The History of Science and Medicine in Cold War Latin America

University of Toronto, Sunday October 10, 2010, 9:30 am -5pm

Co-sponsored by the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IHPST-University of Toronto), the Latin American Studies Program (University of Toronto), and the Latin American Studies Association’s Health, Science, and Society section

Location Room 208N, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto (St George subway stop) MAP

Program

9:30am coffee/tea and rolls/bagels Room 208N

10:00am Introduction (Anne-Emanuelle Birn, Nikolai Krementsov, and Raúl Necochea)

10:15am Panel 1: Science

Moderator: Nikolai Krementsov (IHPST, U. of Toronto)
Sebastián Gil-Riaño (IHPST, U. of Toronto), “Re-Situating the Retreat of Scientific Racism: Unesco and Brazil in the 1950s.”
Marcos Cueto (Faculty of Public Health, U. Peruana Cayetano Heredia), “Nationalism, Science and the Cold War in Peru: High Altitude Physiology, 1950s.”
Nicolás Sánchez-Guerrero (IHPST, U. of Toronto), “School Science Education in Colombia and the Creation of a Public Understanding of Science.”

12:00 pm Light lunch at the Munk School of Global Affairs (2nd floor lounge, North House

1:30 pm Panel 2: Medicine

Moderator: Nikolai Krementsov (IHPST, U. of Toronto)
Maria Carranza (INCIENSA, U. of Costa Rica), “Laparoscopic Sterilization in Costa Rica: Contraceptive Research during the Cold War.”
Raúl Necochea (Department of Social Medicine, UNC-Chapel Hill), “The Making of the Puerto Rican Fertility Surveyor, 1946-1955.”
Gabriela Soto-Laveaga (History, U. of California, Santa Barbara), “War, Hormones, and Drugs: The Controversial Rise of Mexico’s Steroid Monopoly in the Cold War Era.”

3:00 pm Coffee/Tea break

3:30 pm Commentaries and Open Discussion

Mark Solovey (IHPST, U. of Toronto)
Anne-Emanuelle Birn (International Development Studies and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, U. of Toronto)

5pm wrap-up

7pm dinner for participants

Workshop Description The relation of the Cold War to science/technology and medical politics, policies, and professional developments in Latin America has received only scant attention from either Latin Americanists or Cold War specialists. Yet the study of science and medicine during the Cold War poses essential challenges to our understanding of Latin America’s cultural and social life in the second half of the twentieth century. This workshop seeks to address these challenges through discussion of a series of case studies by established and new scholars from Latin and North America. The papers aim to go beyond Cold War specialists’ traditional focus on the relationship between two superpowers, and instead present the Cold War as a transnational arena of power and influence, with Latin American players both influenced by Eastern and Western blocs and adept at playing one side against the other to serve professional, institutional, public, and national interests. The workshop is open to the public. We seek to attract a diverse audience of Latin Americanists, and humanities and social science scholars of science and medicine, for a day of lively debates and exchange. To register, please contact: Anne-Emanuelle Birn or Nikolai Krementsov