Dear colleagues

please see below a call for paper proposals for the upcoming ESHS conference in Bologna.

https://sites.google.com/view/eshsbologna2020/call-for-symposia?authuser=0

Acting with Images and Objects:

The Political Epistemology of Mobile Atomic Exhibitions

Symposium proposal to be submitted to the ESHS 2020 Conference in Bologna (https://sites.google.com/view/eshsbologna2020/home)

Our starting point is the assumption that scientific knowledge produced especially after the second half of the 20^th century has been situated in a strongly political context. Politics and diplomacy have been historically linked not only to new geopolitical orders but also to the emergence of new structures of knowledge, concepts, scientific practices and actors. These phenomena are prime candidates for epistemological investigation. This panel brings front and center a version of political epistemology that explores scientific images and objects as political instruments, which in turn affect, as such, scientific practice. The focus is on atomic exhibitions and on their mobility as an epistemic-cum-political virtue.

Historians of science have recently recognized the power of exhibitions to engage the public in the production of knowledge (i.e. Kohlstedt 2010; Rader and Cain, 2014). Exhibitions, however, have the potential to do much more. They make political statements; they become sites for the visualization of different social futures (Molella and Knowles, 2019); they represent fertile spaces for diplomatic negotiations (Rentetzi, forthcoming). Despite the vital role of exhibitions in the production of knowledge and the formation of political worldviews, there is hardly any work on the historical role of atomic mobile exhibitions in shaping nuclear science and politics.

“Acting with images and objects” is an attempt to highlight the decisive role of mobility in the postwar period, especially for the international organizations that were keen to spread images of a common atomic future worldwide and in so doing to shape local scientific cultures.

We are seeking papers that combine an interest in global and transnational histories of atomic exhibitions with their epistemic and political cultures. As we acknowledge the epistemic value of images and objects, we invite proposals that discuss how mobile atomic exhibitions such as those designed by the UN and its related organizations or any national attempts to exhibit the atom such as US’s Man and the Atom, and Atoms for Peace, defined nuclear futures. We are keen to receive proposals that emphasize the role of atomic exhibitions not only in Europe but in Latin America, Asia, and Africa as well.

Please send your abstracts (300 words) with a cv (150 words) to Maria Rentetzi ([log in to unmask] ) by December 5, 2019.

Cited literature:

Kohlstedt, Sally. "Place and Museum Space: The Smithsonian Institution and the America West, 1850-1900"  in Livingstone, David and Charles Withers (eds) Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Science, 399-437. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.

Rader, Karen and Cain, Victoria. Life on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of Science and Natural History. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 2014.

Molella, Arthur and Knowles, Scott Gabriel (eds) World's Fairs in the Cold War: Science, Technology, and the Culture of Progress. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 2019.

Rentetzi, Maria. “ ‘Nuclear Classroom on Wheels’ as a Diplomatic Gift: The IAEA’s Mobile Radioisotope Laboratories” Centaurus, forthcoming.

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