Although the Cold War is over, its history and its complicated, contested legacy and lasting effects continue to raise questions and provoke debates. New social sciences disciplinary “clusters,” such as Area and International Studies, Russian and Soviet Studies, Communication studies, cognitive sciences, etc., were institutionalized during the Cold War. Other human sciences received ample federal support and were enlisted in the service of the state. How to assess the place of the “national interest” in the evolution of post–World War II social and human sciences and academic thought? By bringing together scholars engaged in historical studies of the post-WWII developments in history, philosophy and sociology of science, this workshop seeks to encourage reflection on both conceptual and political origins of one such „cluster“ - Science Studies.
Under different names and different circumstances, the studies of science as an academic field and a distinct area of professional expertise in its own right became institutionalized in the early Cold War years in a variety of politically disparate states on both sides of the Iron Curtain – thus the emergence of “science studies” in the U.S. and U.K., “naukovedenie” in the Soviet Union, “naukoznawstwo” in Poland, “natural dialectics” in China, and so on. How were these origins shaped by the political economy, cultural anxieties and ideological dimensions of the post- WWII social and political order? How and in what ways did the studies of science meet the political challenges of the Cold War as manifested in different political systems, on both sides of the “Iron Curtain”? In this process, how did previous - interwar - accounts of science within philosophy of science and history of science become transformed?
Scientific Chair: Dr. Elena A. Aronova (UCSD, Alfried Krupp Fellow)