ALTERNATIVE ENCOUNTERS: THE “SECOND WORLD” AND THE “GLOBAL SOUTH”, 1945-1991
Location: Imre Kertész Kolleg, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena
3–4 NOVEMBER 2014
***A collaboration between the Imre Kertész Kolleg, Friedrich Schiller University Jena; the Centre for Area Studies, University of Leipzig; and the Centre of Imperial & Global History, University of Exeter. Supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung and Friedrich Schiller University Jena***
Enquiries about attendance should be sent to: imre-kertesz-kolleg@uni-jena.de
In the post-war period, as decolonization accelerated, new linkages opened up, and existing ties were remade, between the so-called ‘Second World’ (from the Soviet Union to the GDR) and the ‘Global South’ (from Latin America to Africa to Asia). Contacts multiplied through, for instance, the development of political linkages; economic development and aid; health and cultural and academic projects; as well as military interventions. Yet these important encounters, and their impacts on national, regional and global histories, have hitherto only played a marginal role in accounts of late 20th century globalization, which have mainly focused on links between the West and former colonies, or between the countries of the ‘Global South’. There is still little study of the interaction between these areas, where commonly shared – and contested – beliefs in the power of socialist modernization and anti-imperial culture opened up possibilities of meaningful transfers during the Cold War and its aftermath. This conference seeks to address this lacuna, by bringing together specialists working on forms of exchange, intervention and subjugation. In doing so, it seeks to provide new insights into the global circulation of ideas during the Cold War, and explore ‘the socialist world’ as a dynamic hub of global interactions during the second half of the twentieth century.
MONDAY 3 NOVEMBER
9:30 AM Opening/Welcome
9:45 AM
I: CONCEPTS: GLOBALISATIONS, GLOBAL CIRCULATION, AND THE SOCIALIST WORLD SYSTEM
Jonas Flury (Bern), The Idea of a Socialist World System 1950s–1970s. Conceiving an Alternative Global system; Theories of Growing Interconnectedness and Exchange in the Socialist World
Oscar Sanchez-Sibony (Macau), An Economic Cold War? The Soviet Union and the Decolonization Vortex
Artemy M. Kalinovsky (Amsterdam), Colony, Model, Colony: Soviet Central Asia and Cold War Development
Bogdan C. Iacob (Bucharest), From Periphery to Cardinal Borderland: The Balkans into UNESCO
1:00 PM
II: ECONOMIC KNOWLEDGE BETWEEN “EAST” AND “SOUTH”
Massimiliano Trentin (Bologna), “Tough Negotiations”: The Partnership Between the German Democratic Republic and B’athist Syria, 1963–1970
Małgorzata Mazurek (New York), Bandung Economics: Polish Economic Advisors in India 1955–1960
Berthold Unfried (Vienna), Encounters and Transfers Between GDR Development Workers and Their African Counterparts
Iris Borowy (Aachen), Translating Health: The GDR and Medical Security in Ethiopia and Nicaragua
3:30 PM
III: INTELLECTUAL CULTURES AND EXCHANGE
Łukasz Stanek (Manchester), Tropical Modernism and Socialist Internationalism: The Case of Ghana National Construction Corporation, 1960–1966
Andreas Butter (Dessau) and Christoph Bernhardt (Darmstadt), Networking Across the Iron Curtain, Competing For the Global South: The International Union of Architects (UIA) and the Export of East-German Socialist Architecture to the Global South, 1949–1989
Christine Varga-Harris (Normal, IL), Orientalism, Soviet-Style: Cultural Exchange and the Inevitability of Communism in the World of Soviet Woman
5:15 PM
KEYNOTE : Professor Andreas Eckert
/////////////
TUESDAY 4 NOVEMBER
10:00 AM
IV: ASIA AND THE ‘SECOND WORLD’
Jan Zofka (Leipzig), China as a Role Model? Transnational Power Relations and Economic Regulation in the “Socialist World” Seen Through the Great Leap Forward in Bulgaria
Péter Vámos (Budapest), China and the Eastern Bloc in the Global South
Hanna Jansen (Amsterdam), Soviet Oriental Studies as a Platform to Negotiate Asian Relations and Identities
1:15 PM
V: ENCOUNTERS: CONSTRUCTING SIMILARITY AND DIFFERENCE
Quinn Slobodian (Wellesley), Hate and Rainbows: Race Repertoires in the GDR
Sara Pugach (Los Angeles), Seeking Scientific Education – and Modernity – in the Soviet Bloc: Nigerian Students in 1950s East Germany
Péter Apor (Budapest) and James Mark (Exeter), Encountering Latin America in Socialist Hungary 1956-1989
3 PM
VI: THE ‘GLOBAL SOUTH’ AND CHALLENGES TO STATE SOCIALISM
Vladimir Boyko (Altai), Soviet-Afghan Discoveries in the 1920s–1970s: Diplomacy, Intelligence, and Scholarship
Kim Christiaens & Idesbald Goddeeris (Leuven), Solidarność and the Global South
Piotr Wciślik (Budapest), Non-Violence and Double Standards: Solidarity with Fighting Afghanistan in Late-Dissident Poland
4:45 PM, Final Discussion
EARLY CAREER/PHD ‘POSTER PRESENTATIONS’
Dan Gashler (Binghamton), Reimagining Slovenia’s National Liberation War, in Vietnam: Understanding the Chaos of 1968
Yulia Gradskova (Stockholm), The Soviet Education of Internationalism Between “Othering” and “Bringing Closer”: The Case of Latin America
Ljubica Spaskovska (Exeter), “We Have Gathered From All Continents of the Globe…” – Cold War Youth Encounters in Late Socialism
Kamil Szmid (Poznań), A Communist Journalist in the Midst of Political Transformation: Ryszard Kapuściński’s Travels Through Africa.
Bálint Tolmár (Budapest), Labor Migration between Eastern Europe and the Third World: The Case of Cuban Temporary Workers in Socialist Hungary, 1980-1988
Natalia Telepneva (London),The Soviet Union and the Development of the “Embryo State” in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau, 1967-1970
Imre Kertész Kolleg
University of Jena
Email: imre-kertesz-kolleg@uni-jena.de
Visit the website at http://www.imre-kertesz-kolleg.uni-jena.de/
