CFP: Sovietology as a Global Public Sphere. Cold War Constructions of Knowledge

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS IN PANEL

Fourth European Congress on World and Global History (11 to 14 September 2014), Paris

I’m looking for co-participants for the panel:

Sovietology as a Global Public Sphere. Cold War Constructions of Knowledge

The image of the Soviet Union and of the Eastern Bloc countries in the Western World during the Long Cold War (from 1947 until 1989/91) was built upon old stereotypes, well-established prejudices and an arsenal of new knowledge brought by the intensive intellectual work on the region. The strategic necessity of getting information about the enemy took to the establishment of different scholarships about Communism and Slavic studies. Besides, newspapers, popular journals and mass-media -but academic publications too- increased their coverage of East (Communist) Europe out of a certain attraction for the “Eastern Evil”. This panel seeks to ask about different intellectual approaches to the East-European Region in the national academic cultures during the Cold War, focusing on transnational and trans-systemic contacts, shared frameworks of research and academic cross-border collaboration. The main topic might be addressed from all kind of perspectives (biographical, intellectual history, cultural studies...).

Some possible spaces and topics might be:

1.      Communist and Slavic Studies in North and South America.

2.      Slavic Studies in European right wing dictatorships (Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey…).

3.      Western European Communist Studies (including Germany)

4.      Communist and Slavic Studies in Asia.

5.      Communist and Slavic Studies traditions in the East Bloc.

 If you are interested in participating, please email a short abstract (100-300 words) and a brief CV.  by March 07 to:  jm.faraldo@ghis.ucm.es