well as positioned within disciplinary and interdisciplinary frameworks. These disciplines and areas include, but are not limited to: Politics; History; Sociology; Geography; Film and Media; Languages and Linguistics; Literatures and Cultures; Anthropology; Economics; Baltic Studies; Black Sea Studies; Caucasus Studies; Central Asian Studies; Central and East European Studies; Habsburg Studies; Polish Studies; Russian Studies; Siberian Studies; South-East European Studies; Ukrainian Studies. We particularly encourage proposals that help push forward efforts to decentre and decolonise the study of the region.

The conference especially welcomes the participation of postgraduate research students and early career scholars.

The conference organisers also look forward to proposals for thematic colloquiums that can be held as part of the conference. If you would like to propose a colloquium, please email the conference organisers at academic.organisers@basees.org

Remote attendance:

We are welcoming remote paper presentations. If you wish to attend remotely, please indicate so when submitting your proposal. However, we cannot accept fully remote panels. The Chair of a panel, who can also be one of the presenters, must attend the conference in-person to lead the session and facilitate the discussion. We are operating a limited hybrid model. Delegates registering for remote attendance will be able to present their paper via Zoom and listen into all paper/panels. Full hybrid, i.e. using special 360° camera, mic and speaker equipment, will only be available in a small number of rooms.

The submission platform will open on June 1, 2024. The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2024. Information regarding registration fees and available travel grants/scholarships will be published in June 2024.

Venue:

UCL Institute of Education

20 Bedford Way,

London WC1H 0AL

Pavlíček Tomáš, W., Hyklová Petra, Šolc Martin: Astronomers behind the Iron Curtain. Open access

 Pavlíček Tomáš, W., Hyklová Petra, Šolc Martin: Astronomers behind the Iron Curtain: The First Postwar Generation in Czechoslovakia. Prague: Matfyzpress 2024. ISBN: 978-80-7378-507-9

Open access: https://matfyzpress.cz/data/web/astronomers-behind-iron-curtain2.pdf

The inauguration of the two-metre telescope at Ondřejov observatory and the 13th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Prague in 1967 was an important turning point in astronomy. After the discovery of quasars, new methods of observation were discussed, and the Space Race between two Cold War rivals was culminating. Luboš Perek, father of the mirror reflector and mastermind of the congress, became a leader of the generation of scholars and the Director of the Astronomical Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.

The formation of the generation was specific with regard to the war experience. This book shows how students of astronomy became experts and brought their knowledge into society using public observatories as places for the promotion of modern science.

call for papers: Russia’s Politics of Truth and its quest for alliances in the Global South. Erfurt

call for papers: Russia’s Politics of Truth and its quest for alliances in the Global South. Erfurt, 24.10.2024 - 25.10.2024, Deadline 01.04.2024.

Since 2014, we have been able to observe Russia portraying itself increasingly not just as the only remaining power of the morally good and historically true. In relation to countries of the Global South, Russia has also especially presented itself as an anti-colonial protecting power. This framing is anchored within two broader narratives:

First, under the slogan of “historical truth”, Putin is pushing a specific historical policy, the central reference point of which is the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany in the so-called Great Patriotic War. This newly structured and enhanced past is turned into an ever-present prism – through iterative references by the state media, but especially events that allow a large portion of the population to directly participate in the commemoration of this past – by which the present can also be seen and interpreted (McGlynn 2023). At high-profile media events such as the Russia-Africa Summit, the Soviet Union's support of anti-colonial liberation movements has increasingly become part of these historical memory and updating practices, through which the claim of being on the "right side of history" is made.

Second, another anchor point lies in so-called “traditional values”, which primarily conceal an ultra-conservative gender policy that is characterized by homophobia, anti-feminism and anti-queer sentiments. Depictions of Gender Order can function as ‘symbolic border guards’ that allow essentialization and demarcation between communities (Riabova/Riabov 2014). Against this backdrop, comparative perspectives can be fruitful for our analysis: For the Polish case it has already been analyzed how the ultra-conservative gender policy agenda has appropriated an anti-colonial framing, with “gender” being depicted as “Ebola from Brussels” (Korolczuk/Graff 2018). The “traditional family” in this context becomes a signifier for self-determined, autochthonous, or even indigenous ways of life. This agenda is also being pushed and exported through the Russian Orthodox Church, not only within Russia but on a global scale, for example on the African continent.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has sparked intensive discussion within the discipline of East European Studies about decolonizing the subject. In this context, the basic epistemological assumptions of the discipline have been called into question. In relation to present-day Russia, the concept of a Foucauldian regime of truth was suggested to examine the connections between institutional conditions and social systems of norms and values (see Vulpius 2021). This could not only help to analyze the consent to war in parts of Russian society, but also in parts of the Global South.

The aim of the workshop is to analyze these Russian Politics of Truth (Kleeberg/Suter 2014) with a special focus on interconnections with the Global South. With the help of which terms and concepts, but also media and political techniques, is the Putin regime working to restructure the Russian and global past and present? How are new alliances and imagined communities created, especially with countries of the Global South? As an analytical lens we propose methodological approaches such as political epistemology and praxeology.

Contributions may address, but are not limited to:

- Focal points of a shared history / experience between Russian society and societies of the Global South

- Russian media networks and structures in the Global South

- Formations of “historical truth” in Russian society or comparable cases in the Global South

- Moral economies of Good and Evil in relation to the Russian Politics addressing the Global South

- Policies of “traditional values” and gender politics in Russia and / or Global South contexts

- Religious Policies, the role of the Orthodox church especially on the African continent

- Analyses of specific key figures (like Dugin, Medinskiy, …)

- Analyses of specific key scenes of formation/performance of these truth politics (like the Bessmertnyi polk, Immortal Regiment)

- Alliances of the global far right concerning politics of history and gender

- Interconnections between politics, NGOs, thinktanks, and activism

- Differing visions of multipolarity in the Global South

- Adaptations of postcolonial theory

- Theoretical impulses from political epistemology and praxeology

For a 20-minute presentation in English, we kindly invite you to submit your abstract (circa 300-400 words) as well as a short CV (or a link to your profile website) via email forschungsstelle.wahrheit@uni-erfurt.de by April 1st, 2024. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by end of April.

The conference will take place 24th to 25th October 2024 at the University of Erfurt in an in-person format. However, in an effort to ensure a wider debate, we will allow virtual participation for the small number of speakers who may have difficulties attending in person. No fee is required in order to attend. We will try to cover the travel and accommodation costs for all speakers. The publication of the conference proceedings will be considered.

Literature:

McGlynn, Jade: Memory Makers. The Politics of the Past in Putin’s Russia, Bloomsbury 2023.

Riabova, Tatiana; Riabov, Oleg: The Decline of Gayropa? How Russia intends to Save the World, in: Eurozine, 05.02.2014, https://www.eurozine.com/the-decline-of-gayropa/

Edenborg, Emil: Anti-Gender Politics as Discourse Coalitions: Russia’s Domestic and International. Promotion of “Traditional Values”, in: Problems of Post-Communism 70/2 (2023), p. 175-184.

Korolczuk, Elżbieta; Graff, Agnieszka: Gender as “Ebola from Brussels”: The Anticolonial Frame and the Rise of Illiberal Populism. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 43/4 (2018), p. 797–821.

Vulpius, Ricarda: Sollte der Krieg Russlands gegen die Ukraine die Epistemologie der Osteuropäischen Geschichte verändern und wenn ja, wie?, [Should Russia's war against Ukraine change the epistemology of Eastern European history and if so, how?], in: Jahrbücher für Osteuropäische Geschicht 69/4 (2021), p. 588-592.

Kleeberg, Bernhard; Suter, Robert: »Doing truth« Bausteine einer Praxeologie der Wahrheit [Doing Truth. Components of a Praxeology of Truth], in: Zeitschrift für Kulturphilosophie 2 (2014), p. 211-226.

Вопросы истории естествознания и техники//Voprosy Istorii Estestvoznaniia i Tekhniki 2023

 All issues 2023 of the journal Вопросы истории естествознания и техники//Voprosy Istorii Estestvoznaniia i Tekhniki are online [all articles in Russian with English abstracts]

Issue 1: https://vietmag.org/issue.2023.1.1/ .

Issue 2: https://vietmag.org/issue.2023.2.2/ .

Issue 3: https://vietmag.org/issue.2023.3.3/ .

Issue 4: https://vietmag.org/issue.2023.4.4/ .

Социология науки и технологий / Sociology of Science and Technology

Социология науки и технологий / Sociology of Science and Technology, Том 14, №3, 4, 2023 are online (open access)

№ 3: http://sst.nw.ru/Files/2023/2023_3_%20SNIT.pdf .

№ 4: https://sst.nw.ru/Files/2023/2023_4_%20SNIT.pdf .

online event: Natalia Judzińska (Polish Academy of Sciences), To the left of the lecture theatre. The ghetto benches at Polish universities in the interwar period,

 online event: Natalia Judzińska (Polish Academy of Sciences), To the left of the lecture theatre. The ghetto benches at Polish universities in the interwar period, Tuesday, March 26, 17:00 CET, zoom

The aim of this presentation is to outline the ethno-religious spatial segregation system in Polish universities between the First and Second World Wars. The presentation will focus on the institutional aspect of the introduced regulations, and the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius has been chosen as the case study. The events presented will be set in a socio-cultural context.

Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82961863362 .

Event by Modern Jewish History Seminar, Prague and Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, v.v.i.

Hybrid event: March 22, 17:00 CET. The Urban Landscape of Knowledge in the Cold War Soviet Union

 Hybrid event: March 22, 17:00 CET. The Urban Landscape of Knowledge in the Cold War Soviet Union, by Alexey Golubev (University of Houston)

https://a.bikbov.ru/2024/02/zoom-seminar-late-soviet-revisited/ .

Hybrid event: Danuta Ciesielska - Organizacja matematycznych seminariów i biblioteki w Getyndze (1886-1933) a kwestia polska

 Hybrid event: Danuta Ciesielska - Organizacja matematycznych seminariów i biblioteki w Getyndze (1886-1933) a kwestia polska // Organization of mathematical seminars and library in Göttingen (1886-1933) and the Polish question, Monday, March 25, 16:15 CET

Seminarium Pracowni Naukoznawstwa Instytutu Historii Nauki im. Ludwika i Aleksandra Birkenmajerów PAN - "Naukoznawstwo: historia i współczesność".

25 III 2024 od g. 16:15 za pośrednictwem platformy ZOOM

dr hab. Danuta Ciesielska, prof. PAN (Instytut Historii Nauki im. Ludwika i Aleksandra Birkenmajerów PAN)

Organizacja matematycznych seminariów i biblioteki w Getyndze (1886-1933) a kwestia polska

Osoby zainteresowane uczestnictwem w Seminariach proszone są o kontakt mailowy z dr. Mateuszem Hübnerem (mhubner@ihnpan.pl lub mateuszhubner@wp.pl).

Историко-биологические исследования / Studies in the History of Biology

 Историко-биологические исследования / Studies in the History of Biology, Том 14, №3, 4,  2023 are online (open access)

№ 3: http://shb.nw.ru/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IBI_2023_03-2.pdf .

№ 4: http://shb.nw.ru/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IBI_2023_04_v4.pdf .

Acta Baltica Historiae et Philosophiae Scientiarum

Acta Baltica Historiae et Philosophiae Scientiarum

ABHPS Vol. 11, No. 2 (Autumn 2023)

URL: https://www.bahps.org/acta-baltica/abhps-11-2/ .

Articles

Moreno Paulon. Pseudoscience Charges and the Demarcation Problem.

Kostiantyn K. Vasyliev, Yurii K. Vasyliev, Olena H. Vasylieva. Riga Native Johann Christian Weltzien (1767-1829), Author of a Book on "Medical Police"

Tanel Kerikmäe, Ondrej Hamul'ak, Tomas Gabris. Frontiers in AI Judiciary: A Contribution to Legal Futurology

Vira Gamaliia, Artem Zabuga, Gennadii Zabuga. On the History of Developing Catalysis in Ukraine (1850s-1980s)

Pirimbek Suleimenov, Yktiyar Paltore, Yesker Moldabek, Galymzhan Usenov. An Analysis of Aristotle's Principles in Al-Farabi's Study of Logic in the History and Philosophy of Science

Reviews

Lyubov Sukhoterina, Volodymyr Zharkykh. Mykyta Mandryka's Scientific Legacy in the Field of International Law: Ukrainian Institute of Sociology in Prague in the 1920s.

Saniya Edelbay. Al-Farabi's Philosophy on Education

Marie Bahenská , Libuše Heczková , Dana Musilová: Ženám žádný obor vědecky od přírody není uzavřen: Spletité cesty žen k vědecké kariéře v první polovině 20. století [No field is naturally closed to women scientists: women's tangled paths to scientific careers in the first half of the 20th century].

Marie Bahenská , Libuše Heczková , Dana Musilová: Ženám žádný obor vědecky od přírody není uzavřen: Spletité cesty žen k vědecké kariéře v první polovině 20. století  [No field is naturally closed to women scientists: women's tangled paths to scientific careers in the first half of the 20th century]. Praha: Academia, MUA CAS 2024.

Zapojení žen do vědeckého světa navazuje na zpřístupnění vysokoškolského vzdělání ženám, čímž se významně změnila jejich profesní, rodinná i společenská situace. Tato zásadní změna přichází ve středoevropském prostoru na počátku 20. století a je završena po první světové válce. Cílem autorek je představit komplexní obraz vědkyně v české a československé společnosti první poloviny 20. století; ukázat zastoupení a pracovní výsledky žen v různých vědních oborech, možnosti profesionálního růstu a budování vědecké kariéry, které v případě žen vyžadovalo sladění pracovního a osobního života; představit důvody, které do určitých oborů přiváděly více žen než mužů. Kniha hledá odpovědi na otázky, jaký druh vědění ženy reprezentují a produkují, jaká byla jejich místa ve vědeckých institucích a jak probíhala výměna vědeckých informací. Sleduje jak vzdělávací a vědecké instituce, v nichž se objevovaly ženy, tak osobní i profesní životy vědkyň. Zabývá se také konkrétními příklady, které často svědčí o zvláštních osudech a atypických vědeckých kariérách žen, někdy označovaných pojmem „maverickové“, tedy ty, které překračovaly všechny normy, stereotypy a zažitou praxi a dosahovaly (byť třeba jen částečných) úspěchů.

AUC HISTORIA UNIVERSITATIS CAROLINAE PRAGENSIS, Vol 63 No 1 (2023)

 AUC HISTORIA UNIVERSITATIS CAROLINAE PRAGENSIS, Vol 63 No 1 (2023) is online ! Various languages with English abstracts.

Open access: https://karolinum.cz/en/journal/auc-historia-universitatis-carolinae-pragensis/current .

Editorial

Matthias Asche, Christian Hesse, Martin Holý

Das höhere Bildungswesen der Schweiz in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit: Institutionen und Formen der Peregrinatio academica

Matthias Asche

Herkunft und Wirkungsorte von Besuchern der Universität Basel, 1460–1550. Forschungsperspektiven und Zugänge einer Digital History

Christian Hesse

Süddeutsche Reichsstädter an der Universität Basel (1460–1802)

Wolfgang Mährle

Das Netzwerk der ungarländischen Studenten in Basel im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. Unbekannte Beziehungen in den Hochschulschriften

Ádám Hegyi

Polish and Lithuanian Students at the University of Basel from the Sixteenth to the Seventeenth Century

Robert T. Tomczak

Kulturtransfer zwischen Basel und Polen. Die Universität Basel und die politischen und intellektuellen Eliten in Polen-Litauen in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts

Maciej Ptaszyński

Die Universität Basel und die böhmischen Länder (1460–1630). Eine Matrikelauswertung

Martin Holý

Studenten aus den Böhmischen Ländern und ihre literarischen Aktivitäten im Umfeld der Universität Basel am Anfang des Dreißigjährigen Krieges

Marta Vaculínová

Gelehrtennetzwerke an der Universität Basel und ihre Verbindungen nach Ostmitteleuropa 1460–1550. Perspektiven zu Forschungsdaten aus dem Repertorium Academicum Germanicum (RAG)

Kaspar Gubler

University Attendance and the Development of a Correspondence Network: The Case of Basel, ca. 1500–1550

Amy Nelson Burnett

Böhmische Studenten in Basel und ihre Kontakte anhand von Stammbüchern

Marie Ryantová

Ladislav Velen of Žerotín and his Study Stay in Switzerland

Ondřej Podavka

Johann Ulrich Surgantʼs Manuale curatorum predicandi as a product of medieval intellectual heritage in Basel libraries

Vojtěch Večeře

On the Importance of Basel Prints for the Czech Lands

Kamil Boldan

Heike Hawicks – Ingo Runde (Hgg.), Universitätsmatrikeln im deutschen Südwesten. Bestände, Erschließung und digitale Präsentation. Beiträge zur Tagung im Universitätsarchiv Heidelberg am 16. und 17. Mai 2019

Marek Brčák

Sean A. Otto, John Wyclif, New Perspectives on an Old Controversy

Martin Dekarli, Luke DeWeese

Heike Hawicks – Harald Berger, Marsilius von Inghen und die Niederrheinlande. Zum 625. Todestag des Gründungsrektors der Heidelberger Universität

Blanka Zilynská

Robert T. Tomczak, Kontakty edukacyjne Polaków z uniwersytetami praskimi w okresie średniowiecza. Studium prozopograficzne

Blanka Zilynská

Robert T. Tomczak, Kontakty edukacyjne Polaków z uniwersytetami praskimi w XVI-XVIII wieku. Studium prozopograficzne

Marek Ďurčanský

Maciej Fic: „Rzecznik historii rewolucyjnej”. Henryka Rechowicza (1929–2004) życie publiczne i naukowe [“Advocate of revolutionary history”. Henryk Rechowicz’s (1929–2004) public and scientific life].

 Maciej Fic: „Rzecznik historii rewolucyjnej”. Henryka Rechowicza (1929–2004) życie publiczne i naukowe [“Advocate of revolutionary history”. Henryk Rechowicz’s (1929–2004) public and scientific life]. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego 2023.

[Polish below] URL: https://monograph.us.edu.pl/index.php/wydawnictwo/catalog/book/PN.4166

SYNOPSIS

The book is one of the links of research on the development of historical research during the period of Polish “people’s Republic” and the careers of representatives of the scientific community and it is a kind of case study of the operation of the “court science" community of supporters and promoters. The course of the career of Henryk Rechowicz, a historian and activist of the PZPR born in Dąbrowa Basin, has been recreated: a brilliant promotion was highlighted first (inclusion of exposed positions in the scientific community of the Katowice Voivodeship), then degradation resulting from his belonging to a group centered around the “Gierek team", and then the return to scientific and academic work, made in reality by the end of the Polish People's Republic and the beginning of the Third Polish Republic.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

MACIEJ FIC, UNIVERSITY OF SILESIA IN KATOWICE

Badacz XX wieku i dydaktyk historii, rzeczoznawca podręcznikowy MEiN, ekspert KAE przy CKE, prezes Górnośląskiego Towarzystwa Historycznego, zastępca redaktora „Śląskiego Almanachu Powstańczego” oraz „Wieków Starych i Nowych”. Autor i współautor m.in. kilkunastu monografii, poświęconych głównie historii Górnego Śląska. Wyróżniony m.in. przez Towarzystwo Popierania i Krzewienia Nauk w Warszawie. [9.02.2023]

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STRESZCZENIE

Książka jest jednym z ogniw dociekań nad uprawianiem badań historycznych w okresie Polski „ludowej” oraz karierami reprezentantów środowiska naukowego i stanowi rodzaj case study funkcjonowania środowiska zwolenników i realizatorów „nauki dworskiej”. Odtworzono w niej przebieg kariery Henryka Rechowicza (urodzonego w Zagłębiu Dąbrowskim historyka i działacza PZPR): uwypuklony został najpierw błyskotliwy awans (m.in. objęcie eksponowanych stanowisk w środowisku naukowym województwa katowickiego), potem degradacja wynikająca z przynależności do grupy skupionej wokół „ekipy Gierka”, a następnie powrót do pracy naukowej i akademickiej, dokonany w rzeczywistości schyłku PRL i początku III RP.

BIOGRAM AUTORA

MACIEJ FIC - UNIWERSYTET ŚLĄSKI W KATOWICACH

Badacz XX wieku i dydaktyk historii, rzeczoznawca podręcznikowy MEiN, ekspert KAE przy CKE, prezes Górnośląskiego Towarzystwa Historycznego, zastępca redaktora „Śląskiego Almanachu Powstańczego” oraz „Wieków Starych i Nowych”. Autor i współautor m.in. kilkunastu monografii, poświęconych głównie historii Górnego Śląska. Wyróżniony m.in. przez Towarzystwo Popierania i Krzewienia Nauk w Warszawie. [9.02.2023]

Dan Healey: The Gulag Doctors: Life, Death, and Medicine in Stalin's Labour Camps.

Dan Healey: The Gulag Doctors: Life, Death, and Medicine in Stalin's Labour Camps. New Haven: Yale University Press 2024. ISBN: 9780300187137

A pioneering history of medical care in Stalin’s Gulag—showing how doctors and nurses cared for inmates in appalling conditions

 

A byword for injustice, suffering, and mass mortality, the Gulag exploited prisoners, compelling them to work harder for better rations in shocking conditions. From 1930 to 1953, eighteen million people passed through this penal-industrial empire. Many inmates, not reaching their quotas, succumbed to exhaustion, emaciation, and illness.

 

It seems paradoxical that any medical care was available in the camps. But it was in fact ubiquitous. By 1939 the Gulag Sanitary Department employed 10,000 doctors, nurses and paramedics—about 40 percent of whom were prisoners.

 

Dan Healey explores the lives of the medical staff who treated inmates in the Gulag. Doctors and nurses faced extremes of repression, supply shortages, and isolation. Yet they still created hospitals, re-fed prisoners, treated diseases, and “saved” a proportion of their patients. They taught apprentices and conducted research too. This groundbreaking account offers an unprecedented view of Stalin’s forced-labour camps as experienced by its medical staff.

Dan Healey is an expert on the social and cultural history of modern Russia and the Soviet Union. He is the author of Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia, Bolshevik Sexual Forensics, and Russian Homophobia from Stalin to Sochi. He is professor emeritus of modern Russian history at the University of Oxford.

online event: 800-years of locust invasions in the Carpathian Basin and Central Europe

 online event: 800-years of locust invasions in the Carpathian Basin and Central Europe: causes, frequency, intensity and duration, impacts, step changes and the development of prevention strategies, Mar 20 (Wed), 2024, 15:00 CET

Presenter: Andrea Kiss (Technische Universität Wien)

please register to get zoom link (the link will be sent before the meeting): http://tinyurl.com/5n6r6mnh .

Due to their Biblical context, locust invasions played an especially important role among documented natural hazards throughout the last millennium. In the Central European locust invasions of the last over 800 years the Carpathian Basin played a key role: all the invasions crossed and continued to the west through the Carpathian Basin, the main nesting place of the locusts in Central Europe. In the Carpathian Basin up to the 1880s migratory locusts, reportedly coming from the Black Sea area, played a leading role, while after the 1880s migratory locusts were replaced by other locust species (Moroccan, Italian) of possibly more southerly origin. Locust invasions often followed and/or coincided with (multiannual) drought periods; and while several mass outbreaks and invasions occurred in the Carpathian Basin, after the mid-18th century only some of them continued to West-Central Europe. Based on an 800-year long data series, the possible origin(s), frequency, length, spatial extension, potential causes and consequences of locust outbreaks and invasions are discussed in the presentation. Nested for multiple years in the Carpathian Basin during the invasions, locusts caused significant damages. Although to a limited extent early prevention methods are known already from late medieval times, and more and more information is available about fighting locusts in the 16th and 17th centuries, it is only the mid-18th century when prevention activities became more intensive, and state-organised actions became more and more effective. The real break-through only happened in the 20th century with the introduction of mechanized defence and integrated pest management.

Andrea Kiss is an environmental historian, working mostly on historical climate and environment, historical floods and droughts, and social-environmental interaction. She holds MA, MSc and PhD in History, Geography and Medieval Studies, BA level degree in Latin. She published over a hundred scientific studies including coauthorship in Nature and Science papers, book and book edition at Springer and Routledge.

CHORUS & hps.cesee global book talk: The Will to Predict. Thursday, March 14, 11:00 am ET / 16:00 CET / 17:00 Kyiv

 CHORUS & hps.cesee global book talk: The Will to Predict. Thursday, March 14, 11:00 am ET / 16:00 CET / 17:00 Kyiv, Zoom.

ABOUT THIS EVENT

Virtual platforms CHORUS (Colloquium for the History of Russian and Soviet Science) & HPS.CESEE (History of Science in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe) are proud to present their forthcoming book talk on a new publication on history of scientific prediction. Teresa Ashe (Open University, UK) and Ksenia Tatarchenko (Singapore Management University) will join Eglė Rindzevičiūtė (Kingston University, London) to comment on her recent book: The Will to Predict: Orchestrating the Future through Science (Cornell, 2023) [1], in a discussion moderated by Slava Gerovitch (MIT).

Thursday, March 14, 11:00 am ET / 16:00 CET / 17:00 Kyiv

The meeting is free and open to the public. To receive the Zoom link, please register here: https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcrceyorzovEtF6jH6aDdnD8hJIDK5DECMG or write to hps.cesee@gmail.com

[1] Eglė Rindzevičiūtė. The Will to Predict: Orchestrating the Future through Science, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2023

“In The Will to Predict, Eglė Rindzevičiūtė demonstrates how the logic of scientific expertise cannot be properly understood without knowing the conceptual and institutional history of scientific prediction. She notes that predictions of future population, economic growth, environmental change, and scientific and technological innovation have shaped much of twentieth and twenty-first-century politics and social life, as well as government policies. Today, such predictions are more necessary than ever as the world undergoes dramatic environmental, political, and technological change. But, she asks, what does it mean to predict scientifically? What are the limits of scientific prediction and what are its effects on governance, institutions, and society?

Her intellectual and political history of scientific prediction takes as its example twentieth-century USSR. By outlining the role of prediction in a range of governmental contexts, from economic and social planning to military strategy, she shows that the history of scientific prediction is a transnational one, part of the history of modern science and technology as well as governance. Going beyond the Soviet case, Rindzevičiūtė argues that scientific predictions are central for organizing uncertainty through the orchestration of knowledge and action. Bridging the fields of political sociology, organization studies, and history, The Will to Predict considers what makes knowledge scientific and how such knowledge has impacted late modern governance.”

The book introduction may be downloaded from https://www.academia.edu/105950239/The_Will_to_Predict_Orchestrating_the_Future_through_Science

Participants

Teresa Ashe is a Staff Tutor (Lecturer) in Economics at the Open University, UK. She is a co-author of Media and Uncertainty (2021) and a co-editor of Climate Change Discourse in Russia (2019).

Slava Gerovitch is a Lecturer in History of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics (2002), Voices of the Soviet Space Program (2014), and Soviet Space Mythologies (2015).

Eglė Rindzevičiūtė is Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology, Politics and Sociology at Kingston University, London. She is the author of The Power of Systems and Constructing Soviet Cultural Policy (2016) and The Will to Predict (2023).

Ksenia Tatarchenko is Assistant Professor of Science, Technology and Society at the College of Integrative Studies in the Singapore Management University. She is the author of SCI_BERIA: The Novosibirsk Science Center and the Late Soviet Politics of Expertise (forthcoming, 2024).