DEFA Film Library Announces Second Volume in Collaborative Series About Science and Media During the Cold War

The DEFA Film Library at UMass Amherst has announced that "Science on Screen and Paper: Media Cultures and Knowledge Production in Cold War Europe," the second volume in its co-sponsored "Visual and Media Cultures of the Cold War and Beyond" series, has been published by academic press Berghahn Books.<_o3a_p>

The 292-page anthology, co-edited by DEFA Film Library Academic Director Mariana Ivanova and Juliane Scholz of the University of Lübeck in Germany, explores the ways in which science and media were central to the making of the Cold War and to the lived experiences of persons in divided Europe.<_o3a_p>

Over 11 chapters, the book illuminates the impact of ideological and scientific competition, as well as geopolitical and cultural differences between societies on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The book also amplifies the writing of young researchers, bringing them into a transatlantic dialogue.<_o3a_p>

"More than 30 years since the alleged end of the Cold War, 12 authors from countries in the Eastern and Western hemispheres explore intersections between scientific research and media by drawing from media history, film studies, and the history of science," Ivanova says. "They effectively draw on under-researched audio-visual and print media, such as PR, educational and science films, children's magazines and television broadcasts to demonstrate that the Cold War was not a monolithic era, frozen in time, but rather one shaped by evolving, dynamic political and cultural processes as well as transnational protagonists and institutional relations."<_o3a_p>

"Science on Screen and Paper" is available to purchase in both hardcover and eBook format now on the Berghahn Books website.<_o3a_p>