Print

Print


*Dear Colleagues,​we are please to announce that ​ the call for our two
stage workshop on Nuclear Diplomacies has been posted and can be found
here https://nucleardiplomacies.weebly.com/
<https://nucleardiplomacies.weebly.com/> Please see also below. The first
meeting will be in Japan, November 9-11, 2018. The deadline for submissions
is February 15, 2018. yours sincerely Maria Rentetzi and Kenji Ito ​Nuclear
Diplomacies: Their Past, Present, and Future.*
*Two-stage workshop*



a. SOKENDAI’s Hayama Campus in Kanagawa, *Japan*, November
​9-11,  2018

b. National Technical University of Athens, *Greece*, June 2019



*editorial sponsorship: History + Technology, *an international journal
supported by the History Department of Drexel University





Responding to the recent North Korea crisis the US President Donald Trump
tweeted on August 30, 2017 that “talking is not the answer.” Minutes later
the US Defense Secretary James Mattis argued to reporters, contradicting
President Trump’s statement that “We’re never out of diplomatic solutions.”
While the president undermines the role of diplomacy, diplomats and
scientists remind us in the blandest way the power of science diplomacy, one
of the emerging key elements of the Cold War era.

A turning point in the global socio-economic environment for science and
technology, the Cold War has been strongly connected to the rapid growth of
government and military spending on research and development; the
development of closer ties between the military and the academia; the
proliferation of large scale research projects. It was the time that
international relations began to play even more significant roles in
shaping science and technology than before, highlighting the role of
diplomacy in resolving political conflicts among nations with an emphasis
on those dealing with nuclear energy and military programs.

But although for scientists international collaborations have long been
constitutive and natural part of their work even in periods of intense
political upheavals, to diplomats and policy makers the institutional link
of science to diplomacy has been fairly new. In 2009 in a founding text the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) described
science diplomacy through three types of activities: a. science informs
issues of diplomatic concern (science in diplomacy); b. diplomacy
facilitates scientific cooperation on an international level (diplomacy for
science) and c. science functions as a diplomatic tool when other
diplomatic mechanisms fail (science for diplomacy). A year later the
British Royal Society organized a landmark meeting in collaboration to the
AAAS enforcing the idea that although science diplomacy is not new, it has
never been more important. Given the recent US-North Korean conflict over
the latter’s nuclear program, nuclear diplomacy emerges once again as key
in international relations.



This workshop seeks to bring together scholars working on the history of
nuclear sciences and the role of international organizations in shaping
nuclear diplomacy; diplomatic historians and political scientists focusing
on the ways nuclear scientists and engineers have contributed, and,
continue to do so, in international negotiations. We are interested in
papers employing historical, philosophical, sociological methods and
methodological tools from political sciences and international relations in
order to

a. investigate the notion of nuclear diplomacy/ies and explore its various
aspects including diplomacy concerning nuclear energy production as well as
the circulation of related knowledge and materials.

b. critically analyze those national, political,economic, and technological
interests that have shaped nuclear diplomacies throughout the post World
War Period (without excluding earlier instances of nuclear diplomacies)

c. understand the significance of nuclear diplomacies in today’s
international geopolitical order and their future evolvement.

Possible topics include, but not limited to, nuclear diplomacy in and
around international organizations such as IAEA; bilateral negotiations as
well as public diplomacy in relation to exchange of material and human
resources; science diplomacy concerning radiation protection, nuclear
safeguards, and technical assistance programs; and the historical role of
diplomats and science/technical experts in negotiating nuclear agreements.

This workshop is also concerned with the historical formulation of nuclear
issues as a discrete diplomatic and cultural concern. This concern may
point to conducts beyond the official actions of institutions and states,
and the possibility of yet to be identified material and discursive factors
in those conducts. We welcome papers examining historically indeterminate
nature of nuclear knowledge, subjects, and power.



The first workshop takes place in SOKENDAI’s Hayama Campus in Kanagawa,
Japan, which is located approximately two hours from the Haneda Airport.
Accommodations and meals will be provided, but participants are responsible
to fund their transportation.

Paper proposals (no more than 400 words) are due *February 15th, 2018.*
Participants will be notified by *mid-March 2018*. Those accepted are
expected to submit full *first draft papers on August 30, 2018*.

A second-follow up workshop will take place in *June 2019* in Athens,
Greece where full papers are expected to be submitted and presented. The
two workshops will lead to the publication of a peer review collected
volume.



Launching a pilot effort we call *editorial sponsorship*, the editors
of *History
+ Technology* will provide editorial support during the two workshops, with
the aim of helping participants produce manuscripts for a special issue of
the journal based on the project’s themes, and for submission to other
publications.





For inquiries, please contact:

Maria Rentetzi [log in to unmask]

Kenji Ito [log in to unmask]

-- 
Maria Rentetzi
National Technical University of Athens

Associate Professor in History and Sociology of Science and Technology
ERC Consolidator Grantee

President of the Gender Commission of DHST (2017-2021)
International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science

http://mariarentetzi.weebly.com/