Technology in Times of Transition
The International Committee for the History of Technology’s
41th Symposium in Braşov, Romania, 29 July – 2 August 2014

Extended deadline for proposals is 17 February 2014

The deadline for submitting paper and session proposals to our 41st Symposium has been extended by two weeks. Submissions will be accepted until Monday, 17 February 2014. For the original Call for Papers please visit the conference website:
http://www.icohtec.org/brasov2014/

Below you can find additional calls for panelists. Feel free to spread the news among your colleagues and co-workers.

Slawomir Lotysz
Chair of the Programme Committee

Calls for contribution in sessions

There are eight open calls for contribution in topical sessions organized by certain persons. Please be advised that usually the organizers request to contact them few days before the final deadline. See details for each after this listing

1. Ninth Symposium of the Social History of Military Technology (organizer Bart Hacker – deadline 15 February).
2. East - West Transfer of Technology during the Cold War (organizers Timo Myllyntaus & Elena Kochetkova – deadline 13 February).
3. Computers and the ‘second industrial revolution’ 1945-1970 (organizer Dick van Lente).
4. Modern versus traditional? Core and peripheries in the transport and communication infrastructural process (organizer Simone Fari – 10 February).
5. I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen. The technology of reality in socialistic science fiction films (organizer Peter Koval - deadline 16 February).
6. New Uses of Old Technologies in Times of Transition: Theory and Practice of Industrial Heritage Management (organizer Daqing Yang).
7. The Dark Side of Technology: Technology and Illness since the Nineteenth Century (organizer Amelia Bonea).
8. Playing with Technology – Questions of Infrastructure (organizer Stefan Poser – deadline 15 February 2014).

Call no. 1
Ninth Symposium of the Social History of Military Technology
(organizer Bart Hacker)

Proposals are sought for papers to be presented in the Ninth Symposium on the Social History of Military Technology, scheduled as part of the program for the annual meeting of the International Congress of the History of Technology (ICOHTEC), Brasov, Rumania. 29 July–2 August 2013. The general theme selected for the 2014 ICOHTEC meeting is: Technology in Times of Transition. For more information about the 2014 ICOHTEC conference as a whole, including subthemes and travel grants, see: http://www.icohtec.org/brasov2014/.

The history of military technology usually centers on weaponry, warships, fortifications, or other physical manifestations of warfare, emphasizing how they were made or how they worked. Historians have also tended to assume a strictly utilitarian and rational basis for military technological invention and innovation. However necessary they may be, such approaches largely ignore some very important questions. What are the contexts of social values, attitudes, and interests, non-military as well as military, that shape and support (or oppose) these technologies? What are the consequences of gender, race, class, and other aspects of the social order for the nature and use of military technology? Or, more generally: How do social and cultural environments within the military itself or in the larger society affect military technological change? And the indispensable corollary: How does changing military technology affect other aspects of society and culture? In brief, this symposium will address military technology as both agent and object of social change, taking a very broad view that encompasses not only the production, distribution, use, and replacement of weapons and weapon systems, but also communications, logistics, medicine, and other technologies of military relevance as well as sciences of military interest.
We seek papers about: (1) representations of weapons as well as weapons themselves, about ideas as well as hardware, about organization as well as materiel; (2) ways in which social class, race, gender, culture, economics, or other extra-military factors have influenced and been influenced by the invention, R&D, diffusion, or use of weapons or other military technologies; (3) the roles that military technologies play in shaping and reshaping the relationships of soldiers to other soldiers; soldiers to military, political, and social institutions; and military institutions to other social institutions, most notably political and economic; and/or (4) historiographical or museological topics that discuss how military technology has been analyzed, interpreted, and understood in other fields, other cultures, and other times. Pre-modern and non-Western topics are particularly welcome.

Although papers may be presented in English, French, German, Russian, or Spanish, ICOHTEC will not provide simultaneous translation. All proposals must be submitted in English and should include three elements:
(1) A short descriptive title.
(2) An abstract of 200 to 350 words. It should include (a) your name and email address, (b) a concise statement of the thesis, (c) a brief discussion of the sources, and (d) a summary of major conclusions. Please do not include footnotes or bibliography.
(3) A 1-page CV or résumé with your educational and professional employment histories, plus a list of significant publications and/or presentations. You may include other relevant information in the CV, as long as you do not exceed the 1-page limit. Be sure to specify your institutional affiliation.
Please keep in mind that conference presentations are not complete research papers. You will be allotted no more than 20 minutes to speak, and possibly as little as 16 minutes. Precise times available to speakers will be determined after the program is complete. All participants are encouraged to submit the full, annotated versions of their papers as articles to Vulcan: The International Journal of the Social History of Military Technology.
Do not send your proposal to icohtec. It should be sent to the symposium organizer, Bart Hacker, who will assemble and submit the complete symposium. Proposals must reach the symposium organizer, Bart Hacker, at: <hackerb@si.edu>, no later than 15 February 2014, but earlier is better.

Call no. 2
East - West Transfer of Technology during the Cold War
(organziers Timo Myllyntaus & Elena Kochetkova)

The history of transferring knowledge and technology between East and West, socialist and capitalist, big and small states has attracted many researchers. Current historiography proposes new sources and approaches studying various forms of transfer on different levels, emphasizing not only conventional trade flows from West to East, but vice versa as well as other more or less unofficial forms of technology mobility. They include communication between scientists, attending exhibitions and conferences as well as copying patented innovations and industrial espionage among other channels of transfer, which demonstrate the permeability of geographical, state, cultural, political, social, and institutional borders. This permeability was also attested during the Cold War, results of which demonstrate the significance of East and West transfers and as Karen Freeze puts it in her article on Czechoslovak theater technologies and their move westward: “we may conclude that the Iron Curtain was more permeable than previously thought”. Consequently, technology transfer opens a wide and challenging field of research. Apart explaining movement and exchange of technologies, transfers explicate social, political and cultural transformations they entail and serve for. They also help explain communication of different actors on governmental, institutional, company and individual levels.
Following this wide meaning of technology transfers between East and West we seek for empirically based and conceptually solid contributions to our session proposal to the ICOHTEC symposium “Technology in Times of Transition” which will be held in Braşov, Romania on 29 July – 2 August 2014. Although much good research on the topic has already been done, there are still many grey areas in this large field. Historiography on transfers still requires more case studies, in particular on small Eastern and Central European countries, involving more areas and focuses in order to develop better comprehension of how soft and hard technologies cross borders, how they influence those who were engaged in transfer, what role did the transfer play in social change and other transformations. We invite researchers who are dealing with the mobility of different technologies and Cold War contexts in a multidisciplinary perspective to contribute this session project. Among other issues, we aim to comprehend the nature of technologies travelling from one social and political context to another, ways of communication between the supplier and recipient of technology, as well as the impact and roles of technology transfer in national economies as well as political, social and cultural development.
For preparing a session proposal we ask to send paper abstracts of 200-350 words and a one-page CV to Timo Myllyntaus (timmyl@utu.fi). The deadline is Thursday 13 February 2014. We compile a joint session proposal to the ICOHTEC Programme Committee. Please, visit the website of the Local Organising Committee and learn more about the ICOHTEC’s 41st Symposium in Romania. See http://www.icohtec.org/brasov2014/
Organizers: Timo Myllyntaus, University of Turku, Finland & Elena Kochetkova, European University at Saint-Petersburg, Russia.

Call no. 3
Computers and the ‘second industrial revolution’ 1945-1970
(organizer Dick van Lente)

For the meeting of the International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC), 29 July – 2 August 2014 in Brasov, Rumania, I would like to set up a panel to compare the ways in which, during the nineteen fifties and sixties, electronic computers were believed to change society in different countries.

The panel explores an aspect of the conference’s general theme, ‘Technology in times of transition’. Several prominent intellectuals in the nineteen fifties, such as C.P. Snow and Norbert Wiener, thought that electronic computing represented the core of a ‘second industrial revolution’, which would cause a social transition more profound than that created by the first one. Since computers were introduced in many countries for similar purposes, one might expect similar debates everywhere. On the other hand, different economic and political conditions as well as different cultural traditions may account for differences in reactions to, and expectations of the new technology. The panel will explore such convergences and divergences by means of a number of national case studies.

If you would like to participate, please submit your proposal to me at vanlente@eshcc.eur.nl before February 1, so that I can submit a session on February 3, which is the final deadline. (This is the original announcement, if you consider submitting your paper proposal to this symposium, please contact organizer at your earliest convenience to ask for his deadline).
Your proposal of 250-300 words should include your research question, sources and (preliminary) results. Please add your cv.

Call no. 4
Modern versus traditional?
Core and peripheries in the transport and communication infrastructural process
(organizer Simone Fari)

Proposals are sought for papers to be presented in a session entitled Modern versus traditional? Core and peripheries in the transport and communication infrastructural process, which will be submitted for the 41st annual meeting of International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC), which will be held in Brasov, Romania from 29 July to 2 August 2014. The general theme selected for the meeting is: Technology in Times of Transition.
Panel rationale: Up to now, the gaze from the core towards the periphery has been shaped by “coloniality,” whether of the classic colonialist/imperialist type, or of the more recent type governed by population experts (Boatcă 2006). This is not only the case for ‘obvious’ targets like India or Latin America, but also applies to the European fringes as the recent emotional debates around Greece and Cyprus testify. This is largely the case also in infrastructural systems, both of communication and of transport, which leads us to question the role of the concept of periphery (and its core) on infrastructural networks (defined in a very broad sense) in producing, reinforcing, smoothing, alleviating or revealing the concept of core (and cores) and periphery (peripheries).
We would like to go beyond the distinction between core and periphery as defined in terms of time (modern versus traditional; civilized versus primitive) and political agenda (progressive versus backward), and move to a more innovative approach, such as, for instance, gender (masculine versus feminine), number (cores and peripheries), and contamination (how peripheries accept, adapt and twist incoming models, and how this altered examples are bouncing back to the cores). The question, then, is: What set (and sets) this periphery apart? And are periphery and core (still used within the discipline of World History) really the right terms to indicate these differences? (Wolfe 2010)
In this vein, peripheral can have a double entendre. Peripheral can be applied geographically, in which infrastructures follow stereotyped models, which are disseminated from a geographical core to peripheries. But “peripheral” can be also understood as presence of different layers of infrastructural systems in the same place, in which some networks are hidden, marginal or silent, and others are revealed. Finally, “peripheral” can refer to under-researched investigation paths: for this proposal, for instance, we stress the need of a closer collaboration between transport historians and communication scholars.
We are especially interested in contributions that explicitly reflect on the peripheral nature of the proposed topics and approaches, so your paper can trigger a discussion on the merits and problems of the concepts used in this proposal. We also would like to invite contributions that sketch possible research projects, again with an explicit reflection on the usefulness of the proposed concepts.
If you want to contribute to the session, please contact Simone Fari fari@ugr.es and submit a 200–400-word abstract of your paper proposal and a one-page CV by Monday, February 10, 2014.
Panel organizer: Simone Fari, Affiliation: Universidad de Granada, Contact: fari@ugr.es

Call no. 5
I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen. The technology of reality in socialistic science fiction films.
(organizer Peter Koval)

For the upcoming meeting in Brasov I would like to organize a session about the somewhat paradoxical role of technology in the socialistic/Eastern European/Comecon science-fiction films between 1945 and 1989. On the one hand in the predominant interpretation of Marx in the Comecon world “the technology” was regarded as a mean of change, of transformation or “transition” towards better future. On the other hand – in the official narrative of that times – the better future have already arrived in form of socialistic system. That delineates a field of very own even if problematic interpretations of technology. The Czechoslovak film “I killed Einstein, Gentlemen” from 1970 would be a great example.

I would like to invite all researchers with the same or similar interests or “just fans” of Eastern European/socialistic sci-fi films to submit abstracts of 250-300 words and brief academic CV until 16th February 2014 to me (peter.koval@hu-berlin.de).

The topics may cover all aspects of the historical sci-fi film productions from Eastern European/socialistic countries, the comparison between East and West, or “just remembering” your own experiences as long as the technology stays in the focus of your presentation.

Call no. 6
New Uses of Old Technologies in Times of Transition: Theory and Practice of Industrial Heritage Management (Organizer Daqing Yang)

I am proposing the above-titled session for the meeting of the International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC), 29 July – 2 August 2014 in Brasov, Rumania.

Economic restructuring and globalization have often led to abandonment of old plants and other industrial and technological sites around the world. In recent years, local initiatives and/or national government encouragement have created new incarnations of old technologies as industrial museums, “creativity parks” and cultural and tourist attractions. What factors, political and economic, drive the creation of industrial heritage sites? What explains the relative “success” of some endeavors while others have produced little progress? How are we, as historians of technology and society, to evaluate these projects from a comparative perspective?

Currently we already have papers covering Japan, China, and post-Soviet Russia. We would like to invite additional papers dealing with other parts of the world, especially Central and Western Europe as well as North America.

If you are interested, please send a one-page (250-300 words) proposal and your c.v. to me at yanghist@gwu.edu.

If you are proposing a session along similar lines, let us coordinate and submit our proposals together as back-to-back sessions.

Thank you.

Daqing Yang
Department of History
George Washington University, USA

Call no. 7
The Dark Side of Technology: Technology and Illness since the Nineteenth Century
(Organizer Amelia Bonea)
I am looking for participants for a panel titled “‘The Dark Side of Technology’: Technology and Illness since the Nineteenth Century”, to be submitted to the 41st Symposium of the International Committee for the History of Technology, Braşov, Romania, 29 July-2 August 2014. More information about the symposium is available here: www.icohtec.org/brasov2014/.
The panel abstract can be found below. My own paper will discuss mobile phones and their association with cancer and infertility in contemporary India. The symposium covers all areas of the globe, so I would be keen to hear from scholars who have engaged with this topic in various geographical settings. If you are interested, please get in touch with me off list at amelia.bonea@wuhmo.ox.ac.uk. The paper abstracts should be about 200-350 words; a one-page CV will also be required for the final submission.
Thank you,
Amelia Bonea
PANEL TITLE: ‘The Dark Side of Technology’: Technology and Illness since the Nineteenth Century
ORGANIZER: Amelia Bonea (Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford)
ABSTRACT: Technology and medicine are intimately connected. Particularly since the nineteenth century, technology has often been hailed as an instrument of progress and modernization and has played a central role in the development of medical theory and practice, making diseases recognizable and curable. Yet, the invention and use of technologies has also been surrounded by scepticism and anxiety, with new technologies often generating new concerns and risks of disease. This panel will focus not on technology as a “cure” of disease, but rather on technology as a (potential) cause of physical and mental illness. We are looking for papers that will investigate health concerns associated with the proliferation and use of various technologies, from medical technology such as vaccines and medical devices to industrial technologies to technologies of transport and communication. Possible topics include, but are not limited to: epidemics and travel, medical X-rays and cancer risk, technology and mental health, occupational health problems, musculoskeletal disorders and technologies of communication. By examining case studies from a variety of geographical and socio-economic settings, the panel hopes to stimulate discussion of broader themes such as the role of technology in creating medical knowledge, risk management and the ethics of risk, but also to identify common trends and divergences in health concerns associated with technology over the last two centuries.

Amelia Bonea, Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford, amelia.bonea@wuhmo.ox.ac.uk

Call no. 8
Playing with Technology – Questions of Infrastructure
(Organizer Stefan Poser)

Research in the field ‘Playing with Technology’ ought to contribute to the development of theory in the history of technology: both technology and play have crucial functions in human life. They have strongly influenced the development of societies. Thus research in this field might open new perspectives on the question how and why people deal with technology.

The session in Brasov will focus on infrastructures of play: in which way is the environment shaped by playing? In which way were locations and regions (mainly relicts of industry) adapted for playful purposes? Contributions on other issues of the field ‘Playing with Technology’ are welcome, too.

Please contact me, submit a proposal (200-400 words) and a 1-page CV until 15 February 2014 – Thank you.
Stefan Poser, Helmut-Schmidt University, Hamburg, poser@hsu-hh.de.