Conference: Dark Matters: Contents and Discontents of Cold War Science

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

States are known to play a critical role in shaping scientific research. Inaccuracies in how states and science intersect can mischaracterize relationships between science and power, incorrectly treat contemporary state-science interactions as thoroughly innovative breaks with the past, and draw attention away from non-state actors in shaping science. To understand state-science relationships, social scientists, policymakers, and historians of science have relied heavily on a conceptualization of science and states in the decades following the second world war known as cold war science. In this characterization, the conflict between the USSR and the US was the critical determinant of state-science relations, and consequently, when the cold war ended, science-state relations changed dramatically. Analysts of cold war science have recently raised questions about this framework, and have shed new light on how long-term and durable geopolitical trends, including decolonization and the evolution of an internationalist world order, have shaped and continue to shape science. The goal of this conference is to build on this recent scholarship by bringing together a wide range of analysts of science and power to exchange new global perspectives, share new knowledge of the complex dynamics of knowledge and power, and to investigate cultural dimensions of scientific inquiry, in order to enhance understanding of science in the cold war, question the basic validity of the cold war framework, and generate new insights about long-term science-state-power relationships. The Dark Matters conference offers a rare opportunity for scholars working on diverse national, regional, organizational, and disciplinary contexts to cross the boundaries of specialization, encourage cross-fertilization of ideas, and foster collaborative research in the future. Conference papers are incorporated into an edited volume accessible to students and that serves as resource for established analysts of science studies, science policy, and history of science.