The symposium focuses on physics during the cold war and asks for differences and similarities in practices and theories, scientific collaborations and communication during that period in and between Eastern and Western blocks. As well as the role of non-aligned countries and the so-called third world countries is to be analyzed.
Already before World War II a development became apparent where science, military, industry and the state formed a complex in which a strong interaction and interdependency of the individual parts led to strategies, definition of aims and actions which changed the structure of science fundamentally. The arms race in East and West is well known as well as its equivalent in particle physics and the building of accelerators with more and more energy as an expression of the race for the highest energy. But, can the engagement of physicists and technicians in this race be explained by a political conviction or did the physicists just make use of the situation for their research without taking care of the particular regime? This leads to another question: How did the ideological confrontation affect the practices of physics? Can we go one step further and ascertain that the ideological confrontation led to a positivistic and utilitarian attitude of the physicists making themselves ideologically invariant by focusing only on the measurable and applicable?
Nevertheless the political confrontation affected the physicists in several ways especially by political repression and prosecution when the individual offended the political norms of the regime on both sides of the iron curtain. Secrecy boomed and limited publications as well as the participation of international conferences. Therefore we should ask for the role of the Non-aligned countries and Europe as neutral territory.

Nominations:
Should you wish to nominate a speaker for the symposium, or if you are working on a topic that might be appropriate for a presentation in the symposium, please contact the secretary of the commission Christian.Forstner@uni-jena.de by no later than 30 November 2008 (the final list of speakers is due to the Program Committee by 15 December). We look forward to hearing from you.