CfP: 1918 and the Search for New Internationalism in Central European Academia
When the war ended in 1918, scholars in Central Europe faced a new
challenge. New states required not only new infrastructure but also new
ideas on how science should function. The intellectual landscape was
changing rapidly – new institutions in new states mushroomed, but also
disappeared or went into hiding like the institutions of the new
minorities. Internationally, the German language was under fire, losing
in the 1920s its status as the language of international organizations –
because German was often the preferred language of international
communication for CEE scholars, this affected them as well.
One of the issues discussed most was how to present CEE science
internationally while at the same time preserving its national
character. Olympic internationalism, as Geert Somsen termed it, was one
of the possibilities, with Central European scholars taking also leading
roles in transnational organizations such as the Committee on
Intellectual Co-operation.
Papers should interrogate the issue of imagining and maneuvering
international scholarly networks and infrastructures. They are not
limited to but should seek answers to such questions as:
-- - What were the strategies pursued to present scholarship in the
international fora? How was the issue of nationality, internationality
and transnationality debated in connection to the reorganization of
state scholarly infrastructure?
- - With what agendas and interests did CEE scholars enter
international and transnational scholarly institutions? Did they try to
influence the policies of these organizations in favor of their states’
agendas, or were they perhaps acting with new transnationalism in mind.
How did their imperial experience influence it.
- - How did CEE scholars react to the limitation of German as the language of international organizations and conferences?
- - What was the role of the Soviet Union in the post-1918
international and transnational imagination? With politics favoring
technical-scientific progress, the SU was growingly a major player in
CEE, disavowed, however, for political and cultural-historical reasons
by many intellectual key players. Did a particular socialist-communist
internationalism develop?
We invite the submission of abstracts on the questions and topics raised
above. Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words and a short
biographical sketch to jan.surman@gmail.com<mailto:ja
The editors will ask the authors of selected papers to submit their
final articles no later than February 28th 2018. The articles will be
published after a peer-review process.
Studia Historiae Scientiarum is a peer-reviewed, diamond open access
journal devoted to the history of science. For more information visit: http://www.ejournals.eu/
The deadline for the submission of abstracts: May 31th 2017.