Here is an April 18 Zoom I think will be fascinating, that will be
presented at the Jordan Institute which is part of New York University:
https://jordanrussiacenter.org/event/technology-and-blind-activism-in-cold-w
ar-europe-with-maria-galmarini/
Best wishes,
Elizabeth Sammons
Technology and Blind Activism in Cold War Europe (with Maria Galmarini)
April 18 @ 12:30 pm - 2:30 pm
In the late 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, spectacular
accomplishments in space research sharpened public awareness of
technological progress and the ways in which it could be harnessed by the
two competing blocs of a divided world. Among the many communities that
began to reflect on the meaning and impact of technology on their lives were
also disability activists. Welcoming the advantages that technology could
bring to people with disabilities, they immediately recognized that these
advantages would never materialize without international cooperation. More
than in any other area of technological development, as these activists
argued, the design and production of assistive technology required the
overcoming of geopolitical rivalries and the pooling of resources.
In the paper that will be discussed at this event, Professor Maria Galmarini
focuses on the collaboration projects undertaken in the 1970s and early
1980s by an organization of blind advocacy called European Regional
Committee of the World Council for the Welfare of the Blind (ERC). As a
pan-European agency that included members from both sides of Cold War
Europe, the ERC conceptualized technology as a neutral field of work, in
which Western and Eastern blind activists could exchange knowledge across
national and ideological borders. Its members succeeded in creating a
network of contacts that connected European research centers and
manufactures of auxiliary equipment for the blind. However, the
effectiveness of their cooperation was also fundamentally limited by the
political realities of the Cold War. Through an analysis of the rich
historical archive of the ERC in connection with archival materials from the
All-Russian Society of the Blind and the East German Union of the Blind,
this paper offers new insights on the relationship between disability
activism, assistive technology, and Cold War politics.
Maria Cristina Galmarini is Associate Professor of History and Global
Studies at William & Mary. She received her Ph.D. from the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and, before coming to Williamsburg in 2017,
held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard University and an Assistant
Professor position at James Madison University. She is the author of The
Right to Be Helped: Deviance, Entitlement, and the Soviet Moral Order
(Northern Illinois University Press, 2016). She also published articles in
the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, The Slavic Review, Historical
Research, European History Quarterly, and The Russian Review. Galmarini has
won the Disability History Association's award for best published article in
the field of Disability History in 2018. Her current research explores the
history of international blind activism during the Cold War.
This event will be held virtually as a https://nyu.zoom.us/j/95751794195
Zoom meeting for non-NYU affiliates. NYU affiliates my attend the event in
person at the Jordan Center.
Please reach out to mailto:jordan.russia.center@nyu.edu
jordan.russia.center@nyu.edu for a copy of the work being discussed at this
event.