Academic Memories, Personal Narratives: Publishing and Censorship in Social Sciences in post-1968 Czech Republic

OATES-INDRUCHOVÁ, Libora. Academic Memories, Personal Narratives: Publishing and Censorship in Social Sciences in post-1968 Czech Republic. In Remembering 1948 and 1968: Reflections on Two Pivotal Years in Czech and Slovak History, U. of Glasgow. 2008.

Basic information

• Original name: Academic Memories, Personal Narratives: Publishing and Censorship in Social Sciences in post-1968 Czech Republic
• Name in Czech: Academic Memories, Personal Narratives: Publishing and Censorship in Social Sciences in post-1968 Czech Republic
• Name (in English): Academic Memories, Personal Narratives: Publishing and Censorship in Social Sciences in post-1968 Czech Republic
• Authors: OATES-INDRUCHOVÁ, Libora.
• Edition: Remembering 1948 and 1968: Reflections on Two Pivotal Years in Czech and Slovak History, U. of Glasgow, 2008.

Other information

• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• Organization unit: Faculty of Social Studies
• Keywords in English: Conference presentation
• Tags: Conference presentation
• Tags: International impact

Abstract

The paper draws on a research project on post-1968 academic publishing and censorship in the Czech Republic, during which I conducted interviews with academics who had "survived" in some professional way the post-1968 purges and who remained active within official structures in research and publishing between 1968 and 1989 within official structures, and who also continued to be respected by their peers in the post-1989 period. The aim of the project was to investigate mechanisms of intellectual communication through academic texts in conditions of ideological surveillance. The interviewees' accounts turned out to be heavily constrained by the lapse of time since those conditions ceased to exist and by the social memory of state-socialism that has prevailed in public discourse in the meantime. The paper will discuss how these two factors may have affected the findings that concerned memories of personal survival and institutional strategies of exclusion and surveillance in post-1968 Czech academia; findings concerning authors' relation to their written work and to their subject at the time; and the implications this can have on their today's work. The issues the paper will address include: self-stylisation, self-romantisation, colliding generational perspectives, and the politisation of memory.

Abstract (in Czech)

The paper draws on a research project on post-1968 academic publishing and censorship in the Czech Republic, during which I conducted interviews with academics who had "survived" in some professional way the post-1968 purges and who remained active within official structures in research and publishing between 1968 and 1989 within official structures, and who also continued to be respected by their peers in the post-1989 period. The aim of the project was to investigate mechanisms of intellectual communication through academic texts in conditions of ideological surveillance. The interviewees' accounts turned out to be heavily constrained by the lapse of time since those conditions ceased to exist and by the social memory of state-socialism that has prevailed in public discourse in the meantime. The paper will discuss how these two factors may have affected the findings that concerned memories of personal survival and institutional strategies of exclusion and surveillance in post-1968 Czech academia; findings concerning authors' relation to their written work and to their subject at the time; and the implications this can have on their today's work. The issues the paper will address include: self-stylisation, self-romantisation, colliding generational perspectives, and the politisation of memory.

Abstract (in English)

The paper draws on a research project on post-1968 academic publishing and censorship in the Czech Republic, during which I conducted interviews with academics who had "survived" in some professional way the post-1968 purges and who remained active within official structures in research and publishing between 1968 and 1989 within official structures, and who also continued to be respected by their peers in the post-1989 period. The aim of the project was to investigate mechanisms of intellectual communication through academic texts in conditions of ideological surveillance. The interviewees' accounts turned out to be heavily constrained by the lapse of time since those conditions ceased to exist and by the social memory of state-socialism that has prevailed in public discourse in the meantime. The paper will discuss how these two factors may have affected the findings that concerned memories of personal survival and institutional strategies of exclusion and surveillance in post-1968 Czech academia; findings concerning authors' relation to their written work and to their subject at the time; and the implications this can have on their today's work. The issues the paper will address include: self-stylisation, self-romantisation, colliding generational perspectives, and the politisation of memory.