Serendipities. Journal for the Sociology and History of the Social Sciences

Academic Mobility and Epistemological Change in State Socialist Romania

2021-04-30T20:16:08+02:00

This article explores the connection between academic mobility, epistemological change, and generational belonging in state socialist Romania. Drawing on insights from intellectual history and recent literature on the use of generation as an analytical concept for the study of state socialism, it addresses academic mobility both as a generation-defining experience and a source of epistemological change. On the issue of generations, it reviews the types of academic mobility available and their roles in the careers of social scientists trained before 1945, in the early 1950s, and after the re-institutionalization of sociology in 1966. Across these three generations, this article analyzes how academic mobility was reflected in the knowledge produced on one theme in particular: quality of life. Empirical and theoretical research on quality of life in Romania was carried out under the umbrella of futurology (early 1970s), socialist modes of living/lifestyle studies (late 1970s–early 1980s), and finally demography and migration studies (1980s).

The Social Sciences in Hungary During the Cold War and After

2021-04-30T20:19:57+02:00

Based on various types of recently explored empirical evidence, this study attempts to account for the complex and ever-changing relationship the social sciences in Hungary have entertained with their foreign counterparts, both institutionally and through their intellectual references since their birth in the early 20^th century. Historically, up until Communist times, Hungary was a German intellectual colony of sorts while remaining receptive mostly to French and other influences as well. This changed fundamentally after 1948 with the process of Sovietization. This implied the outright institutional suppression of several social disciplines (sociology, demography, political science, and psychoanalysis) and the forceful intellectual realignment of others along Marxist lines. Contacts with the West were also suspended and the exclusive orientation to Soviet social science enforced throughout the long 1950s. A thaw period after this attempt at Russian cultural colonization followed the years after the 1956 anti-Bolshevik uprising. From 1963 on, the Hungarian social sciences saw the reestablishment and state-supported promotion of disciplines that were suppressed earlier, the softening of the ascendancy of official Marxism, and the opening of channels of exchange with the West. In spite of the continuation of political censorship, ideological surveillance, and occasional expulsion of politically dissident scholars until 1989, Hungarian social scientists could benefit more often and intensively from Western sponsorship (such as study grants from the Ford foundation) and collaborations. After the fall of Communism, the expansion and reorientation of the social sciences to the West, dominated by Anglo-Saxon contacts, are demonstrated by various indices, such as data on the book market of the social sciences and books purchased by libraries, translated, or cited in major reviews.

Not only scholarships

2021-04-29T16:36:46+02:00

This paper deals with the Ford Foundation’s support for sociology in Poland, especially with its influence on the development of the social research in this country. It is based on materials from both American and local archives—sources which have never before been combined. The role of the Ford scholarships for Polish scholars is relatively well known, but this paper covers two less known aspects of the Foundation’s activity—funding American sociologists’ visits to Poland and the material support for local libraries and statistical laboratories. The American visitors were neither numerous, nor was their role particularly significant, except one: Herbert Menzel, who spent almost a year in Poland, helping to spread the know-how of quantitative social research. The Ford Foundation also supported libraries and helped to equip the statistical research lab of the Institute of Sociology of the Polish Academy of Science, tripling the technical base of quantitative social research in this country. Although Polish empirical sociology was successful and Poland became the center of empirical research in Eastern Europe for a while, Poles were hardly able to spread it all over the region on their own, as they were dependent on Western support.

Why Geography in Poland Has Never Radicalized

2021-04-30T20:23:50+02:00

This paper deals with the role of social sciences, and more specifically of geography and regional planning, in the legitimization of European integration and neo-liberal economic and social reforms introduced since 1989 in Poland and, more broadly, in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. Using the example of an intellectual biography of Antoni Kukliński, one of the most prominent Polish geographers, the role of the old intelligentsia elite and its American professional experiences in the evolution of the Polish academia is also analyzed, as well as its involvement in the first non-communist government. The paper also discusses the absence of critical schools within the field of Polish geography as well as other disciplines of social sciences. This is done though the reconstruction of the basic structure of the given academic field and its evolution over time from late communist period to present days. This specific structure of the field of Polish geography, which as it is argued is similar to other fields of social sciences and humanities in Poland, also helps to better contextualize the trajectory of Kukliński.

Academic Exchange and Internationality in East European Social Science

2021-07-09T15:28:35+02:00

Editorial for special issue

Bessner: Democracy in Exile

2021-07-09T16:31:05+02:00

Book review of:

Bessner, Daniel (2018) Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
312 pp.
ISBN: 9780801453038
Price: $35,00

Wagner: Bauman

2021-07-09T16:38:16+02:00

Book review of:

Wagner, Izabela (2020) Bauman: A Biography. Cambridge: Polity Press
510 pp.
ISBN: 978-1-5095-2686-4
Price: £25,00

Vannier: La sociologie en toutes lettres

2021-07-09T16:45:19+02:00

Book review of:

Vannier, Patricia (Ed.) (2019) La sociologie en toutes lettres: L’histoire de la discipline à travers les correspondances. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Midi
284 pp.
ISBN: 978-2810706228
Price: €23,00