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Poslední úprava: prof. PhDr. Ota Konrád, Ph.D. (23.08.2022)
While stressing parallels on both sides of the Iron Curtain, this class focuses on thematic case studies from Eastern Europe--an area frequently overlooked by historians of science and technology. Science and Technology in the Cold War combines guest lectures and secondary reading with an introduction to primary source analysis. |
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Poslední úprava: prof. PhDr. Ota Konrád, Ph.D. (23.08.2022)
In this course, students will develop their source analysis skills, and improve their presentation and writing capabilities. Students will develop their own opinions on: - The actors and drivers of historical change, including the extent to which material objects can themselves drive historical change - The extent to which the Cold War can, and cannot, provide an explanatory framework for historical events which took place in the second half of the twentieth century - Whether the European continent was characterized by a Cold War divide and/or enduring cultural similarities during the period, as well as how the case of Czechoslovakia might shed light on this - The extent to which science and technology “lost” Eastern Europe the Cold War, alongside the limits to this narrative of failure |
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Poslední úprava: prof. PhDr. Ota Konrád, Ph.D. (23.08.2022)
Students are expected to have read the required readings in advance of class and to come to the lesson prepared to discuss them. Their participation grade will be assessed on this basis. In addition, on a module of their choice, students will prepare a 10-15 minute presentation, in which they engage with both the required and optional readings for that topic. Following the presentation, students will submit a 5-page written accompaniment to their talk. At the end of the term, students will submit a ten-page final paper which explores a relevant theme of their choice in more depth. This should include primary source analysis as well as reference to secondary literature. Students will identify the set of primary sources they wish to use in cooperation with the course instructor by the third day of lessons. Breakdown of grading Participation 20% Class talk 20% Written accompaniment (5 pages) 20% Final paper (10 pages) 40% |
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Poslední úprava: prof. PhDr. Ota Konrád, Ph.D. (23.08.2022)
Literature: Compulsory reading is indicated with a star. All compulsory texts will be made available on Moodle by the start of the term. *Antic, Ana. “Raising a true socialist individual: Yugoslav psychoanalysis and the creation of democratic Marxist citizens,” Social History, February 2019, pp. 86-115 *Aronova, Elena. Scientific History: Experiments in History and Politics from the Bolshevik Revolution to the End of the Cold War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021), pp. 132-157 *Bösch, Frank. “Energy diplomacy: West Germany, the Soviet Union, and the oil crises of the 1970s” in Historical Social Research, Vol. 39, No. 4 (2014), pp. 165-184 *Berend, Ivan T. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993 (Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 182-221 Bridger, Sara. Scientists at War: The Ethics of Cold War Weapons Research (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015) *Conway, Erik M. “Bringing NASA Back to Earth: A Search For Relevance During the Cold War” in Naomi Oreskes & John Krige, Science and Technology in the Global Cold War, pp. 251-273 *Cornish, Gabrielle. “Music and the Making of the Cosmonaut Everyman” in Journal of Musicology, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2019), pp. 464-499 Cueto, Marcos. Cold War, Deadly Fever: Malaria Eradication in Mexico, 1955-1975 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007) *Engerman, David C. “Social Science in the Cold War” in Isis Vol. 101, No. 2 (June 2010), pp. 393-400 Fava, Valentina. The Socialist People’s Car: Automobiles, Shortages, and Consent in the Czechoslovak Road to Mass Consumption (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013) Feinberg, Melissa. Curtain of Lies: The Battle over Truth in Stalinist Eastern Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017) Fleischmann, Thomas. Communist Pigs: An Animal History of East Germany’s Rise and Fall (University of Washington Press, 2020) Hicks, Marie. Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost its Edge in Computing (Cambridge, MA & London: MIT Press, 2017) Hill, Doug. Not So Fast: Thinking Twice about Technology (Athens, University of Georgia Press: 2016) *HREŠANOVÁ, Ema - MICHAELS, Paula. “Socialist Science across Borders: Investigating Pain in Soviet and Czechoslovakian Maternity Care.” Revue d'Etudes Comparatives Est-Ouest. 2018, 49(1), 45-69 James, Harold. Krupp: A History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), pp. 226-295 *Johnston, Rosamund. “Listening in on the Neighbors: The Reception of German and Austrian Radio in Cold War Czechoslovakia” in Central European History, Vol. 54, no. 4 (December 2021) pp. 603-620 Kim, Monica. The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War (Cambridge, MA: Princeton University Press, 2019) pp. 1-31 Lemov, Rebecca. “’Hypothetical Machines’: The Science Fiction Dreams of Cold War Social Science,” in Isis, Vol. 101, No. 2 (2010), pp. 401-411 Alice Lovejoy and Mari Pajala (eds.) Remapping Cold War Media: Institutions, Infrastructures, Translations (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2022) Mëhilli, Elidor. “Technology and the Cold War” in Kalinovsky, Artemy & Daigle, Craig (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of the Cold War (Routledge, 2016) pp. 292-304 Mitchell, Timothy. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) Muehlenbeck, Philip. Czechoslovakia in Africa, 1945-1968 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) pp. 87-123 Oreskes, Naomi. “Science in the Origins of the Cold War” in Naomi Oreskes & John Krige, Science and Technology in the Global Cold War, pp. 1-11 *Painter, David S. "Oil and Natural Resources" in Cambridge History of the Cold War, Vol. I (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 486-507 Painter, David S. "“From Linkage to Economic Warfare: Energy, Soviet-American Relations, and the End of the Cold War. ” in Cold War Energy: A Transnational History of Soviet Oil and Gas, edited by Jeronim Perovic (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 283-318. *Reid, Susan. “The Khrushchev Kitchen: Domesticating the Scientific-Technological Revolution” in The Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 40, No. 2 (2005), pp. 289-316 *Richterova, Daniela, Pešta, Mikuláš and Telepneva, Natalia. “Banking on Military Assistance: Czechoslovakia’s Struggle for Influence and Profit in the Third World 1955–1968” in International History Review, Vol. 43, No. 1 (2021) pp. 90-108 Roth-Ey, Kristin. Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire that Lost the Cultural Cold War (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 2011) Rubin, Eli. Synthetic Socialism: Plastics and Dictatorship in the German Democratic Republic (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2012) *Schmid, Sonja D. “Nuclear Colonization?: Soviet Technopolitics in the Second World” in Gabrielle Hecht (ed.) Entangled Geographies: Empire and Technopolitics in the Global Cold War (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011) pp. 125-154 Spurný, Matěj. Making the Most of Tomorrow: A Laboratory of Socialist Modernity in Czechoslovakia. Prague: Karolinum Press, 2019. *Surman, Jan & Petushkova, Daria. “Between Westernization and Traditionalism: Central and Eastern European Academia during the Transformation in the 1990s,” forthcoming in Studia Historiae Scientiarum *Švelch, Jaroslav. Gaming the Iron Curtain: How Teenagers and Amateurs in Communist Czechoslovakia Claimed the Medium of Computer Games (MIT, 2018) *Svik, Peter. Civil Aviation and the Globalization of the Cold War (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) pp. 119-145 *Tucker, Richard. “Containing Communism by Impounding Rivers: American Strategic Interests and the Global Spread of High Dams in the Early Cold War” in J. R. McNeill & Corinna Unger (eds.), Environmental Histories of the Cold War, pp. 139-164 *Vargha, Dora. (2021). Technical assistance and socialist international health: Hungary, the WHO and the Korean War. History and Technology, 36(3-4), 400-417 Volf, Darina, “Evolution of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: The Effects of the “Third” on the Interplay Between Cooperation and Competition” (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11024-021-09435-8) * Winner, Langdon. “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” in The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 19-39 |
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Poslední úprava: Bc. Jana Poskerová (13.10.2022)
See sylabus. |
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Poslední úprava: prof. PhDr. Ota Konrád, Ph.D. (23.08.2022)
Day 1: Introduction, the Arms Race, the Space Race Module 1: Introduction Can technologies have politics? And to what extent should we understand scientific research that took place during the Cold War to be “Cold War science”? Required reading: David C. Engerman “Social Science in the Cold War” in Isis Vol. 101, No. 2 (June 2010), pp. 393-400 Langdon Winner, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” in The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 19-39 Optional reading: Mëhilli, Elidor. “Technology and the Cold War” in Kalinovsky, Artemy & Daigle, Craig (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of the Cold War (London: Routledge, 2016) pp. 292-304 Doug Hill, Not So Fast: Thinking Twice about Technology (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2016), pp. 47-78 Naomi Oreskes, “Science in the Origins of the Cold War” in Naomi Oreskes & John Krige, Science and Technology in the Global Cold War, pp. 1-11 Module 2: The Arms Race How did weapons spur hostilities and, on the contrary, foster international friendships during the global Cold War? How much autonomy did non-superpower states have when it came to shaping the Cold War through the development and export of weapons? And how were science and scientists harnessed by states engaged in the arms race? Required reading: Sonja D. Schmid, “Nuclear Colonization?: Soviet Technopolitics in the Second World” in Gabrielle Hecht (ed.) Entangled Geographies: Empire and Technopolitics in the Global Cold War (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011) pp. 125-154 Daniela Richterova, Mikuláš Pešta, Natalia Telepneva, “Banking on Military Assistance: Czechoslovakia’s Struggle for Influence and Profit in the Third World 1955–1968” in International History Review, Vol. 43, No. 1 (2021) pp. 90-108 Optional reading: Sara Bridger, Scientists at War: The Ethics of Cold War Weapons Research (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015) Philip Muehlenbeck, Czechoslovakia in Africa, 1945-1968 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) pp. 87-123 Harold James, Krupp: A History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), pp. 226-295
Module 3: The Space Race What was at stake in the space race? How were the space race and the arms race linked? And how was the space race harnessed to mobilize populations, East and West, behind the Cold War goals of the camps in which they lived? Required reading: Gabrielle Cornish, “Music and the Making of the Cosmonaut Everyman” in Journal of Musicology, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2019), pp. 464-499 Erik M. Conway, “Bringing NASA Back to Earth: A Search for Relevance During the Cold War” in Naomi Oreskes & John Krige, Science and Technology in the Global Cold War, pp. 251-273 Optional reading: Volf, Darina, “Evolution of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: The Effects of the ‘Third’ on the Interplay Between Cooperation and Competition” (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11024-021-09435-8)
Day 2: Energy, the Environment, and Medicine Module 4: The Environment How did science and technology come to shape the environment during the Cold War? What were the ambitions of those undertaking such projects? How did Cold War rhetoric serve to justify and dispute such shifts? Required reading: Richard Tucker, “Containing Communism by Impounding Rivers: American Strategic Interests and the Global Spread of High Dams in the Early Cold War” in J. R. McNeill & Corinna Unger (eds.), Environmental Histories of the Cold War, pp. 139-164 Optional reading: Matěj Spurný, Making the Most of Tomorrow: A Laboratory of Socialist Modernity in Czechoslovakia. Prague: Karolinum Press, 2019, pp. 279-351 Thomas Fleischmann, Communist Pigs: An Animal History of East Germany’s Rise and Fall (University of Washington Press, 2020)
Module 5: Energy What role did energy play in shaping Cold War geopolitics? How did Cold War geopolitics underwrite “ordinary people’s” everyday experiences of traveling, going about their work, and heating their homes? Required reading: Frank Bösch, “Energy diplomacy: West Germany, the Soviet Union, and the oil crises of the 1970s” in Historical Social Research, Vol. 39, No. 4 (2014), pp. 165-184 David S. Painter. "Oil and Natural Resources" in Cambridge History of the Cold War, Vol. I (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 486-507 Optional reading: David S. Painter. "From Linkage to Economic Warfare: Energy, Soviet-American Relations, and the End of the Cold War” in Cold War Energy: A Transnational History of Soviet Oil and Gas, edited by Jeronim Perovic (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 283-318. Matěj Spurný, Making the Most of Tomorrow: A Laboratory of Socialist Modernity in Czechoslovakia. Prague: Karolinum Press, 2019, pp.145-189
Module 6: Health and Medicine What impact did the Cold War have on medical research and treatment? Which communities of healthcare professionals were created and/or disrupted by Cold War conflict? Guest lecture: Ema Hrešanová Required reading: HREŠANOVÁ, Ema - MICHAELS, Paula. “Socialist Science across Borders: Investigating Pain in Soviet and Czechoslovakian Maternity Care.” Revue d'Etudes Comparatives Est-Ouest. 2018, 49(1), 45-69 Dora Vargha (2021). Technical assistance and socialist international health: Hungary, the WHO and the Korean War. History and Technology, 36(3-4), 400-417 Optional reading: Marcos Cueto, Cold War, Deadly Fever: Malaria Eradication in Mexico, 1955-1975 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007)
Day 3: Psychology, Media, Consumer Culture Module 7: Cold War Subject Formation How did human psychology become a terrain on which the Cold War was to be fought? How did the claims that governing elites made on the minds of their citizens differ from those that had preceded the Cold War? What did such claims mean for different specific social groups such as soldiers, scientists, and patients? Required reading: *Ana Antic, “Raising a true socialist individual: Yugoslav psychoanalysis and the creation of democratic Marxist citizens,” Social History, February 2019, pp. 86-115 Optional reading: Monica Kim, The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019) pp. 1-31 Rebecca Lemov, “’Hypothetical Machines’: The Science Fiction Dreams of Cold War Social Science,” in Isis, Vol. 101, No. 2 (2010), pp. 401-411
Module 8: Media How did the Cold War shape media networks and infrastructures? To what extent can belief in Communism and anti-Communism elucidate why and how people engaged with media during the Cold War? To what extent are media responsible for the end of the Cold War? Field Trip to the TV Tower in Žižkov Required reading: Rosamund Johnston, “Listening in on the Neighbors: The Reception of German and Austrian Radio in Cold War Czechoslovakia” in Central European History, Vol. 54, no. 4 (December 2021) pp. 603-620 Optional reading: Melissa Feinberg, Curtain of Lies: The Battle over Truth in Stalinist Eastern Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017) Alice Lovejoy and Mari Pajala (eds.) Remapping Cold War Media: Institutions, Infrastructures, Translations (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2022) Kristin Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire that Lost the Cultural Cold War (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 2011)
Module 9: Consumer Culture How important were consumers and consumer industries to scientists and government ministers in socialist states? How was the scientific-technological revolution, in Susan Reid’s words, “domesticated?” And what can consumer artifacts from this period reveal of the functioning of the socialist societies in which they circulated? Required reading: Susan Reid, “The Khrushchev Kitchen: Domesticating the Scientific-Technological Revolution” in The Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 40, No. 2 (2005), pp. 289-316 Optional reading: Eli Rubin, Synthetic Socialism: Plastics and Dictatorship in the German Democratic Republic (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2012) Valentina Fava, The Socialist People’s Car: Automobiles, Shortages, and Consent in the Czechoslovak Road to Mass Consumption (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013)
Day 4: The Information Society, Backwardness, and Transformation Module 10: Computing and the Information Society To what extent do conceptual designations like “the information society”--devised to describe Western Europe and the United States in the last quarter of the twentieth century--apply to Central and Eastern European countries which were, at the period, markedly less computerized? Which groups in these socialist societies did, nevertheless, harness the potential of computer technologies to further their own interests? At the expense, perhaps, of whom? Required reading: Jaroslav Švelch, Gaming the Iron Curtain: How Teenagers and Amateurs in Communist Czechoslovakia Claimed the Medium of Computer Games (MIT, 2018) excerpts TBC Elena Aronova, Scientific History: Experiments in History and Politics from the Bolshevik Revolution to the End of the Cold War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021), pp. 132-157 Optional reading: Marie Hicks, Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost its Edge in Computing (Cambridge, MA & London: MIT Press, 2017)
Module 11: Technological Backwardness? How might science and technology have “lost” Eastern Europe the Cold War? How and why might we challenge this narrative of Eastern bloc technological “failure”? Required reading: Ivan T. Berend, Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993 (Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 182-221 Optional reading: Peter Svik, Civil Aviation and the Globalization of the Cold War (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) pp. 119-145 Timothy Mitchell. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002)
Module 12: The Transformation of Science How did the end of the Cold War affect science and knowledge production in Central and Eastern Europe? To what extent can universities be seen as microcosms of broader social transformations taking place at the time? Guest lecture: Jan Surman Required reading: Jan Surman & Daria Petushkova, “Between Westernization and Traditionalism: Central and Eastern European Academia during the Transformation in the 1990s,” forthcoming in Studia Historiae Scientiarum |