Soviet States and Beyond: Political Epistemologies of/and Marxism 1917-1945-1968

/ Termine

Soviet States and Beyond: Political Epistemologies of/and Marxism 1917-1945-1968

Veranstalter
Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities; National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow; Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt; Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO), Leipzig
Veranstaltungsort
Myasnickaya Street 20
Ort
Moscow
Land
Russian Federation
Vom - Bis
21.06.2018 - 22.06.2018
Website
https://igiti.hse.ru/en/announcements/219519611.html
Von
Surman, Jan

The October Revolution of 1917 proclaimed the rise of a new society based on the Marxist(-Leninist) philosophy. Dialectics, materialism, proletarianism etc. have since then dominated Soviet discussions in arts, scholarship, sciences etc. However, the epistemic questioning of the boundaries between science, ideology, politics – but also between science and arts, or between science and technology – could now immediately effect changes in legislation,education, or administration. Yet, Marxist epistemology still transgressed Soviet territories,since discussions of Marxism and its intellectual importance were carried out from Paris to Peking, from Almaty to Avenida Viena. After 1945, new geopolitical conditions gave power to certain Central European Marxisms. Clearly, both continuities, but also breaks occurred to the whole intellectual sphere on personal, social, epistemic etc. levels, influencing not only the Soviet Union but the whole globe.
Our conference concentrates on the political epistemologies of broadly understood intellectuals – in the first place scholars and scientists, but also artists or literati. Following Yehuda Elkana’s ideas on “anthropology of knowledge,” and Karl Mannheim’s description of epistemologies as “aspect structures,” we concentrate on the question how individual and collective epistemologies were structured by, and at the same structured political attitudes of intellectuals, scholars or scientists, but also artists and literati. Accepting the malleability and interchangeability of what we analytically describe as cultural, social, political etc., we want to inquire how these categories, with their key epistemic concepts, like truth, proof, experiment, but also critical intervention or autonomy, were framed and also how they informed the identity building of individuals and groups intending to represent them.
With a wide range of examples, from the sciences and the newly appearing projects of a “science of science”, through arts to a broader intellectual and academic sphere, we encourage interdisciplinary approaches. This should bring together aspects Marxism intended to amalgamate and which since the demise of Marxism grew apart. At the same time, looking at the ways Marxist epistemology was differently appropriated and contested, allows us to bring forward its specificity and the specificity of approaches adjacent or contesting.
The conference is a second event of a series of meetings on (Eastern) European Epistemologies. The first meeting, “Political Epistemologies of Eastern Europe,” took place in Erfurt in November 2017, the third will be held in Erfurt in October 2018 (“A New Culture of Truth? On the Transformation of Political Epistemologies since the 1960s“).

Programm

Thurdsay, 21 June 2018, Myasnickaya 20, aud. 311

10:00-10:30 Opening

10:30-12:00 Soviet Science Studies and Their Politics (Chair Dietlind Hüchtker)
Alexander Dmitriev, IGITI HSE: Beyond Boris Hessen: New History and Philosophy of Science in Early Soviet Union
Igor Kaufmann, St. Petersburg State University: Epistemic Programme(s) of the Soviet Science Studies: something old, something new, something bizarre

12:00-13:00 Lunch Break

13:00-14:30 Science Studies in East and West before WWII (Chair Friedrich Cain)
Daria Drozdova, School of Philosophy, HSE: Historicizing Science: Soviet and Italian Interwar Projects in Comparison
Karl Hall, Central European University, Budapest: Sarton’s Rivals: Disciplinary Dilemmas of History of Science circa 1931

14:30-15:00 Coffee Break

15:00-16:30 Science in the Public Sphere (Chair Daria Petushkova)
Geert Somsen, Maastricht University: The Epistemology of Popularization: British ‘Scientific Journalists’ and the Soviet Model
Jan Surman, IGITI HSE: The Architecture of Science between Geneva and Moscow

16:30-17:00 Coffee Break

17:00-17:45 Political Epistemology and Literature (Chair Alexander Dmitriev)
Galina Babak, Charles University, Prague: Literary Theory, Formalism and Marxism in Ukrainian Cultural Revival of 1920s

17:45-18:00 Coffee Break

18:00-19:00 Political epistemology of Arts: A roundtable (Chair Alexander Dmitriev)
Ilia Kukulin, School of Cultural Studies, HSE
Angelina Lucento, School of History, HSE
Michał Murawski, HSE/University of London

Friday, 22 June 2018, Myasnickaya 20, aud. 518

10:00-11:30 Keynote Lecture (Chair Jan Surman)

Anna Echterhölter, University of Vienna: Relational Measures. Witold Kula’s Political Epistemology of Measurement Fades to the West

11:30-12:00 Coffee Break

12:00-12:45 Political Epistemology of Sociology (Chair Jan Surman)
Aleksei Lokhmatov, University of Cologne: The “Scientific View” of Continuity in the Public Discussion after World War II (1945-1948)

12:45-14:00 Lunch Break

14:00-15:30 Science of Science (Dis)Entangled (Chair Christopher Donohue)
Friedrich Cain, Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt: The Fear of Empty Signifiers. On the (Dis)entanglement of Soviet, German and Other Sciences of Sciences
Sascha Freyberg, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin: Experiment and Finalization: Science of Science in Society 1968

15:30-16:00 Coffee Break

16:00-17:30 Epistemologies of Intellectuals (Chair Geert Somsen)
Daria Petushkova, IGITI HSE: La (auto)formation des Clercs. Self-fashioning of the French Intellectuals in the Interwar.
Alexander Bikbov, Moscow State University: Constructing Progress in USSR, Making Revolutions in France: Swapping agendas around 1968

17:30-18:00 Coffee Break

18:00-19:00 Concluding Discussion (Chairs Jan Surman, Alexander Dmitriev)
Dietlind Hüchtker, GWZO
Rossen Djagalov, IGITI HSE/New York University
Christopher Donohue, National Human Genome Research Institute, Bethesda

Kontakt

Jan Surman

Staraya Basmannaya 21/4, building 'L', room 503a
Moscow, 127051
+79858966455

jan.surman@gmail.com

https://igiti.hse.ru/en/announcements/219519611.html