Please find short bios of the speakers here.
Program
Conference Day 1: Thursday, 2 June 2022
09:00 – 09:15 Welcome and Introductory Remarks by Organizers
09:15 – 09:45 Opening Presentation Sponsored by the Botstiber Institute for
Austrian-American Studies (BIAAS)
Trudy Huskamp Peterson (USA)
“Dangerous Records: A Cold War Story”
10:00 – 11:00 Panel 1: International Organizations as Actors: Alleviating Human Suffering
Lukas Schemper (Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin,
Germany)
Disaster and the United Nations during the Cold War
Agnieszka Sobocinska (King's College London, UK)
Giving and Resisting Aid: The UN FAO Freedom from Hunger Campaign as an
Institution and at Ground Level
Chair and Comments: Elisabeth Röhrlich (University of Vienna, Austria)
11:15 – 12:45 Panel 2: Vienna in Context: Neutral Cities and International Organizations as
Bridge-building Sites (BIAAS-sponsored)
Lucile Dreidemy (University of Vienna, Austria)
The Vienna Institute for Development and Cooperation: A Case Study on the
“NGOisation” of Development and Foreign Policy in the Context of the Cold War
Liza Soutschek (RWTH Aachen University, Germany)
Arena for Cooperation and Competition in Cold War Science: The Vienna International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and East and West Germany
Barbara Hof (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Window to the East. CERN and the Expansion of Scientific Collaboration across the
Iron Curtain
Chair and Comments: Glenda Sluga (European University Institute)
12:45 – 14:45 lunch (for participants only)
Solo Pizza e Birra, Spitalgasse 2, 1090 Wien
14:45 – 16:15 Panel 3.1: US Dominance in International Organizations? (BIAAS-sponsored)
Chair: Jessica Reinisch (Birkbeck College, UK)
Ljubica Spaskovska (University of Exeter, UK) [via Zoom?]
‘Infrastructure for Co-operation’? – Visions of Internationalism and Development
beyond the Cold War Divide
Michel Christian (Geneva University, Switzerland)
The Paris “Centre International de l’Enfance” between East and West
Marek Eby (New York University, USA)
Cold War Form, Internationalist Content? The Martsinovskii Institute in the
Transnational Networks of the WHO
Comments: Bogdan Iacob (Romanian Academy/SNSPA, Bucharest, Romania)
16:30 – 18:00 Panel 3.2: US Dominance in International Organizations? (BIAAS-sponsored)
Chair: Monika Baár (Leiden University, Netherlands)
Chris Dietrich (Fordham University, USA) [via Zoom]
Ralph Bunche, the Cold War, and the Battle over Trusteeship, 1934-1948
Sarah Nelson (Southern Methodist University Dallas, USA)
"‘Regenerate, but Unreformed?’ The International Telecommunications Union, the
United Nations, and the Making of Technocratic Internationalism(s) in the Early
Cold War, 1945-1947”
Henning Türk (Bonn University, Germany)
International Organizations as Mediators in the Western Camp: The International
Energy Agency and the Gas-pipeline Sanctions between 1981 and 1984
Comments: Martin Rempe (University of Konstanz, Germany)
19:00 Reception (for participants only)
K.u.K. Piaristenkeller, Piaristengasse 45, 1080 Wien
Conference Day 2: Friday, 3 June 2022
10:00 - 11:30 Panel 4: Negotiating Decolonization
Daniel Gorman (University of Waterloo, Canada)
Experiments in Conciliation: The UN, Kashmir, and Decolonization
Lydia Walker (Leiden University, The Netherlands)
The Cold War Trap: The United Nations and the Specter of Katanga
Christian Methfessel (Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History Berlin, Germany)
Territorial Conflicts on the World Stage: International Organizations, the “Third
World,” and the Global Cold War
Chair and Comments: Marcia Schenck (University of Potsdam, Germany)
11:45 - 13:45 lunch (for participants only)
(on site)
13:45 – 15:15 Panel 5: Actors in International Organizations and the Production of
Expertise
Katja Castryck-Naumann (Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of
Eastern Europe Leipzig, Germany):
Polish Economists in the UN Secretariat: Expertise, Political Agendas, and Networks
(1945-1960s)
Mikuláš Pešta (Charles University Prague, Czech Republic), Matthieu Gillabert
(University of Fribourg, Switzerland)
International Union of Students: Strategies of Legitimization from Prague to the
Global Cold War
Yi-Tang Lin (Geneva University, Switzerland) [via Zoom]
Catch up to Western Science or Export the Chinese Model? Chinese Experts and the
United Nations in the 1970s
Chair and Comments: Sandrine Kott (University of Geneva)
15:30 – 16:30 Panel 6: International Law: Human and Cultural Rights
Debbie Sharnak (Rowan University, USA) [via Zoom]
The UN Human Rights Commission and the Case of Uruguay
Ioana Cîrstocea (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France)
Before “Gender Mainstreaming”: Cold War Roots of the Global Women’s Rights
Agendas
Chair & Comments: Ned Richardson-Little (Erfurt University, Germany)
16:45 – 17:15 Concluding Discussion
Chair: Ellen Ravndal (University of Stavanger, Norway)
Discussants: Federico Romero (European University Institute), Glenda Sluga
(European University Institute), Monika Baár (Leiden University, Netherlands)
19:00 Conference Dinner (for participants only)
Glacis Beisl,Breite Gasse 4, 1070 Wien
The symposium is generously supported by the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies, the Vienna Meeting Fund, the Österreichische Forschungsgemeinschaft (ÖFG), the Department of Development Studies, the Department of History and the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Science of the University of Vienna and the Department of History of the University of Geneva.
