Conference report: Russia’s Politics of Truth and its Quest for Alliance in the Global South

 Lilú Kruspe / Sascha R. Harnisch, Conference report: Russia’s Politics of Truth and its Quest for Alliance in the Global South, in: H-Soz-Kult, 12.06.2025, https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-155611.

CFP: « Protect and Control. The Politics of Uncertainty and Danger in the Soviet Union (Second Half of the Twentieth Century) »

 Dear colleagues, 

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the workshop entitled « Protect and Control. The Politics of Uncertainty and Danger in the Soviet Union (Second Half of the Twentieth Century) » to be held on April 16 and 17, 2026 at the Maison Française in Oxford.

URL: https://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-154313

While being less spectacular than terror and repression, the Soviet state’s efforts to protect the population from uncertainty and dangers were also instrumental for reshaping the relationship between state and society. Constructing an unforeseen event or danger as a social problem, taking protective measures and determining the conditions to compensate victims and anticipating the future – this is how we characterise the ‘politics of uncertainty and danger’. This workshop aims to clarify the paradox whereby the regime was attacked by the Soviets on the basis of its inability to protect them, despite its having reaffirmed its protective nature by implementing security measures.

This workshop aims to produce a collective publication in English and article proposals are expected by 15 June 2025.

Best regards,

Katja Doose, Grégory Dufaud, Anna Safronova

Darya Tsymbalyuk: Ecocide in Ukraine: The Environmental Cost of Russia's War.

 Darya Tsymbalyuk: Ecocide in Ukraine: The Environmental Cost of Russia's War. Polity press 2025. ISBN: 9781509562497. 

URL: https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=ecocide-in-ukraine-the-environmental-cost-of-russias-war--9781509562497

Russia’s war on Ukraine has not only destroyed millions of human lives, it has also been catastrophic for the environment. Forests and fields have been burned to the ground, animal and plant species pushed to the brink of extinction, soil and water contaminated with oil products, debris, and mines.  On a single day in June 2023, the breached Kakhovka Dam flooded thousands of kilometres of protected natural habitat, as well as villages, towns, and agricultural land. The devastation of biodiversity and ecosystems across Ukraine has been immeasurable, long-lasting and its consequences stretch beyond national borders.

 

In this poignant book, Ukrainian researcher Darya Tsymbalyuk offers an intimate portrait of her beloved homeland against the backdrop of Russia’s war and ecocide. In elegant and moving prose, she describes the damage to the country’s rivers, the grasslands of the steppes, animals, insects, and colonies of birds, as a result of Russia’s ground and air operations.  Alongside the everyday experiences of people in Ukraine living with the environmental consequences of the war, we share Tsymbalyuk’s own reckoning with the changing nature of cherished places and the loss of familiar worlds caused by the ongoing Russian invasion.

Н. С. Калинин (ed..) Математики Санкт-Петербурга и их открытия.

 Н. С. Калинин (ed..) Математики Санкт-Петербурга и их открытия. Сборник статей [St. Petersburg Mathematicians and their Discoveries. Collection of Articles]. МЦНМО 2025. ISBN: 978-5-4439-1917-1

В книге рассказаны биографии 45 математиков, чья жизнь и/или работа была тесно связана с Санкт-Петербургом-Петроградом-Ленинградом. Большая часть биографий снабжена рассказами о научных достижениях их героев. Для широкого круга читателей.

Medicina antiqua, mediaevalis et moderna

 Lucyna Kostuch, Sylwia Konarska-Zimnicka, Beata Wojciechowska red., Medicina antiqua, mediaevalis et moderna. Historia – filozofia – religia (IV), 2025, 421 s.

Publikacja prezentuje wybrane aspekty badań nad medycyną starożytną, średniowieczną i nowożytną, uwidaczniając dziedzictwo historyczne w tym zakresie i wpływy kulturowe dostrzegalne zarówno w czasie jak i przestrzeni. Opracowanie zawiera teksty dotyczące historii medycyny europejskiej, w tym polskiego dorobku na przestrzeni dziejów. Wieloautorska monografia przedstawia badania w obszarze historii medycyny, które łączą elementów dorobku różnych dyscyplin nauki: medycyny, przyrodoznawstwa, historii, historii nauki, historii religii, historii sztuki, filozofii, teologii, filologii i archeologii. W publikacji analizie poddano liczne zagadnienia badawcze: medyczne właściwości przyrody; opisane w świadectwach źródłowych: choroby kobiece, męskie i dziecięce; choroby psychiczne; choroby i metody leczenia utrwalone w literaturze różnych gatunków, zachowane traktaty i teorie medyczne; kwestia statusu lekarza w różnych epokach historycznych, znani lekarze w dziejach; choroby sławnych postaci historycznych; rozwój szpitalnictwa; astrologia medyczna; wpływ klimatu na stan zdrowia człowieka, medyczne praktyki magiczne; epidemie.

Spis treści

WPROWADZENIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    7

ANNA MARIA WAJDA – Oczyszczające i lecznicze właściwości wody w świetle tekstów biblijnych i pozabiblijnych. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

LUCYNA KOSTUCH – Koper, wąż i antyczna medycyna. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

TATIANA KRYNICKA – Izydor z Sewilli o medycynie (Etymologie, księga IV). . . . 49

KAROL ZDZIECH – Metafory o charakterze medycznym w listach papieża Grzegorza VII. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

MATEUSZ FITAS – Zabiegi medyczne w świetle arabskiego traktatu Albucasisa (936–1013). Współczesny komentarz medyczny. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

BEATA WOJCIECHOWSKA – O zachowaniu lekarza w świetle dwunastowiecznego traktatu z Salerno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

ANNA GŁUSIUK – Mistrz Bernardus Provincialis o afrodyzjakach, anafrodyzjakach, sposobach na niepłodność i środkach stosowanych

podczas porodu w traktacie pod tytułem Commentarium super tabulas Salerni. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

KRZYSZTOF RATAJCZAK – Szpitalnictwo w zakonie świętego Jana Jerozolimskiego w średniowieczu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

JERZY RAJMAN – Lekarze krakowscy (1278–1400). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

ZOFIA WILK-WOŚ – Medyk o medykach. Lekarze w dziele Chronica Polonorum Macieja z Miechowa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

SYLWIA KONARSKA-ZIMNICKA, MATEUSZ FITAS – Wątki jatromatematyczne w Introductorium astrologie compendiosum Wacława z Krakowa . . . . . . . . . 189

PIOTR KARDYŚ – Inkunabuły „medyczne” w zbiorze inkunabułów  biblioteki PAU i PAN w Krakowie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

KATARZYNA JUSTYNIARSKA-CHOJAK – Traktaty medyczne w księgozbiorach mieszczańskich (w świetle inwentarzy pośmiertnych z XVI–XVIII wieku). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

MAŁGORZATA KRZYSZTOFIK – Infirmaria chrześcijańska Mikołaja z Mościsk (1624). Dyskurs medyczny i religijny. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

JACEK PIELAS – Sadyzm i choroba umysłowa w środowisku magnackim dawnej Rzeczypospolitej. Casus Warszyckich herbu Awdaniec w XVII wieku. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

ANNA SZYLAR – „Na ukąszenie żmii i psa wściekłego” – receptury na medykamenty wyrabiane domowym sposobem (druga połowa XVIII wieku) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

TADEUSZ SROGOSZ – Receptury Karla Franza Heintza w czasie 

 epidemii dżumy w latach 1780–1781. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

TOMASZ CIESIELSKI – Służby medyczno-sanitarne w armiach Rzeczypospolitej w czasach saskich. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

MARIUSZ NOWAK – Wykorzystanie wód termalnych do celów leczniczych w spiskim uzdrojowisku Vyšnie Ružbachy w XIX–XX wieku (do 1939 roku) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

SARAH TAYLOR-JASKÓLSKA – Od „zdrowego” rozsądku do wiedzy medycznej: zdrowie publiczne w wiktoriańskiej Anglii. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

KAMIL SZPUNAR – Obraz szydłowieckiej apteki w świetle  dokumentów z pierwszej połowy XIX wieku . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

MARTA KŁAK-AMBROŻKIEWICZ – Emocje, choroby i sposoby leczenia – z życia artysty Jana Matejki. Pierś pelikana. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

PAWEŁ PRYT – „Co do mego zdrowia…” – wyjazdy do uzdrowisk rodziny Wielopolskich w XIX oraz pierwszej w połowie XX wieku. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

JERZY GAPYS, FILIP ŁOBODA – Epidemia tyfusu plamistego w więzieniu kieleckim w latach 1918–1919. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

VARIA

MICHAŁ M. SKOCZYLAS – Wyrazy pamięci o dawnych medykach i ich dorobek naukowy w ofercie turystycznej polskich miast i wsi – stan obecny i propozycje rozwoju . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

Medicine on a Larger Scale: Global Histories of Social Medicine

 Lie, Anne Kveim, Jeremy A. Greene, and Warwick Anderson, eds. Medicine on a Larger Scale: Global Histories of Social Medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025. ISBN: 9781009428514. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009428514. Open access.

Book description

In a world of growing health inequity and ecological injustice, how do we revitalize medicine and public health to tackle new problems? This groundbreaking collection draws together case studies of social medicine in the Global South, radically shifting our understanding of social science in healthcare. Looking beyond a narrative originating in nineteenth-century Europe, a team of expert contributors explores a far broader set of roots and branches, with nodes in Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, Oceania, the Middle East, and Asia. This plural approach reframes and decolonizes the study of social medicine, highlighting connections to social justice and health equity, social science and state formation, bottom-up community initiatives, grassroots movements, and an array of revolutionary sensibilities. As a truly global history, this book offers a more usable past to imagine a new politics of social medicine for medical professionals and healthcare workers worldwide. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Reviews

‘Medicine on a Larger Scale offers multiple visions of social medicine as an idea, field of research and teaching, form of practice, critique of health policy, and approach to the Planet’s problems. This intriguing and useful collection also places social medicine in a truly global context and gives voice to social medicine traditions form the South that are less well-known than the stories it also presents from Euro-American history. A step forward in imagining a counter-biomedicine that can better connect social suffering and healing with interpretive social science, post-colonial imaginings, and some of the more serious problems of the world. Impressive!’

Arthur Kleinman - Harvard University

‘This impressive and timely work brings together contributions from a wide range of scholars to illuminate the historical basis of social medicine. The contributors show us that the lessons are highly relevant to contemporary challenges and why reimagining social medicine in the light of current realities can help to address them.’

Andy Haines - London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

‘This collection of essays is pivotal to understanding the historical urgency of global public health. The political visibility of that urgency is embedded in global histories of social medicine movements that asked what are the social determinants of population health in post-colonial worlds. Collectively these essays powerfully demonstrate the interrogative necessity of historical analysis in order to address crippling global inequalities in health, premature mortality and debilitating morbidities.’

Dorothy Porter - University of California, San Francisco

CFP: Trauma, Institutional Knowledge, and Social Order

 CFP: Trauma, Institutional Knowledge, and Social Order: New Perspectives from Eastern and Western Europe during the Cold War - Graz 12/2025

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This explorative workshop investigates institutional and praxeological approaches to psychic suffering in Eastern and Western Europe after 1945. It investigates the making of trauma through broad political, ideological, environmental or social transformations in the Cold War period through processes of making visible, pathologization, legitimization, or denial. The workshop seeks to uncover specifically European trajectories in the conceptual and institutional history of 'trauma’.

Trauma, Institutional Knowledge, and Social Order: New Perspectives from Eastern and Western Europe during the Cold War

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Institute of History, Department of Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz; Institute for the History of Medicine and Ethics in Medicine, Charité Berlin; German Police University, Münster, 8010 Graz (Austria)

03.12.2025 - 05.12.2025

Bewerbungsschluss: 01.07.2025

How did “trauma” emerge as a therapeutic concept, political discourse, and administrative practice in Europe during the Cold War? How was it treated or silenced, conceptualized or classified? What role did psychiatric diagnoses, forensic reports, police investigations, and bureaucratic procedures play in shaping societal responses to events such as political violence, armed conflicts, displacement, natural catastrophes, epidemics, or other structural forms of harm?

This explorative workshop investigates institutional and praxeological approaches to psychic suffering in Eastern and Western Europe after 1945. It investigates the making of trauma through broad political, ideological, environmental or social transformations in the Cold War period through processes of making visible, pathologization, legitimization, or denial. Moving beyond studies focused solely on World War II and its long-term psychological consequences, we aim to understand the Cold War as a period of continued upheaval, producing new institutional responses to psychic distress while shaped by the legacies of previous violence. In doing so, the workshop seeks to uncover specifically European trajectories in the conceptual and institutional history of 'trauma’.

The workshop focuses on institutional archives and documentary sources - psychiatric and therapeutic case files, forensic assessments, hospital records, bureaucratic documents, police files, and court proceedings. These materials reveal how societies perceived, managed, and classified mental suffering - or failed to do so - under specific historical conditions. We engage with recent historiographical debates that challenge the simplistic East–West dichotomy. The assumption that Western societies openly addressed psychic suffering while the East repressed it has proven increasingly inadequate. Instead, evidence suggests that similar diagnostic and administrative frameworks were in place across both systems until around 1980, with mental suffering often recognized only when considered temporary and treatable. Diagnoses such as “superficial neurosis” in Yugoslavia or “gross stress reaction” in the DSM-I exemplify these limitations in collective recognition.

We invite contributions based on institutional sources that examine how psychic distress was defined, regulated, or marginalized in diverse national and political contexts across Europe during the Cold War.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

- Psychiatric, legal, and other administrative approaches to psychic suffering in Eastern and Western Europe

- Diagnostic strategies: between pathologization and normalization, acknowledgement and ignorance

- Forensic reports, police files, and psychiatric records as sources for the history of trauma

- The relationship between political repression, mental distress, and medical classification

- Social, gender, environmental, health, and economic dimensions of the (non-)recognition of psychic vulnerability

- Institutional logics in addressing war trauma, imprisonment-related suffering, and structural violence

- Interactions between medical knowledge, administrative practices, and norms of psychological normalcy

Date: 3–5 December 2025

Location: University of Graz, Institute of History

We plan to circulate working papers beforehand to allow for in-depth discussion and exchange during the workshop. The workshop language is English. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered.

Submission:

Please send your abstract (max. 300 words) and a short biographical note (max. 150 words) by 1 July 2025 to:

heike.karge@uni-graz.at

Notification of acceptance: by 15 July 2025.

Deadline for paper submission: 3 November 2025.

The Global Campus: Academic Fiction in World Literature

 World Literature Studies 1/2025 “The Global Campus: Academic Fiction in World Literature / Globálny kampus: akademická fikcia vo svetovej literatúre”EDITORIÁL/EDITORIAL

Open access: https://www.sav.sk/?lang=sk&doc=journal-list&part=list_articles&journal_issue_no=11117582

Blashkiv, O.: The global campus: Academic fiction in world literature. (s. 2)

ŠTÚDIE/ARTICLES

Moseley, M.: Globalism, then and now: The rise of international neoliberalism and the academic novel. (s. 3)

Blashkiv, O.: Central European perspectives of the global campus: Slavic academic fiction after 1989. (s. 16)

Gaidash, A.: Aging professors: Reading transatlantic academic plays of the 1990s. (s. 30)

Perkowska-Gawlik, E.: The academic murder mystery as a popular subgenre from the Polish perspective. (s. 41)

Hrtánek, P.: The campus novel and university satire in recent Czech literature. (s. 56)

Selejan, C.: Magical realism and the othering of the academic in three Romanian postcommunist novels. (s. 71)

Koval, M.: The American university in the aftermath of 9/11 in Susan Choi’s novel A Person of Interest. (s. 85)

Anténe, P.: “The inhospitable city”: A Spanish view of Oxford in Javier Marías’s All Souls. (s. 97)

Šedíková Čuhová, P. - Kubealaková, M.: The Perlmann crisis of the academic world. (s. 109)

Mengel, E.: The university as heterotopia in Tabea Mußgnug’s Nächstes Semester wird alles anders.... (s. 123)

Hansen, J.: A tale of two professions in the Swedish campus novel Vård, skola och omsorg. (s. 137)

MATERIÁLY/MATERIALS

Kirova, M.: The phenomenon of the “Professorenroman” in Bulgarian literature. (s. 147)

RECENZIE/BOOK REVIEWS

Gáfrik, R.: SHUNQING CAO – PEINA ZHUANG: A New Introduction to Comparative Literature: From a Sinitic Perspective. (s. 157)

Bžoch, A.: Anton Vydra: Hermés bez krídel. Kultúrne obrazy kontinentálnej hermeneutiky [Hermes without wings. Cultural images of continental hermeneutics]. (s. 159)

Janiec-Nyitrai, A.: Miloš Zelenka: Central Europe in Symbolic and Literary Geography. (s. 161)

Ružbaská, A.: Ivana Kupková: Cesty k „novej“ ruskej literatúre v slovenských prekladoch po roku 1989 [Paths to “new” Russian literature in Slovak translations after 1989]. (s. 164)

ESEH online seminar "Hooked: A History of the Black Sea in Six Animals" on June 5

 ESEH online seminar "Hooked: A History of the Black Sea in Six Animals" on June 5

The time has come for the last seminar of the 2024-2025 season. On June 5, 16:00 CET, Taylor Zajicek will give a talk “Hooked: A History of the Black Sea in Six Animals” with Constantin Ardeleanu as a discussant. Please see the information below.

Presenter: Taylor Zajicek (Columbia University)

Discussant: Constantin Ardeleanu (Institute for South-East European Studies/New Europe College)

Chair and organizer: Anna Mazanik (Max Weber Network Eastern Europe)

Thursday, June 5, 16:00 CET

Abstract: What makes a region? Historians have different ideas. For many, a region is a cluster of cultural, linguistic, and historical traits. Others point to commerce, or geography. But what happens when these networks break down—or when the ecology itself changes? This talk will introduce one such region in flux: the Black Sea. It will trace the Black Sea’s evolution, as both a geopolitical and physical space, through its history of fishing. More specifically, the presentation will explore the interaction of six kinds of animals: three fish, one marine mammal, an invasive comb jelly, and us. Aquatic wildlife shaped the diets and cultures of the Black Sea’s humans for millennia. Yet in recent centuries, these creatures acquired new economic, scientific, and diplomatic significance—with immense (and eventually catastrophic) consequences for the Black Sea environment. This ESEH seminar will reconstruct this historical arc, from the Greek colonies of Antiquity to the competitive industrialization of the 1930s, to the environmental diplomacy of the Cold War. The presentation (based on fieldwork in Italy, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, and the US) will conclude with a discussion of the Black Sea’s ongoing precarity, as a home and battlefield.

Taylor Zajicek is a Mellon postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and East Europe Studies. His first book project—Black Sea, Cold War—explores the intersection of geopolitics, science, and environmental change in the modern Black Sea region. The manuscript builds on his Princeton University dissertation, which won the Oxford University Press USA Prize for international history in 2024. Fieldwork for this project was sponsored by multiple institutions, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, Social Science Research Council, and American Research Institute in Turkey. In summer 2025, Zajicek will join the Williams College History Department as an assistant professor.

Constantin Ardeleanu  is a research fellow at the Institute for South-East European Studies of the Romanian Academy and at the New Europe College in Bucharest. He specializes in the history of the Black Sea region over the last two centuries. His most recent monograph, Steamboat Modernity: Travel, Transport, and Social Transformation on the Lower Danube, 1830–1860, was published by CEU Press in 2024.

Please register to get the Zoom link https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1b2Np1YI2uST0YbKhQ3XjxxbVYlvSxUx0635WIr74CnE/edit

The link will be send on the day event. Sometimes the emails with the link end up in the spam folder or are rejected by the mailing system. If you do not get the link one hour before the meeting, please write to Anna Mazanik directly anna.mazanik@mws-osteuropa.org

hps.cesee article alert

 Mattes, Johannes, and Cécile Philippe. “Crossing Boundaries, Forging Unity: Nuclear Medicine and Science Diplomacy in Cold War Europe.” The British Journal for the History of Science, 2025, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087425000317.

Ličen, Daša. “Against ‘Plebeian Ignorance’ and for ‘Civilized Behavior’: Habsburg Trieste’s Società Zoofila as a Bourgeois Instrument.” Austrian History Yearbook, 2025, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0067237825000207.

Juhászová, Tereza. “Teachers in Power: Nation-Building and Loyalty in a Czechoslovak Periphery (1918–1947).” Contemporary European History, 2025, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777325000153.

Wacław Pagórski: Die Allgemeine Weltbeschreibung von Cosmus von Simmer (1581–1650): Zum Bestand und zum Wert eines vergessenen kosmografischen Werkes, Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 1/2025, S. 1–29. https://doi.org/10.25627/202574111610

online conference: Felix Klein on the centenary of his death

 online conference: Felix Klein on the centenary of his death. The Master and his students. 4 June 2025, 11:00–19:35 (Online/ ZOOM)

Conference on 125th anniversary of the award of an honorary doctorate to Felix Klein by the Jagiellonian University (7 June 2025) and on the centenary of his death (22 June 2025) 

Poster: https://www.ihnpan.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Klein_2025-06-04.pdf

Program: https://www.ihnpan.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Klein_2025-06-04_program.pdf

 Abstracts: https://www.ihnpan.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/abstrakty-i-biografie-prelegentow-Klein.pdf

Call for papers: The Moralization of Science

Call for papers: The Moralization of Science

Sep 17, 2026 - Sep 18, 2026

Conference at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna (Austria) | Conveners: Daniel Brewing, Moritz Fischer, Elke Seefried (RWTH Aachen), Alexander Bogner (Austrian Academy of Sciences), Axel Jansen (GHI Washington)

Warnings against moralization are a common theme in discourses about the sciences and the humanities. Moralization introduces a dichotomy of good and evil, which, from an epistemic perspective, constitutes an impermissible simplification of complex relationships and, from a social perspective, contributes to the entrenchment of conflicts. Ultimately, it transforms the opposing party into an enemy against whom one’s own values must be asserted with full force. Warnings against moralization assume that both truth and social peace are endangered by it—and that it is others who engage in moralizing.

However, moralization can also yield positive effects, as illustrated by the rise of bioethics. To the extent that advances in the life sciences have been interpreted as profound moral challenges, bioethics has undergone institutionalization and professionalization from the 1960s onward. Concern for moral standards in scientific practice has contributed to the further development of research ethics. In this way, ethics has evolved into the most visible subdiscipline of philosophy. Thus, moralization can function as a driving force in the differentiation of research fields. At times, moralization originated from within academia itself. One example from the early postwar period is political science, which understood itself as an instrument for promoting liberal democracy. In response to the crimes of National Socialism, political education and academic reform in Germany sought to prevent future abuses. Similar debates emerged globally, for example, in the U.S. after Hiroshima, and in Japan through anti-nuclear movements. Another example is environmental and climate science: After the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, scientific efforts to contribute to ecological transformation intensified. Environmental and climate sciences serve the cause of sustainability and, among other things, advance the moralization of markets and consumption. The fact that contemporary surveys indicate declining trust in climate science due to its perceived proximity to politics suggests that science can also fall victim to its own moralization.

When it comes to moralization, science does not merely function as a subject or object of such processes. Scientific knowledge itself can serve as a resource in processes of moralization. Relevant examples are value conflicts, which often revolve around the question of who the “true” victims are. Consider the controversy over stem cell research during the 2000s: Are the true victims the patients who are denied access to a potential stem cell therapy due to insufficient research funding or the embryos that are used and consumed for research purposes? In such disputes, the ability to prevail depends, among other things, on the possession of relevant scientific expertise.

This outline highlights the intricate and multifaceted relationships between science and the humanities, moralization, and victimization. As debated among historians, moralization is an essentially contested concept: diverse actors employ the term—often in opposition to one another—leading to ambiguity regarding its meaning and semantic boundaries. Our conference seeks to address this challenge by exploring the intersection of scholarship and moralization from a historical perspective.

We proceed from the assumption that the interrelationship between moralization and science has become increasingly prominent and visible since 1945. Of course, this issue has been debated in various forms at least since the professionalization and differentiation of the sciences in the late nineteenth century. But in the German-speaking world, the continued relevance of issues discussed in the earlier Werturteilsstreit (debate over value judgments) after World War II and the 1960s Positivismusstreit (debate over positivism) highlighted tensions about the role of critical science in democratic societies. Both debates revolved around the extent to which non-scientific values could or should influence academic discussions and whether a scholar could still claim scientific freedom while advocating for social justice. These lines of conflict persist into the present.

We expect to place particular focus on the period since the 1970s, asking to what extent a specific constellation emerged during this decade that intensified moralizing discourses in science. In Western industrialized countries, the legacy of ‘1968’ and the rise of new social movements prompted a critical reassessment of the role of science amid broader social and cultural transformations, and of the relationship between science and activism. This shift helped catalyze the rise of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and, within the social sciences, a growing emphasis on subjectivity, individual experience, and authenticity. Particularly in Western Europe, ideas of participatory democracy and equality began to permeate not only the social sciences and humanities but also the natural sciences, fostering methods and practices that blurred the boundaries between science, society, and the public sphere. These developments contributed to the emergence of “counter-knowledge” from above (A. von Schwerin) and became a central driver of the growing moralization of science. In the United States, the 1970s likewise saw an intensification of moralizing tendencies, shaped by the decline of the Great Society paradigm in politics, culture, and public life. The rise of neoliberalism signaled a return to an older, historically embedded discourse centered on the individual as a moral agent. Across both sides of the Atlantic, these developments reinforced the moralization of science.

We invite contributions that explore the role of moralization in fields of science, the social sciences, and the humanities, in public discourses fueled by these fields, and in public discussions about them. How is science a driver of moralization and victimization? What conflicts evolve from the moralizing role of science for science itself? What conflicts evolve for societies at large? In short: Under what circumstances and in what historical contexts does science become the subject, object, or resource of moralization—and what are the consequences with respect to awareness of societal problems, political decision-making, and research itself?

Key Questions for Inquiry

We invite contributions from historians, sociologists, and scholars in related fields to present papers that take up questions such as the following:

- In what ways have discourses and practices of moralization been interconnected in the history of science and the humanities? What roles have they played in stabilizing or challenging paradigms and disciplinary communities? How have these discourses and practices changed over time?

- To what extent has moralization contributed to scientific self-reflection and progress? Conversely, to what extent has it posed a threat to the scientific ethos and to adherence to norms of truth-seeking?

- Who has engaged in moralization, who has accused others of doing so, and to what end? What cultural, political, or economic contexts have shaped these dynamics?

- What role have methodological problems played in advancing or hindering moralization within scientific and humanistic fields?

- What resources has science contributed to public debates on “political correctness” or critiques of historical injustice? How have the humanities drawn on science in these contexts, and what roles have scientists themselves chosen to adopt—or avoid—in academic and public discourse?

- We are also interested in the impact of different forms and practices of communication: How should we evaluate the role of intermediaries such as journalists? What role does the public play in shaping or responding to moralizing discourses?

- Potential topics include (but are not limited to) nuclear technology, environmental science, the AIDS crisis, and biomedical ethics in the 1980s and 1990s. While the sciences offer particularly rich ground for analysis, we also welcome papers on moralizing discourses in the social sciences and the humanities.

The conference will bring together scholars from diverse fields, including history (such as the history of science or medicine), sociology, and science studies, as well as related disciplines. The conveners aim to publish contributions to this conference as a special issue in a peer-reviewed journal or (given the interdisciplinary nature of the project) as an edited book.

The conference will be held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna (Austria) on September 17 and 18, 2026. Please upload a paper proposal in our applicant portal by September 15, 2025. (Please find the link for the applicant portal in the CFP published on the GHI website, at https://www.ghi-dc.org/events/event/date/the-moralization-of-science.) A proposal consisting of a single PDF-file containing a brief description of the research project (up to 300 words), a brief CV (1 or 2 pages), and contact information. Successful applicants will be notified in October 2025.

Accommodation will be arranged and paid for by the conference organizers. Participants will make their own travel arrangements; funding subsidies for travel may be available upon request for selected scholars, especially those who might not otherwise be able to attend the conference, including junior scholars and scholars from universities with limited resources.

Kontakt

For further information regarding the event’s format and conceptualization, please contact Axel Jansen (a.jansen@ghi-dc.org). For questions about the submission platform or logistics (travel and accommodation), please contact our event coordinator Nicola Hofstetter (hofstetter-phelps@ghi-dc.org).

ESEH online seminar "Hooked: A History of the Black Sea in Six Animals" on June 5

The time has come for the last seminar of the 2024-2025 season. On June 5, 16:00 CET, Taylor Zajicek will give a talk “Hooked: A History of the Black Sea in Six Animals” with Constantin Ardeleanu as a discussant. Please see the information below.

Presenter: Taylor Zajicek (Columbia University)

Discussant: Constantin Ardeleanu (Institute for South-East European Studies/New Europe College)

Chair and organizer: Anna Mazanik (Max Weber Network Eastern Europe)

Thursday, June 5, 16:00 CET

Abstract: What makes a region? Historians have different ideas. For many, a region is a cluster of cultural, linguistic, and historical traits. Others point to commerce, or geography. But what happens when these networks break down—or when the ecology itself changes? This talk will introduce one such region in flux: the Black Sea. It will trace the Black Sea’s evolution, as both a geopolitical and physical space, through its history of fishing. More specifically, the presentation will explore the interaction of six kinds of animals: three fish, one marine mammal, an invasive comb jelly, and us. Aquatic wildlife shaped the diets and cultures of the Black Sea’s humans for millennia. Yet in recent centuries, these creatures acquired new economic, scientific, and diplomatic significance—with immense (and eventually catastrophic) consequences for the Black Sea environment. This ESEH seminar will reconstruct this historical arc, from the Greek colonies of Antiquity to the competitive industrialization of the 1930s, to the environmental diplomacy of the Cold War. The presentation (based on fieldwork in Italy, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, and the US) will conclude with a discussion of the Black Sea’s ongoing precarity, as a home and battlefield.

Taylor Zajicek is a Mellon postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and East Europe Studies. His first book project—Black Sea, Cold War—explores the intersection of geopolitics, science, and environmental change in the modern Black Sea region. The manuscript builds on his Princeton University dissertation, which won the Oxford University Press USA Prize for international history in 2024. Fieldwork for this project was sponsored by multiple institutions, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, Social Science Research Council, and American Research Institute in Turkey. In summer 2025, Zajicek will join the Williams College History Department as an assistant professor.

Constantin Ardeleanu  is a research fellow at the Institute for South-East European Studies of the Romanian Academy and at the New Europe College in Bucharest. He specializes in the history of the Black Sea region over the last two centuries. His most recent monograph, Steamboat Modernity: Travel, Transport, and Social Transformation on the Lower Danube, 1830–1860, was published by CEU Press in 2024.

Please register to get the Zoom link https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1b2Np1YI2uST0YbKhQ3XjxxbVYlvSxUx0635WIr74CnE/edit

The link will be send on the day event. Sometimes the emails with the link end up in the spam folder or are rejected by the mailing system. If you do not get the link one hour before the meeting, please write to Anna Mazanik directly anna.mazanik@mws-osteuropa.org

Jawad Daheur and Iva Lučić (eds.): Habsburg Natures

 Jawad Daheur and Iva Lučić (eds.): Habsburg Natures. Imperial Governance and Environment in Central Europe, 1850-1918. New York: Berghahn 2025. ISBN  978-1-83695-227-5 (available for preorder)

Description

Within the Habsburg Empire of the late nineteenth century, nature became a central focus of political, economic, and scientific attention. A source of valuable natural resources and a platform for consolidating wider, territorial rule, its management and control was subsumed into a broader system of imperial governance. In this exacting analysis of the correlation between the environment and power, Habsburg Natures explores how the natural world fundamentally shaped the political and economic landscape within the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1850 to 1918. Ranging from forestry and coal-mining to river politics and natural disasters, this volume spotlights how deeply intertwined the histories of environmentalism and empire are.

Contents

Introduction: Towards the Writing of an Environmentally Inspired History of the Late Habsburg Empire

Jawad Daheur and Iva Lučić

Part I: (Inter/Intra) Imperial Entanglements

Chapter 1. Riparian Rivalries and River Politics: How the Danube Question Influenced Diplomatic Relations and Domestic Policies in the Late Habsburg Monarchy

Robert Shields Mevissen

Chapter 2. Improving Landscapes, Peoples and the Habsburg Empire: A Cooperative History of Melioration

Jana Osterkamp

Chapter 3. Logging the Borderlands: Transborder Forest Conflicts and Contestations in the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires in the Nineteenth Century

Selçuk Dursun

Part II: Cooperation and Conflict

Chapter 4. Natural Resources as the Empire’s (Dis)integrative Force: The Case of Bosnian Timber Exports in the Late Habsburg Empire

Iva Lučić

Chapter 5. Get Out of Our Forest! Rural Societies, National Mobilization, State-Building and Modern Forestry in Late-Habsburg and Post-Habsburg Transylvania

Gábor Egry

Chapter 6. The Demilitarization of the Croatian-Slavonian Military Border as an Example of Imperial State Forest Management

Robert Skenderović

Part III: Engineering Nature

Chapter 7. A Natural History of the Global Habsburg Empire: Indian Mongooses and the Production, Circulation and Management of Animal Knowledge in the Adriatic Periphery

Wolfgang Göderle

Chapter 8. The Golden Age of the Bark Beetle: Aristocratic Landowners, Imperial Governance and the Ips typographus in the Šumava Region (1868–1876)

Kristýna Kaucká

Part IV: Managing Resources

Chapter 9. Resource Governance in Time of Drought: Conflicts over Fodder Exports in Austria-Hungary at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Jawad Daheur

Chapter 10. Fuelling the Diversity: A Regional Perspective on Coal in the Late Austro-Hungarian Empire

Ségolène Plyer

Chapter 11. The Industrialization of Forests: The 1852 Imperial Forest Act as an Intervention Towards a Modern Forest Regime

Simone Gingrich and Martin Schmid

Conclusion: Late Habsburg History Revisited

Jawad Daheur and Iva Lučić

Jawad Daheur is a senior researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), focusing on economic and environmental history. His main interest is the interaction between human societies and nature in nineteenth-century Central Europe, with a particular focus on the German-speaking regions (Prussia, Austria-Hungary) and Poland. His recent publications include a special issue of Global Environment, entitled ‘Extractive Peripheries in Europe: Quest for Resources and Changing Environments (15th-20th centuries)’ (2022), and the article ‘Cheap Labour on the Timber Frontier: Migration of Forestry Workers from Austria-Hungary to Southeast Europe, ca. 1880–1914’ (Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 2024).

Iva Lučić is an associate professor of history at Stockholm University and a Pro Futura Scientia Scholar at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies. Previously, she held a postdoctoral position at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and a Linneaus-Palme Fellowship with Kolkata University. Lučićs first and award-winning monograph Im Namen der Nation (Harrassowitz Verlag, 2018) examines the mobilization process for the political elevation of Muslims in Socialist Yugoslavia. Her second monograph, Gebrochenes Brot (Anton Pustet Verlag, 2020), analyzes the role of religion as a social practice among Roman Catholic noblewomen after the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy.

CfP: Discipline and Punish: The Early Modern University Court in Theory and Practice

 Call for Papers: Discipline and Punish: The Early Modern University Court in Theory and Practice University of Limerick, Ireland, 14-15 January 2026 

The internal jurisdictional autonomy of early modern universities represented a significant inheritance from the medieval instruments of academic freedom. The rise of the territorial university as a model curtailed the independence of these institutions rendering them more directly subject to external political actors, a situation that became more pronounced as a consequence of the Reformation. Despite these transformations, the university’s powers of internal oversight and control of its members remained relatively intact. These powers were set out, instituted and sanctioned in charters, statutes and ordinances. The principal instrument through which the powers were asserted was the academic jurisdiction, i.e. the university court. At one level, these arrangements protected university members, ensuring their protection to a certain extent from external legal threat. However, in adhering to the university jurisdiction, the members submitted themselves to its regulating influence. In this forum, students, professors and the cives academici could be arraigned, prosecuted and sanctioned for minor or major acts of deviancy. Thus, the university court and other instruments of institutional authority could play a central role in the disciplining of university members, defining the parameters of and enforcing normative behaviours. This conference seeks to explore the characteristics of these jurisdictional regimes in the early modern period. Paper proposals that address the following themes are especially welcome:

The legal and administrative frameworks of discipline at early modern universities

The characteristics of university courts

Social disciplining and the normative functions of university courts

The pursuit of personal vendettas and factional strife through the instruments of university jurisdiction

The limits and limitations of academic disciplinary regimes

Subversions of academic jurisdiction

The conference is organised as part of the Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland Laureate Award project, Malcontents: Order and Disorder in the Early Modern World of Learning (https://malcontents.hcommons.org/), which is led by Dr Richard Kirwan (University of Limerick).

The conference will take place at the University of Limerick, Ireland from 14-15 January 2026.

Proposals for papers of c. 300 words with a short biography of c. 200 words should be sent to Dr Wouter Kreuze, wouter.kreuze@ul.ie, by 16 June 2025.

Call for articles: Encounters in Unexpected Places: Chinese and East-Central European Interactions...

Call for articles: Encounters in Unexpected Places: Chinese and East-Central European Interactions in Peripheral Spaces, 1700-1949

The proposed volume aims to investigate diverse accounts of encounters between Chinese and East-Central Europeans, focusing on interactions outside the major centres typically associated with intercivilizational exchange.

The volume is based on three premises. First, scholars of travel writing emphasize that ‘encounters are as essential to travel as place; they shape and define journeys’ (Mee 2014, 3). Even when travellers themselves write generally about “others”, still their knowledge owed a lot to individual encounters. Yet, despite their importance, depictions of individual interpersonal encounters have not been central to studies of travel writing. Therefore, we invite contributions that examine how Chinese and East-Central Europeans described these cross-cultural interactions and the role such representations played in shaping identity discourses.

Second, while there is a substantial body of scholarship on Western European encounters with the non-European world over the past few centuries – a period when European imperialism was the dominant force in world history – recent years have seen growing interest in studying intercivilizational contacts from a different perspective, namely, by focusing on actors from regions commonly regarded as peripheral. Therefore, we aim to take a closer look at encounters between Chinese and East-Central Europeans. Recent publications have explored this field and may serve as inspiration (Křížová and Malečková 2022; Huigen and Kołodziejczyk 2023; Kałczewiak and Kozłowska 2022; Mrázek 2024), though there is still much to explore.

Third, to investigate the topic of peripherality more deeply, we seek to focus on encounters taking place outside well-known cosmopolitan centres like Paris, Shanghai, Hong Kong, or New York – places traditionally seen as melting pots – and instead shift our attention to small towns, remote villages, country roads, and other locations less commonly associated with multicultural exchange.

We are particularly interested in proposals that move beyond the framework of a single national tradition and engage in a dialogue between European and Asian sources, though we also welcome case studies focusing on the work of individual authors. We welcome analyses of a wide range of sources, including traditional travel accounts, diaries, memoirs, and personal letters, but with an emphasis on real interactions experienced by the authors. Contributors are encouraged to consider the material dimensions of individual encounters as described in their sources and to reflect on the broader aesthetic and ideological meanings these scenes convey. The following questions may serve as a guiding framework: How did authors’ backgrounds influence their encounters and the meanings they ascribed to them? How did the context of the interaction shape the encounter? How did authors navigate cultural differences in diverse realities? How did descriptions of the people they met contribute to the construction of their own identities? What rhetorical devices were used to describe cross-cultural interactions? How often did they achieve genuine understanding, and how?

Practical information

The volume is planned for Anthem Studies in Encounters between Peripheral Region series. Please submit a short abstract (about 300-400 words) with a short biographical note in English

by 31 August 2025 to the editorial team at tewert@shisu.edu.cn and tewert@amu.edu.pl. The editors of the publication will reply with any comments on the proposed topics and guidelines for the preparation of articles within two months. The planned deadline for full article submissions is April 2026.

Quoted literature

Huigen, Siegfried, and Dorota Kołodziejczyk. 2023. East Central Europe Between the Colonial and the Postcolonial in the Twentieth Century. Edited by Siegfried Huigen and Dorota Kołodziejczyk. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kałczewiak, Mariusz, and Magdalena Kozłowska, eds. 2022. The World beyond the West. Perspectives from Eastern Europe. New York: Berghahn.

Křížová, Markéta, and Jitka Malečková, eds. 2022. Central Europe and the Non-European World in the Long 19th Century. Berlin: Frank & Timme.

Mee, Catherine. 2014. Interpersonal Encounters in Contemporary Travel Writing: French and Italian Perspectives. London: Anthem Press.

Mrázek, Jan, ed. 2024. Escaping Kakania: Eastern European Travels in Colonial Southeast Asia. Vienna: Central European University Press.

Editors

Tomasz Ewertowski, Shanghai International Studies University

Chen Yarong, Capital Normal University

Call for Papers: Women in Czech Philosophy

Katedra filosofie a dějin přírodních věd PřF UK ve spolupráci s Ústavem pro soudobé dějiny, Filosofickým ústavem a Sociologickým ústavem Akademie věd České republiky všechny srdečně zve k účasti na odborné konferenci Mezi myšlenkou a institucí: ženy v české filosofii 20. století, která se uskuteční ve dnech 2. a 3. září 2025 v Akademickém konferenčním centru, FLÚ AV ČR, Husova 236/4a, Praha 1.

Konference si klade za cíl prozkoumat různorodé role žen ve vývoji a fungování české filosofie minulého století – ať už z hlediska myšlenkového přínosu, institucionálního působení, nebo širších společenských a kulturních souvislostí.

Návrhy příspěvků (abstrakty v rozsahu max. 300 slov) a případné dotazy prosím zasílejte do 13. června 2025 na adresu: zeny.filosofie.2025@gmail.com

Tématické okruhy:

 

Ženy a vzdělanost: role v univerzitním a akademickém prostředí

Zapojení žen do filosofické komunity: instituce a organizace, vědecká činnost

Rekonstrukce filosofického světa: filosofie a přesahy k dalším disciplínám

Proměny filosofie a toho, jak se na ní ženy podílely v kontextu politických a společenských změn

URL: https://natur.cuni.cz/biologie/katedry-a-pracoviste/katedra-filosofie-a-dejin-prirodnich-ved/o-katedre/aktuality/7383-call-for-papers-zeny-v-ceske-filosofii

Seminar Schedule of the Ludwik and Aleksander Birkenmajer Institute of the History of Science, Polish Academy of Sciences

 Seminar Schedule of the Ludwik and Aleksander Birkenmajer Institute of the History of Science, Polish Academy of Sciences

Plan Seminariów Pracowni Naukoznawstwa Instytutu Historii Nauki im. Ludwika i Aleksandra Birkenmajerów PAN, które w ramach cyklu "Naukoznawstwo: historia i współczesność" odbędą się w najbliższych dniach.

19 maja 2025 r. od g. 16:15 

dr Mateusz Hübner (Instytut Historii Nauki im. Ludwika i Aleksandra Birkenmajerów PAN) 

Reforma szkolnictwa akademickiego w Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej – od uniwersytetu profesorów do uniwersytetu urzędników

26 maja 2025 r. od g. 15:00 

prof. dr hab. Lidia Michalska-Bracha (Uniwersytet Jana Kochanowskiego w Kielcach)

O historii kobiet z perspektywy badań nad dziewiętnastowiecznymi egodokumentami – od teorii do praktyki badawczej

9 czerwca 2025 r. od g. 16:15

dr hab. Beata Szczepańska (prof. Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego)

Zasoby archiwalne Muzeum Polskiego w Rapperswilu w aspekcie możliwości prowadzenia badań historyczno-oświatowych 

Hybrydowo. Zaineresowanych prosimy o kontakt mhubner@ihnpan.pl

Reminder: Call for Applicants, Asynchronous Histories Summer School

 Asynchronous Histories Summer School

Call for Applicants

First Edition: Conceptual Change

22–26 September 2025, Warsaw

The Asynchronous Histories Summer School aims to explore regions and moments in history marked by the coexistence of asynchronous sociopolitical tendencies and processes. These conditions often reveal paradoxical outcomes when seemingly well-established actors and mechanisms are put into practice. The absence—or inefficiency—of “The Great Synchronizer,” whether imperial order, centralized state apparatus, or the power of capital, has, in various periods and regions, created fertile grounds for blending the old and the new in unequal and unexpected ways.

Rather than viewing this coexistence of asynchronicities as a static phenomenon, we understand it as a dynamic and intricate process. In such situations, old forms may act as tools paving the way for new developments, while new forms may consolidate old arrangements, laws, and privileges. This interplay also triggers epistemological challenges, as research tools developed in global centres often fail to yield productive results when applied to these complex settings. This is why it is both challenging and indispensable to abandon normative definitions of phenomena and states of affairs in favour of listening to local actors, whose diversity ultimately calls into question apparently universal models and descriptions of reality—models that, in practice, are deeply rooted in Western centres.

In the first edition of the Asynchronous Histories Summer School, we seek to stimulate reflection on the theme of conceptual change, broadly understood. Our goal is to examine how concepts, ideas, and ideologies evolve amidst the coexistence of asynchronicities. We aim to move beyond binary perspectives, such as portraying given actors as never-fully-Western imitators or as guardians of domestic traditions. Instead, we propose thinking outside such frameworks, exploring the diverse intellectual stakes pursued by actors in the world’s “grey zones.”

Exemplary areas of inquiry include:

Western ideologies in non-Western settings.

Domestic political terminologies and procedures.

Christian ideas in non-Christian worlds.

Non-institutionalized areas of intellectual debate.

Transfers as resistance; transfers as domination.

Unrealized potentials, repressed imaginaries, and projects halted midway.

Local academic traditions in the history of ideas or philosophy.

Confirmed Lecturers

Among the distinguished lecturers for the first edition are:

László Kontler (Central European University)

Franz Fillafer (Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Augusta Dimou (University of Leipzig)

Waldemar Bulira (University of Maria Curie-Skłodowska in Lublin)

Jan Surman (Academy of the Sciences of the Czech Republic)

Elías José Palti (University of Buenos Aires; National University of Quilmes)

Olena Palko (University of Basel)

Banu Turnaoglu (Sabancı University)

Maciej Janowski (Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences)

Jani Marjanen (University of Helsinki)

Organizing Institutions

Institute of Applied Social Sciences, University of Warsaw

in partnership with

Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences

The History of Concepts Group

Organizing Comittee

Anna Gulińska, Bartłomiej Błesznowski, Jan Krakowian, Piotr Kuligowski

Eligibility and Application

We welcome submissions from PhD students. Advanced MA students and early career postdocs (up to two years post-defence) are also encouraged to apply.

How to Apply

Please submit the following materials by May 31, 2025:

A short CV (maximum two pages).

A concise description of your research interests (up to 1,000 words).

Send your application to ahss.warsaw[at]gmail.com

Participation Fee

The participation fee is 150 EUR. In justified cases, this fee may be reduced.

Call for participants / Summer school: Habsburg Central Europe in Global History, 17th–20th centuries.

Call for participants / Summer school: Habsburg Central Europe in Global History, 17th–20th centuries. Prague, 23-25 October 2025, Deadline 15 August 2025.

Organisers: Austrian Academy of Sciences; Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic; Johann Gottfried Herder-Forschungsrat (Johannes Feichtinger / Franz L. Fillafer, Vienna; Michael Wögerbauer, Prague; Steffen Höhne, Weimar-Jena)

Global history has established itself as a particularly fertile field of scholarly enquiry from which Habsburg Central Europe still remains strangely absent. To redress this imbalance, our summer school seeks to rediscover Habsburg Central Europe as a switchboard for the circulation of ideas, practices and objects across the globe. It tries to do so by bringing together scholars from a variety of disciplines who work on the history of the region since the 17th century: Our event is geared to doctoral and postdoctoral researchers from the humanities (historians and literary scholars, historians of culture and the arts, of science and the humanities, anthropologists etc.) whose research resonates with the overall aim of our meeting described above. Our event will consist of two subsections: A mini-series of seminars hosted by our faculty in which a pre-circulated reader will be discussed and a subsequent set of workshops that will allow participants to present and discuss their research.

Faculty: Marketa Křížová (Praha), Johannes Mattes (Vienna), Ulrich Schmid (Basel), Jonathan Singerton (Amsterdam), Jan Surman (Praha)

We plan to cover participants’ travel and accommodation costs.

We invite papers by doctoral and post-doctoral researchers that contribute to one or several of the following thematic fields:

- the global history of Central European institutions (administrative bodies, learned societies, academies, universities, sacred institutions and religious orders, museums, theatres etc.)

- the social history of Central Europe’s interactions with the world, including, but not restricted to the activities of go-betweens, brokers, and liaison agents

- the interplay of regional and global literatures (translations, travelling forms, medias and genres)

- the practises of erudition, science, scholarship and cultural production

Special attention will be given to Bohemia as an interface between the various regions of the Habsburg lands and as a clearing house between Central Europe and the globe.

In spotlighting the global entanglements of Habsburg Central Europe, our event pursues two broader agendas, the first is historiographical, the second methodological.

First, much of global history is still marked by a Franco- or Anglocentric bias: Its categories of imperial rule, national culture, sovereignty, and the production of scientific truth are derived from the study of Britain and France, as well as of their respective overseas possessions. Acting as a welcome incentive for further research, several excellent recent studies of Habsburg Central Europe show that these categories are not only inadequate for grasping the past of the region, but that the latter produced a set of alternative concepts, ideas and practises for engaging with the world whose trans-regional impact and ramifications are yet to be discovered. What does this rediscovery imply for a fresh understanding of modern history?

Second, the summer school will provide ample opportunity for reflecting on what a “global” perspective implies for the methods of the humanities: In what ways does this perspective force us to rethink our habitual units of enquiry (regions, empires, states, cultural systems, disciplines, genres and forms)? How can we avoid the pitfalls of connectivity talk, i.e. the appeal to allegedly self-propelled, benignly liquid “flows” and processes of effortless “circulation”? What conceptual lexicon and what explanatory devises do we find particularly helpful in researching and presenting our findings? What challenges and potential benefits does this global perspective entail for interdisciplinary work in the humanities?

Kontakt

Steffen Höhne (Weimar-Jena)

Franz L. Fillafer (Vienna)

Johannes Feichtinger (Vienna)

Michael Wögerbauer (Prague)

or: summerschool@oeaw.ac.at

Application: Abstract of your contribution/research project (250-300 words) and a brief CV (preferably as a PDF), please write to: summerschool@oeaw.ac.at

or to the organizers Steffen Höhne (Weimar-Jena), Franz L. Fillafer (Vienna), Johannes Feichtinger (Vienna), Michael Wögerbauer (Prague)

Deadline for submissions: 15 August 2025

Notification: 1 September 2025

Gaibulina Karina: Etnografowie z przymusu

 Gaibulina Karina: Etnografowie z przymusu. Polscy zesłańcy w służbie kolonialnej Cesarstwa Rosyjskiego [Ethnographers Under Coercion. Polish Exiles in the Colonial Service of the Russian Empire]. Warszawa: WUW 2024.

Spis treści w PDF: https://www.wuw.pl/data/links/db75999b67e83830c419ec54f1ff66e4/19637_13999.pdf

Streszczenie w pdf: https://www.wuw.pl/data/links/bb307624cb94774ecf552312c69c88bf/19637_14128.pdf

Książka dotyczy udziału polskich zesłańców w ekspansji kolonialnej Cesarstwa Rosyjskiego na kazachskich stepach Azji Centralnej w XIX wieku. Zagadnienie to omówiono na podstawie wybranych tekstów autorstwa trzech polskich więźniów politycznych: Adolfa Januszkiewicza, Bronisława Zaleskiego i Seweryna Grossa, które do dziś są ważnymi źródłami dla kazachstańskiej historiografii. Podstawową perspektywę analityczną pracy stanowią teoria oralności i piśmienności oraz studia postkolonialne.

******

Ethnographers Under Coercion. Polish Exiles in the Colonial Service of the Russian Empire

The books deals with the part Polish exiles played in the colonial expansion of the Russian Empire on the Kazakh steppes of Central Asia in the 19th century. The issue is discussed on the selected texts by three Polish political prisoners: Adolf Januszkiewicz, Bronisław Zaleski and Seweryn Gross, which to this day are important sources for Kazakh historiography. The basic analytical perspective of the work are the theory of orality and literacy and post-colonial studies.

Dispelling the spell of illness. Local tradition, “old” diseases, and “new” medicine in Ukraine in the 18th–19th centuries / Collective monograph edited by V. Masliychuk and I. Serdyuk

 Розчаклування недуги. Локальна традиція, «старі» хвороби та «нова» медицина в Україні ХVІІІ–ХІХ ст. / Колективна монографія за ред. В. Маслійчука та І. Сердюка. 2-ге вид.,  Харків : Олександр Савчук, 2025. // Dispelling the spell of illness. Local tradition, “old” diseases, and “new” medicine in Ukraine in the 18th–19th centuries / Collective monograph edited by V. Masliychuk and I. Serdyuk. ISBN: 978-617-7538-66-9

Титульна сторінка та зміст: https://savchook.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Neduhazmist.pdf

Сторінки вибірково: https://savchook.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Neduhavybrane.pdf

У книжці йдеться про початки формування нових медичних уявлень та державної системи медицини в Україні ХVІІІ–ХІХ ст. Автори звертають увагу на те, як імперські ініціативи були реалізовані на локальному рівні та накладалися на місцевий контекст, а унауковлені знання поєднувалися з традиційними практиками зцілення. Тематика розділів охоплює різні проблеми: бачення «інакшої» тілесності та використання «монструозного» як ресурсу; побутування епідемій в локальних спільнотах; перші спроби вакцинації та боротьбу з віспою; ствердження домінування чоловіка у медицині та залученість жінки до професійної родопомочі; витіснення цехових лікарських практик.

Volker Roelcke, Ed., Politik in der Wissenschaft: Zur Evaluierung von „NS-Belastung“ in wissenschaftlichen Kontexten

Volker Roelcke, Ed., Politik in der Wissenschaft: Zur Evaluierung von „NS-Belastung“ in wissenschaftlichen Kontexten, Halle (Saale), Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft Stuttgart, 2024. doi: 10.26164/leopoldina_10_01229.

OA: https://levana.leopoldina.org/receive/leopoldina_mods_01229;jsessionid=D2BD0C3BA0575D907555A7BC5FFF336A

Die Erforschung der NS-Vergangenheit und die Aufarbeitung der „NS-Belastung“ von Behörden, Unternehmen und wissenschaftlichen Institutionen erlebte in den letzten Jahren eine beachtenswerte Konjunktur. Dabei spielte der Begriff der „NS-Belastung“ der historischen Akteure eine zentrale Rolle. Die „Belastung“ wurde dabei oft mit Umfang, Zeitpunkt und Dauer der Mitgliedschaft in NS-Organisationen (NSDAP) gleichgesetzt. Diese Reduktion wird wegen des tendenziell formalen Charakters im Herangehen zunehmend kritisch diskutiert. Der vorliegende Band weitet am Beispiel ausgewählter Gruppen von Akademiemitgliedern (z. B. Psychiatern und Psychologen, Mathematikern u. a.), ausgewählten Biographien und Fallstudien den Blick von individuellen Haltungen und Verhaltensweisen auf strukturelle Bedingungen, die Zwänge und Handlungsspielräume für die Akteure ausmachten. Zudem werden die historische Wandelbarkeit des Begriffs „Belastung“ und die unterschiedlichen Herangehensweisen in Ost und West im Kontext der „Entnazifizierungs“-Prozeduren problematisiert.

Content

Politik in der Wissenschaft: Zur Frage einer „NS-Belastung“ bei Mitgliedern der Leopoldina : Einleitung

p. 7 Roelcke, Volker

Fallstricke, Sackgassen, Auswege : NS-Belastungsforschung jenseits der „Individualisierung des Faschismusproblems“

p. 19 Steuwer, Janosch

Taxonomien der Schuld: Zur historischen Bedeutung (straf-)rechtlicher und quasi-rechtlicher Kategorien im Umgang mit NS-‚Belastungen‘ in wissenschaftlichen Kontexten, 1935 –1950

p. 31 Weinke, Annette

Die justizielle Ahndung von NS-Verbrechen in Ost- und Westdeutschland seit 1945 : ein Überblick

p. 47 Raim, Edith

Handlungsspielräume von Wissenschaftlern im Nationalsozialismus: Metahistorische Vorüberlegungen und einige Beispiele aus der Mathematik

p. 77 Epple, Moritz

Parteigänger, Kollaborateure, Abtrünnige? Anmerkungen zur Analyse von Handlungsmöglichkeiten von Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern im Nationalsozialismus

p. 93 Schmiedebach, Heinz-Peter

Biowissenschaftler als Akteure in Menschenversuchen zur Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Zum Verantwortungsproblem biomedizinischer Forschung

p. 117 Schwerin, Alexander von

„NS-Belastung“ unter Akademiemitgliedern. Strategien der (Neu-) Ausrichtung im Nationalsozialismus am Beispiel der Psychiatrisch- Neurologischen Sektion der Leopoldina

p. 141 Rotzoll, Maike

NSDAP-Mitglieder in den Akademien der Wissenschaften : Berlin, Göttingen, Heidelberg, Leipzig, München und Wien im Vergleich

p. 177 Feichtinger, Johannes; Klos, Sandra

The Virologist Eugen Haagen (1898 –1972) as a Late Nazi Election to the Leopoldina of a Virologist and Professor of Hygiene at the Reichsuniversität Straßburg

p. 193 Weindling, Paul

Das Leopoldina-Mitglied Johannes Stark (1874 –1957): Duell mit der Dogmatik

p. 213 Stolz, Lisa

Das Leopoldina-Mitglied Richard Siebeck (1883 –1965) im Nationalsozialismus und in der frühen Nachkriegszeit

p. 233 Roelcke, Volker

Now online: Call for Papers: Eastern Marxisms – A Special Issue of Historical Materialism

 Now online: Call for Papers: Eastern Marxisms – A Special Issue of Historical Materialism

Guest editors: Anna Beria (Kingston University, London), Isabel Jacobs (Queen Mary University of London), Giorgi Kobakhidze (Université Toulouse II Jean Jaurès), Jiří Růžička (The Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences)

 

The distinctive tradition of post-war critical and radical thought in East and Central Europe has long been forgotten or suppressed. Even more controversially, the idea that this tradition found its most productive expression in a unique form of Marxist thought is often denied. This is because ‘Eastern Marxism(s)’ – whatever the term may encompass – has frequently been conflated with the rigid, state-imposed, Stalinist version of Marxist ideology. We believe the time has come, especially in light of the contemporary multiple crises of capitalism, to reassess and revive this tradition. However, while ‘Western Marxism’ has been retrospectively canonised around figures such as Lukács, Korsch and Gramsci, ‘Eastern’ Marxism(s) in CEE face much more significant challenges in terms of temporal, personal and also regional demarcations.

According to a still widespread Western-centric view, which identifies Eastern Marxisms with the ‘dogmatic’ state doctrine of Marxism-Leninism, a properly ‘Eastern’ period of Eastern Marxism begins with the rise of Stalin, loses steam with the critique of Stalin in the 1950s and 60s, and finally reaches its inevitable demise when the regimes supporting it collapse in 1989–91. Individual radical theorists from the CEE are, of course, well-known to some in the West, but they tend to be regarded as exceptional personalities, solitary figures who arose despite their Eastern context, thanks in large part to their exposure to Western influence (K. Kosík, E. Ilyenkov, Praxis School etc.).

A closer historical examination might reveal a very different picture. As a more or less coherent body of philosophical ideas, political doctrine, and socio-economic theory, Marxism emerged in CEE before World War II, whereas, in the West, one finds only scattered Marxist thinkers rather than a fully developed Marxist tradition. Even the so-called founding figures of Western Marxism shaped their perspectives outside Western Europe, primarily in response to the Russian Revolution – a shared foundational moment of both ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ Marxisms. Conversely, what has been termed ‘Eastern Marxism’ (e.g., by Marcuse and Merleau-Ponty) has typically referred exclusively to ‘Marxism-Leninism’, which appears to be rather a belated offshoot of Second International Marxist orthodoxy, albeit with a strong emphasis on political revolution.

It may therefore be more appropriate to shift the East/West Marxist divide to the post-1945 era, or more precisely, to 1956 for the Eastern Bloc. From this perspective, the term ‘Eastern Marxism’ should designate various currents of Marxist thought that primarily criticised and sought ways out of Stalinism. While all of these currents reflected their international intellectual moment and reacted to developments in the West, the ideas that emerged were their own, made possible by the specific context of the often-neglected region of CEE and its post-Stalinist condition.

As a result, the simplistic perspective that reduces Eastern Marxism(s) to the rise and fall of Marxist-Leninist dogma neglects the fact that we can hardly speak about the division line between the eastern and the western Marxisms in the pre-war era. ‘Marxism-Leninism’ continued to develop within the epistemological and ontological (but not political) constraints set up by the Marxist orthodoxy, while the ‘revisionist’ or heterodox currents of that time should not be viewed as precursors of western Marxism but, rather, as a reaction to both theoretical and practical shortcomings of the orthodoxy as well as to the interwar (often) revolutionary conditions of the CEE region. There is no denying that an East/West divide can be discussed, but it should not be framed through the shallow opposition of a creative postwar West versus a dogmatic postwar East. Instead, it should be drawn based on concepts that capture the differences between these respective ‘modes’ of Marxism – both as totalities that encompass internal plurality and as responses to the specific historical and social conditions in which they emerged.

This project of questioning and scouring the past of Eastern Marxism(s) calls for different research methods from those used for researching the Marxisms of the West. ‘Western Marxism’ could be reconstructed with knowledge of German, along with some French and English and a selective reading of Gramsci in translation. And, by the early postwar period, almost all the key works were either published or available in accessible archives. The ‘tradition’ of Eastern Marxism(s) has been written in dozens of languages, sometimes published in now-obscure journals, or in samizdat, or hidden in dresser drawers until the 1990s, when many of the born-again-right-wing authors no longer wanted their old leftist writings to be made public, and when few publishers in any case wanted to publish them.

While the context of capitalism and fascism that gave birth to Western Marxism is relatively comprehensible to the international reader, the diverse context of Central and Eastern Europe is barely understood, obscured by stereotypes and Cold War tropes and rhetorics that continue into contemporary leftism. The reconstruction of a plurality of Eastern Marxisms and their emancipatory-theoretical fellow travellers calls for a large collaborative effort, pooling linguistic and locally embedded knowledge and access to libraries and archives across CEE and providing the detailed historical context necessary to illuminate the region’s theories, as a vast source of globally unknown theorising on issues that remain urgent today: science and ecology, humanism and technology, nationalism and internationalism, history and political subjectivity, planning and participation, material determination and cultural emancipation.

We particularly invite contributions that are conceptually oriented rather than pure case studies and address the following non-exclusive questions and themes in relation to the critical and radical thought in East and Central Europe post-1956:

What are the difficulties and potentials of searching for a definition of Eastern Marxism? Which working definitions of Eastern Marxisms can be developed?

In what ways does the term ‘Eastern’ categorise the Marxist perspectives from CEE?

What distinct and interrelated currents can be identified within different Eastern Marxist traditions?

When and where does Eastern Marxism begin and end? Continuities and ruptures within the tradition? Problems of periodisation?

Relevance of Eastern Marxisms today?

East meets West. The intersections, dialogues, parallel developments and mutual influence between Eastern and Western Marxisms

East meets South. Imperialism, colonialism and humanism in Eastern Marxisms and anticolonial and decolonial praxis?

Regional differences, distinctions, schisms and local Marxist traditions within Eastern Marxisms?

We welcome proposals for contributions to the Eastern Marxisms special issue of Historical Materialism. Interested authors are invited to submit a title and an abstract (maximum 300 words) outlining the proposed article to info@historicalmaterialism.org by 20 June 2025. Please clearly indicate in the subject line or body of the email that the submission is intended for the Eastern Marxisms Special Issue.

Following a selection process, chosen contributors will be invited to submit full articles to Historical Materialism. All articles will be subject to the journal’s standard peer-review process and editorial evaluation.

Please note that an invitation to submit a full article does not guarantee publication, and acceptance of the abstract does not imply any commitment by the journal to publish the final piece. Deadline for the submission of full papers is 1 March 2026.

hps.cesee global book talk: Borbála Zsuzsanna Török, László Kontler, Morgane Labbé: The Science of State Power in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1790-1880

 hps.cesee global book talk: The Science of State Power in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1790-1880. Monday, May 26, 11:00 am EDT / 17:00 CET / 18:00 EEST, Zoom.

ABOUT THIS EVENT

Virtual platform HPS.CESEE (History of Science in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe) is proud to present its forthcoming book talk on a new publication on history of statistics. László Kontler and Morgane Labbé will join Borbála Zsuzsanna Török to comment on her recent book: The Science of State Power in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1790-1880 (2024) [1], in a discussion moderated by Katalin Stráner.

Monday, May 26, 11:00 am DST / 17:00 CET / 18:00 EEST, Zoom.

The meeting is free and open to the public. To receive the Zoom link, please register here: https://forms.gle/mFnfLEDXEbC8L8iY8 or write to hps.cesee@gmail.com

[1] Borbála Zsuzsanna Török: The Science of State Power in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1790-1880 (Oxford, New York: Berghahn 2024)

“The formation of modern European states during the long 19th century was a strenuous process, challenged by the integration of widely different territories and populations. The Science of State Power in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1790-1880 builds on recent research to investigate the history of statistics as an overlooked part of the sciences of the state in Habsburg legal education as well as within the broader public sphere. By exploring the practices and social spaces of statistics, Borbála Zsuzsanna Török uncovers its central role in imagining the composite Habsburg Monarchy as a modern and unified administrative space.”

Participants

Borbála Zsuzsanna Török is a historian specializing in the social history of civil justice and modern state knowledge in the Habsburg Monarchy. She currently serves as part-time acting professor for Modern History at the University of Heidelberg. She is Privatdozentin at University of Vienna’s Institute for Austrian Historical Research and PI of the research project “Mobilisierung der Ziviljustiz und Sozialpolitik in der Habsburgermonarchie, 1873–1914,” funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), whose follow-up project has been recently approved. Her research focuses on the social history of law, property, statistics, nationalism, and knowledge transfer in East-Central Europe. She has held fellowships from the FWF, DFG, and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, and is the author of Exploring Transylvania. Geographies of Knowledge and Entangled Histories of a Multiethnic Province, 1790 – 1914 (2015).

László Kontler is a historian of early modern European intellectual history and the Enlightenment, with a focus on political thought, historiography, and the transnational circulation of ideas. Based at Central European University since its inception, he has also held fellowships and taught at institutions including Cambridge, Rutgers, and Oxford. His recent work includes studies on the reception of Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, the Viennese Jesuit astronomer Maximilian Hell, and the cultural construction of humanity in the early modern period.

Morgane Labbé is a historian and demographer specializing in population policies, nationalism, and social protection in Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. She is a Directrice d'études at the EHESS (Paris), affiliated with the Centre of Historical Research (CRH), and has played key roles in international academic partnerships with institutions in Warsaw and Michigan. Her research focuses on the history of statistics, social politics, demography, and charitable institutions in imperial contexts, and she has been an active contributor to scholarly networks and editorial boards in these fields.

Katalin Stráner is a historian of modern Europe at Newcastle University, with a focus on transnational history, particularly the history of science, migration, and urban culture in the Habsburg Empire and East Central Europe. She holds a PhD in History from Central European University and has held fellowships and academic positions across Europe and the US, including at Harvard, UCL, and the European University Institute. Her research explores how knowledge and scientific ideas are produced, translated, and transformed through cultural mobility, with current projects on Darwinism in Habsburg Hungary and migration from East Central Europe to Britain.

Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki, 2025, Issue 1 (OA)

 Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki, 2025, Issue 1 is online. open access, Polish&English with English abstracts. Open access: https://ejournals.eu/czasopismo/kwartalnik-historii-nauki-i-techniki/numer/tom-70-numer-1

Spis treści 

LEKSYKOGRAFIA BIOGRAFICZNA W EPOCE ROZWOJU HUMANISTYKI CYFROWEJ 

Andrzej Kajetan Wróblewski, Biografi czne słowniki dziedzinowe; przewagi i konieczność. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 

Piotr Köhler, Słownik biografi czny botaników polskich na tle dziejów polskiej biografi styki specjalistów z zakresu nauk o roślinach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 

Rafał Stobiecki, Słowniki biografi czne historyków. Kilka uwag z perspektywy historyka historiografi i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 

Maria Guzik-Jureczka, Piotr Jaskulski, Adam Zapała, Rola narzędzi cyfrowych w przetwarzaniu i udostępnianiu biogramów postaci historycznych . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 

Kamila Follprecht, Słowniki biografi czne – źródła z XIX i XX wieku w Archiwum Narodowym w Krakowie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55 

Cezary W. Domański, Nota, biogram, życiorys… W stronę idealnego słownika biografi cznego . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 

ARTYKUŁY 

Karol Kollinger, Mykoła Szarlemań i polowania Andronika I – rewizja. Przyczynek do historii ukraińskiej zoologii. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89 

Karol Łopatecki, Adam Musiuk, Poziomowanie linii spławnej na Kanale Augustowskim – analiza systemu śluz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103 

Radosław Poleski, Disciplinary Proceedings against Warsaw Astronomers Michał Kamieński and Maciej Bielicki for Their Activities During World War II . . . . . .125 

Andrzej Zawistowski, Sawa Frydman i Czesław Nowiński – żywoty całkowicie nierównoległe. Szkic do dziejów środowiska naukowego epoki stalinizmu . . . . . . . .149 

POLEMIKI I REFLEKSJE 

Justyna Rogińska, Pierwsza biografi a gubińskiego astronoma. Kilka uwag na marginesie książki Gottfried Kirch (1639–1710) – Astronom, Kalendermacher, Pietist, Frühaufklärer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .167 

ARTYKUŁY RECENZYJNE 

Bartosz Kaliski, Klement Lukeš, czyli jak zostać dysydentem w Czechosłowacji. . . . . .195 

RECENZJE Michał Piekarski, Piotr Olechowski, Agonia Polaków we Lwowie 1944–1959, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Warszawa 2024, ss. 495, tabele, ilustracje. . . . . . . . . . .211 

Zbigniew J. Wójcik, Jerzy B. Miecznik, O losach polskich geologów, cz. 1, Państwowy Instytut Geologiczny – Państwowy Instytut Badawczy, Warszawa 2017 (seria wydawnicza „Wokół geologii”), ss. 312; Jerzy B. Miecznik, O losach polskich geologów, cz. 2, Państwowy Instytut Geologiczny – Państwowy Instytut Badawczy, Warszawa 2023 (seria wydawnicza „Wokół geologii”), ss. 266 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .216 

KRONIKA Olga Morozowa, Międzynarodowa konferencja naukowa „Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie wobec rosyjskiej agresji na Ukrainę: konteksty historyczne i współczesne” (Uniwersytet Warszawski, 11–12 kwietnia 2024 r.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .223 

Grażyna Gierczak, Aneta Krawczyk, Sprawozdanie z Ogólnopolskiego Kongresu Historii Medycyny w setną rocznicę I Zjazdu Polskich Historyków Medycyny i Farmacji (1924–2024) – Wrocław, 21–23 maja 2024 r. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .231

 Jacek Soszyński, Konferencja „Lech Szczucki (1933–2019): badacz reformacji i renesansu (z doświadczeń uczonego i społecznika)”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241

hps.cesee article alert

Milan Hanyš, National Humanism, Zionist Liberalism, and Democracy in the Philosophy of Felix Weltsch, The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 2025;, ybaf002, https://doi.org/10.1093/leobaeck/ybaf002

Voerkelius, Mirjam. "Darwinism and the Human-Animal Boundary in the Soviet Union." Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, vol. 26 no. 1, 2025, p. 35-61. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/kri.2025.a953436.

Volf, Darina. "The Thorny Road to a Handshake: The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project as a Challenge to the US and Soviet Space Programs." Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, vol. 26 no. 1, 2025, p. 63-90. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/kri.2025.a953437.

Gordin, Michael D. "The Social and Intellectual Roots of Loren Graham." Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, vol. 26 no. 1, 2025, p. 244-249. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/kri.2025.a953447.

Stanislav Serhiienko: "Endre Sík und das Rassenproblem im sowjetischen Diskurs. Zur Geschichte eines frühen „konstruktivistischen“ Rassenbegriffs" [Endre Sík and the Race Problem in Soviet Discourse – On the History of an Early “Constructivist” Concept of Race]. PERIPHERIE – Politik • Ökonomie • Kultur. Nr. 176 (3-), S. 439-459. https://doi.org/10.3224/peripherie.v44i3.03

Juhászová, Tereza. “Teachers in Power: Nation-Building and Loyalty in a Czechoslovak Periphery (1918–1947).” Contemporary European History, 2025, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777325000153.

Wacław Pagórski: Die Allgemeine Weltbeschreibung von Cosmus von Simmer (1581–1650): Zum Bestand und zum Wert eines vergessenen kosmografischen Werkes, Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 1/2025, S. 1–29. https://doi.org/10.25627/202574111610

Ličen, Daša. “Against ‘Plebeian Ignorance’ and for ‘Civilized Behavior’: Habsburg Trieste’s Società Zoofila as a Bourgeois Instrument.” Austrian History Yearbook, 2025, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0067237825000207.

Jan Surman: Between Science and Architecture: Exhibiting Science and Technology in Interwar Europe. Perspectives on Science 2025, 33 (2): 127–157. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/posc_a_00637

Baltic worlds, Special Theme Section: Universities in times of crisis and transformation

 Baltic worlds,  Special Theme Section:  Universities in times of crisis and transformation

URL: https://balticworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/BW_2025_no.1_p.57_108._THEME.pdf

Guest Editors: Friedrich Cain & Elisa Satjukow 

57 Introduction. Friedrich Cain & Elisa Satjukow 

peer-reviewed articles 

60 The economic role of higher education, science, and technology in late socialist Yugoslavia, Vedran Duančić 

74 Hegemony over higher education. The case of Albania, Pavjo Gjini 

98 Political materialities of status-making and unmaking. Universities in the imperial cityscape of St. Petersburg, Iuliia Gataulina 

interviews 

86 Olga Shparaga on Belarusian Academia in exile: “It is clear that something is happening in the field of education within and around Belarus”, Friedrich Cain 

93 Tereza Hendl on RUTA and epistemic communities in solidarity for Ukraine: “We are reclaiming debates on our societies”, Elisa Satjukow

Aksonova, Natalia – Chlaňová, Tereza – Velychko, Hanna (ed.) Історико-культурний феномен Української господарської академії в Подєбрадах [The historical and cultural phenomenon of the Ukrainian Economic Academy in Poděbrady].

 Aksonova, Natalia – Chlaňová, Tereza – Velychko, Hanna (ed.) Історико-культурний феномен Української господарської академії в Подєбрадах [The historical and cultural phenomenon of the Ukrainian Economic Academy in Poděbrady]. Praha: Karolinum 2025. ISBN: 978-80-246-6017-2

OPEN ACCESS: https://doi.org/10.14712/9788024660172

Konferenční sborník Історико-культурний феномен Української господарської академії в Подєбрадах (Historicko-kulturní fenomén Ukrajinské hospodářské akademie v Poděbradech) představuje aktuální studie věnované problematice ukrajinské emigrace v meziválečném Československu, a zvláště Ukrajinské hospodářské akademii v Poděbradech. Studie jsou ve většině založeny na výzkumu dobových periodik a archivních materiálů a přinášejí celou řadu nových pohledů na tuto komplexní problematiku, která tvoří významnou část ukrajinsko-českých vztahů. Pozornost je věnována nejen peripetiím založení akademie a jejího působení v meziválečném Československu, ale zaměřuje se i na různé aspekty činnosti této vzdělávací instituce a jednotlivé významné osobnosti. Řada studií téma Ukrajinské hospodářské akademie přesahuje a věnuje se širším otázkám a aspektům existence ukrajinské emigrace.

CFP: Magical Realism and Surrealism in Central and Eastern European Graphic Art between 1945 and 1990

 CFP:  Magical Realism and Surrealism in Central and Eastern European Graphic Art  between 1945 and 1990 -  Szolnok, Damjanich János Museum, Hungary , 04.12.2025 - 05.12.2025, Deadline: 30.04.2025

During the decades of the socialist era (1945-1990), graphic art flourished in Central and Eastern European countries that were under Soviet influence. While reproduction techniques in art were supported by the cultural policy of the socialist state for ideological reasons, graphic art experienced a new renaissance globally. However, one underexplored aspect of this period’s art history is the tendency in graphic art, which did not associate itself neither with the official state art nor fully embraced avant-garde formal experimentations. Instead, it represented an alternative modernism, reflecting a third way approach. It was an intellectual attitude often characterized by escapism, a deep engagement with the use of traditional graphic techniques and the alignment with the pictorial traditions of medieval graphics (for example, echoing Dürer). It emphasized the appreciation of craftsmanship, figurative, narrative and allegorical imagery, and the reinterpretation of Renaissance and Baroque iconographic types. An additional feature of this graphic art was the anachronistic incorporation of post-war scientific achievements and technical machinery related to space exploration and Cold War weaponry into a classicising, mythological milieu.

The conference welcomes papers that contextualize these parallel artistic tendencies within the wider framework of Central and Eastern European graphic art. It is important to give a definite outline of those tendencies of the region that are closely related to surrealism and magic realism. Although these archaic, narrative or metaphorical representations have often been described in art history as apolitical, their esoteric or escapist vision and their frequently self-ironic or grotesque qualities can be interpreted as subtle critiques of their time.We invite papers addressing the following themes in relation to Central and Eastern European graphic art of the period 1945-1990:Surrealist and magic realist tendencies in graphic art of the period

Modern reinterpretations of the classical and Christian mythology (for example, the temptation of St Anthony)

Homage to the old masters such as Dürer, Bosch or Bruegel

Visual traditions and worldviews of folklore as a source for alternative modernism

Hybrid anachronisms: the integration of technical achievements and contemporary political references into traditional iconographic frameworks

The conference gives an occasion to present the outcomes of the research project, funded by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund, which examines the oeuvre of three Hungarian graphic artists, Margit Ágotha (1938-2015), Mihály Gácsi (1926-1987) and Csaba Rékassy (1937-1989) and outlines their broader historical context. These artists, active primarily between 1960 and 1980 within the socialist art scene, worked extensively with graphic techniques. Rékassy was an exceptional master of engraving, while Margit Ágotha and Mihály Gácsi were experts in relief printing. All three of them were frequently engaged with biblical and mythological themes, often reinterpreting them in contemporary contexts. Rékassy was particularly drawn to ancient mythology, illustrating Ovid’s Metamorphosis, while also interested in space exploration and astronomy; Margit Ágotha created cosmological compositions in the manner of medieval popular engravings, and Gácsi reimagined biblical stories, often alluding to Cold War anxieties in his dystopian visions of the future. Members of our research team will present comparative studies of these artists at the conference.

Conference format: hybrid (in person or online)

Conference languages: Hungarian, English

Location: Szolnok, Damjanich János Museum, Hungary

Date: 4-5 December 2025.

Abstracts (max. 2,000 characters) for 20-minute presentations in Hungarian or English should be submitted to Nándor Szebenyi szebenyi@djm.hu by 30 April 2025.

Notifications of acceptance will be announced by 31 May 2025.

Accommodation in Szolnok will be provided for conference speakers.

We welcome both in person and online participations, please indicate your preference in the application.

Selected proceedings from the conference will be published in a digital format in 2026.

[Image: Mihály Gácsi Noah, 1975 (linocut, 250 x 350 mm, inv.No.: DM 84.13.1.)]

CfP: Mathematics and Language A historical Perspective

 Czech Society for History of Science and Technology (SDVT) and

Czech Mathematical Union (JČMF)

cordially invite you to an interdisciplinary workshop

Mathematics and Language

A historical Perspective

Call for contributed papers

Dates: Thursday 12 June 2025 (sessions during the day and social dinner)

Friday 13 June 2025

Venue: Faculty of Education, Masaryk University, Poříčí 538/31, Brno CZ, room 37

With its variety of symbolism and specific terminology in its various branches, mathematicians seem to

speak different languages. That mathematics in itself is a language is generally accepted, since it has

been viewed as the language of nature since the early modern period. Closer to our days, it was a

mathematical language that underlined the development of programming languages. Mathematics

teaching in the late twentieth century even had the function of teaching proper ways of expressing

one’s ideas; and the linguistic metaphors go even further: in order to use (apply) mathematics, we may

speak of translating the real-life problem into mathematics and after tackling the problem

mathematically, we interpret the results. There are many intrinsic connections between mathematics

and language, but they form but one link between the two.

In different cultures, from Ancient to Modern times, mathematics was done differently. Studying

mathematical practices in the different cultures has long been a topic that inspired philosophers and

historians of mathematics. Studying the different practices leads to erosion of the belief that

mathematics is universal. Mathematics is done by people who have their specific background,

purposes, and ways of expressing themselves. Opening the field of mathematical practice and studying

mathematical culture in different land and in different languages is a playground for historians of

mathematics: mathematics is local and mathematical results relevant for the particular period of time.

An intriguing connection between mathematics and language arises with the issue of translation and

speaking other languages. The language of communication became an issue in the context of

internationalism around 1900. Keen to communicate with their colleagues from other countries

directly, mathematicians developed symbolic languages, discarding the use of ordinary language in

mathematics. At the same period of time, many mathematicians became interested in a language that

would be easy to learn, even though it would be a foreign language for everybody. Esperanto was

embraced by several mathematicians of the time.

While in the nineteenth century, practising mathematics in a certain language was an issue connected

with national revival, stemming from romanticism, in the twentieth century, the language in which

mathematics was written also revealed political choices. The number and choice of official languages

at an international congress depended also on the countries allowed to participate in the congresses.

There are many other issues that connect the two areas, mathematics and language, in the methods of

study, in mutual interactions between mathematics and linguistics, including the problem of translation

and transcription of Ancient mathematics and the meta-debates involved in that issue as well as

practical considerations of translation. The two-day workshop seeks to bring together scholars who

would like to present their work in this perspective.

Invited speakers:

Frédéric Metin (CNRS and INSPÉ Bourgogne, France)

Elías Fuentes Guillén (CAS Prague, Czechia)

We invite scholars to send abstracts of their proposed talks (between 200 and 500 words) to

hdurnova@ped.muni.cz by Thursday 1 May 2025. Notification of acceptance by 10 May 2025.

Topics include, but are not limited to the history of:

o Mathematics as language.

o Mathematics practised in different languages.

o Geometry in Engineering, Nomography and other outdated disciplines ,

o Translating mathematics.

Selected papers may be published in a special issue of the journal History of Sciences and Technology

https://dvt-journal.cz/en/ (ISSN 0300-4414 print, 2788-3485 online).

Conference fee: EUR 30 or CZK 600, payable on site or through bank transfer.

Contact e-mail: hdurnova@ped.muni.cz

Looking forward to seeing you in Brno!

Helena Durnová (Brno) & Jan Kotůlek (Ostrava)

This workshop is a part of the series Mathematics and Society,

https://math-and-society.webnode.page/