Studientag: Science that Came in from the Cold: Epistemology, Rationality and Cold War Scientific Cultu

Date/Venue: 22. January 2016, Forschungszentrum für historische Geisteswissenschaften, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, IG Farbenhaus, Room 1.414

Organizers: Fabian Link, Jan Surman

Discussants: Michael D. Gordin (Princeton), Peter Haslinger (Marburg/Gießen), Philipp Sarasin (Zürich)

Deadline for applications: 20. November 2015

Organized by:

Herder-Institute for Historical Research on Eastern Europe – Institute of Leibniz Association, Marburg

Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture, Gießen

Working Group History of Science at the Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main.

In recent years, research on Cold War scientific culture has produced manifold perspectives on the production of knowledge and its dissemination against the backdrop of an antagonistic world order and a nuclear arms race. Most notable is the idea of a particular “Cold War rationality,” which informed intellectuals´ and researchers´ inquiries from the 1950s to the 1970s. In our Studientag we want to discuss how this Cold War scientific culture has affected the basic epistemic categories of the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. Based upon concrete research projects from all branches and fields of science and the humanities we want to look at how the particular atmosphere of the Cold War led scholars to reevaluate the epistemic assumptions, which both consciously and unconsciously placed a value on “good” versus “bad” science. In light of increased ideologization in the post-World War II period, science was said to serve either “democracy” or “communism” and therefore we also inquire how political and epistemic categories intermingled in the production of new norms that both science and scientists followed.

We invite scholars from all disciplines interested in historical dimensions of scientific knowledge 1945-1989 to send us short proposals addressing the issues mentioned. 

We want to combine in our Studientag project presentations, discussions of pre-circulated papers and literature discussions, with doctoral students and young postdocs comprising the target audience. In case of any questions please write to Jan Surman (jan.surman@herder-institut.de) or Fabian Link (f.link@em.uni-frankfurt.de).