STEP - Science and Technology in the European Periphery

Call for Papers

POLITICS AND DRUGS. Pharmaceutical research and drug management in Post-WWII and Cold War Europe.

Rome, 29-30 November 2012

Venue: Section of History of Medicine, University of Rome La Sapienza,

Workshop supported by ESF DRUGS Network Research Networking Programme (drughistory.eu)

The aim of the workshop is to explore the relation between the political environment and the creation of drug standards for production, management and clinical use. Public policies with regard to drugs were subject to strong political pressure in the Post-war scenario, increasingly so with the onset of the Cold War. In this context, Drugs (and the whole high-tech industry surrounding them) were also used as instruments of political influence and prestige. Philanthropic foundations, governmental activities, international organizations, as well as individual initiatives, shaped the role of the new "wonder drugs" available after WWII (antibiotics, psychoactive compounds, antimalarial drugs). Pharmaceutics increasingly became a part of a larger complex, encompassing science, politics and economics. This process led to the creation, in the diverse cultural and political environments, of different standards for drugs, affecting the circulation of information and technology, the use of drugs in clinical practice, as well as their role in public health policies.

Possible issues to be addressed in the workshop: Pharmaceutical research and management in different political environments; Marketing standards: black market, national production, international economy; Circulation of knowledge and people; International institutions and pharmaceutics.

The workshop is intended to gather historians working on both sides of the former Iron curtain, in order to fill the gaps in the historiography of the East-West relations in science.

Confirmed speakers: Robert Bud, Gilberto Corbellini, Daniele Cozzoli, Jean-Paul Gaudillière, Christoph Gradmann, Agata Ignaciuk, Elena S. Levina, Slawomir Lotysz, Maria-Jesus Santesmases, Jakob Tanner.

Scientific Committee: Mauro Capocci (Sapienza University of Rome), Gilberto Corbellini (Sapienza University of Rome), Daniele Cozzoli (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona), Maria-Jesus Santesmases (CSIC, Madrid)

Local Organizer: Mauro Capocci.

Please send an abstract (max 300 words) to mauro.capocci@uniroma1.it before 30 April 2012. Acceptance will be notified shortly after.

Travel grants funded by the DRUGS Network will be available for speakers.