STEP - Science and Technology in the European Periphery

Public Hygiene in Central and Eastern Europe, 1800 – 1940

Public hygiene can be broadly understood as concepts and practices aiming at strengthening or reconstituting the health of individuals as
parts of a collective. It has been described as a tool of power
applied upon subaltern bodies and as biopolitics, disciplining
individuals to subdue themselves to certain medical and hygienic
practices. The history of public hygiene has also been closely
intertwined with the construction of a social, national or racial
‘other’, (violently) excluded from a hygienically ‘clean’ inner
circle. Hygienic rule (in a Foucauldian sense), however, next to
disciplining elements, also implies techniques of stimulating
individuals to hygienic technologies of the self.
Cultural history has shown an increasing interest in the entanglement
of ruling techniques and medical knowledge and practices, yet
empirical studies on the subject concentrate mostly on ‘Western’ cases
or on the overseas colonies. The history of medicine and public health
in the regions of Central and Eastern Europe has so far gained only
little scholarly attention. For this reason we would like to bring
together, for the first time, scholars working on various aspects of
hygiene in Eastern/Central Europe in the 19th and early 20th century
for an international workshop. The workshop is supposed to be a forum
for the discussion of work in progress on related subjects; the aim is
to enhance academic contact within and beyond Eastern/Central Europe.
Doctoral and post-doctoral students of hygiene are particularly
encouraged to apply. Participants will be asked to give a short
presentation (c. 15-20 minutes) at the conference and to circulate
their papers in advance. To apply for the workshop, please send an
abstract of your paper (1 page) and a CV to Katharina Kreuder-Sonnen
(Katharina.Kreuder-Sonnen@gcsc.uni-giessen.de) or Andreas Renner
(Andreas.Renner@ifog.uni-tuebingen.de) by 30 June 2011 at the latest.
Travel expenses may be reimbursed.

Papers on discourses, institutions, organisations and opponents of
public hygiene, political and scientific practices as well as hygienic
technologies of the self are welcome. However, the following points
seem of special interest to us.

1. The role of hygiene in the rule of empires
What kind of hygienic knowledge was produced and used in order to rule
an empire? Who were the carriers and propagators of such hygienic
knowledge? Of further interest is also the question of how the
multiethnic character of the Habsburg, Ottoman and Tsarist Empires
influenced imperial hygienic rule: In what way did metropolitan
hygienic knowledge interact with local (ethnically or religiously
based) knowledge and practices on health and medicine and what were
the practices of resistance against hygienic governing? Can
differences to hygienic rule be observed in supposedly homogeneous
nation states? What does the comparison of hygienic rule in different
empires tell us about the role of medical knowledge in imperial
governance?

2. Hygiene as travelling knowledge
Knowledge on public hygiene in Central and Eastern Europe has been
produced in exchange with ‘Western’ ideas on medicine and health. In
what forms did this exchange take place in the period of time under
consideration and who were the carriers of travelling hygienic
knowledge? How did ‘Western’ and local knowledge interact in this
transnational setting of knowledge production? In the 20th century
international organizations like the Office International d’Hygiène
Publique, the League of Nations and the Rockefeller Foundations played
an important role in the international transfer of knowledge.
Furthermore, the workshop would also like to follow the paths of
travelling knowledge within the region of Central and Eastern Europe.

3. War and hygiene
Wars threaten to destroy both military and civilian regimes of
hygiene. How have the challenges of war been met, what kind of medical
rules for physical and mental conduct were set up and by whom? How did
physicians and other experts of hygiene experience times of war and
revolution in East/Central Europe? In which respects did military
hygiene influence civilian hygiene – and vice versa? Did wars boost
the international discourse on hygiene (like the Russo-Japanese war)
or rather lead to nationally fragmented discourses?

4. Building socialism or nation states after 1918
How was public hygiene involved in the processes of building up
‘modern’ states in the post-Habsburg and post-Ottoman region after
World War One? What were the institutions of public or – in this case
– state hygiene in these young states? What role did public hygiene
play in the ‘inner colonization’ of the Soviet Union? Were there any
continuities with pre-Soviet forms of imperial hygienic rule? How was
hygiene involved in Soviet social engineering and the construction of
“new men”?

The workshop will take place from 13 – 15 January 2012 in Gießen, at
the Justus Liebig University, Institute for the History of Medicine,
Jheringstr. 6.

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PD Dr. Andreas Renner
Universität Tübingen
Institut für Osteuropäische Geschichte und Landeskunde
Wilhelmstr. 36
72074 Tübingen
Tel 07071 2972393
Fax 07071 292391

http://www.osteuropa.uni-tuebingen.de/