CfA // Call for Articles: "Scientific Discourses in Media and Visual Representations of Epistemic Shifts during Cold War"

Scope of the Special Issue:

This special issue brings together trans- and interdisciplinary research on epistemic shifts and the history of knowledge during the Cold War in order to reflect on ways, in which scientific discourses were adapted in or critiqued by media, theater, and film. The contributions scrutinize forms of epistemic shifts and knowledge building in a range of media, such as research and educational films, documentaries, drama and novels, the sci-fi genre, as well as print media. In doing this, the papers demonstrate how entangled epistemic knowledge and science history are and approach them from a qualitatively new perspectives of contemporary history.

The issue tackles such questions as:What was the effect of media-based scientific discourses on society and public discourse in general? How did knowledge transfer and production function in the FRG and the GDR, as well as in other non-European countries and world regions? What was the importance and influence of mass media, popular science discourses and their transformations in knowledge building processes?

Above all, this special issue aims to display an array of methods and approaches from cultural studies, to history of science and philosophy, to media and theater studies. We are seeking papers focusing, but not limited, on:
- knowledge production and the history of knowledge within media products in the
US, Soviet Union, as well as Europe of the Cold War, and non-European regions;
- comparative approaches and transfer of scientific ideas within migration, exile, and
transnational occupational networks and their impact on various disciplines
(experiences of scientists in exile, remigration of science staff and researchers after
1945; etc.);
- institutional histories of science organizations and their strategic use of media and policy making during the Cold War;
- scientific discourse within media products and media representations of science (e.g. non-fictional and fictional genres, theater, film, television, print media and architectural as well as spatial media representations);
- relations of media products and scientific organization in the context of Cold War ideologies (e.g. competition within scientific field like the space race, brain drain of intellectuals and emigration waves, dual-use policy and nuclear rearmament)
- PR and journalism and communication strategies of scientific organizations during the Cold War;
- media and public discourses on science and their relations to politics and their impact on block confrontation.

The interdisciplinary special issue will be published in Fall 2021 in the Journal for the History of Knowledge (an open access online journal).

Please submit your proposal consisting of an abstract (350-500 words) and a short bio (100-150 words) by 6 December 2019 to Juliane Scholz (jscholz@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de) and Mariana Ivanova (mzivanova@umass.edu.)