Science Studies during the Cold War and Beyond

Elena Aronova is an Assistant Professor at the History Department of the University of California at Santa Barbara, USA. She is completing her book, which examines the ways in which ideas about science have become a sphere of Cold War competition, on both sides of the “iron curtain.” Her current project, Doing Things with Data, examines the politics of environmental data collection, archiving, and exchange during the Cold War.    Simone Turchetti is Lecturer at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Manchester, UK. His research focuses on the interplay between scientists, intelligence officers and diplomats during the Cold War period. He is the author of The Pontecorvo Affair: A Cold War Defection and Nuclear Physics (2012), and more recently he has co-edited The Surveillance Imperative. Geosciences during the Cold War and Beyond.

“This volume explores the Cold War politics of ‘science studies’ in less familiar historical contexts across the East-West and Global North-South settings of the Cold War. … The book provides a much-needed plural description of the different local agendas which defined and shaped the boundaries of ‘science studies’ in the geopolitical and intellectual context of the Cold War.” (Francesco Cassata, ARO - Annali Rezensionen Online, Issue (02), September, 2018)“‘Science Studies during the Cold War and Beyond’ provides an occasion for self-reflection where the contours of institutional geography and intellectual hierarchies gain salience, personalities and intellectual identities interlock, andthe stories that one may hear at a conference dinner table turn into historiographical questions relevant beyond the confines of our community. This alone is a reason enough to make the volume a must-read for all STS scholars and to attract a broader audience.” (Ksenia Tatarchenko, H-Soz-Kult, hsozkult.de, October, 2017)

• .Section one. Science Studies in the “West”.-.Chapter 1. George Reisch, Telegrams and Paradigms: On Cold-War Geopolitics and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.-.Chapter 2. Ian James Kidd, “What’s So Great about Science?” Feyerabend on Science, Ideology, and the Cold War.-Chapter 3. Simone Turchetti, Looking for the Bad Teachers. Radicalism and the history of science in Western countries.-.Chapter 4. Hans-Joachim Dahms, Kuhn’s “Structure”: An Exemplary Document of the Cold War Era?.-. Section two. Studies of Science Behind the ‘Curtain’.-.Chapter 5. Gabor Pallo, Blind Isolation: History of Science behind the Iron Curtain.-.Chapter 6. Michał Kokowski, The Science of Science (naukoznawstwo) in Poland. Defending and removing the past in the Cold War.-.Chapter 7. Vítězslav Sommer, Scientists of the World, Unite! Radovan Richta’s Theory of Scientific and Technological Revolution.-.  Section three. National Agendas of the Studies of Science Beyond the ‘Two Blocs’.-.Chapter 8. Aant Elzinga, Cold War and Academic Boundaries: Imprints on the origins and early development of science studies in Sweden.-.Chapter 9. Federico Vasen, What Does a “National” Science Mean? Science policy, politics and philosophy in Latin America.-.Chapter 10. Lu Gao, From Natural Dialectics to STS: The Historical Evolution of Science Studies in China.