GCSC KNL | Prof. Rósa Magnúsdóttir (University of Iceland): "The Cultural Cold War: The Challenges of Interdisciplinary Knowledge Creation"

The Cultural Cold War was the ideological conflict that formed the basis for the Cold War, sometimes also talked about as the battle for hearts and minds. As a research field, the Cultural Cold War was originally the domain of historians, but ever since the 1990s, the field has grown exponentially as topics related to the Cultural Cold War are now approached from several other disciplinary directions, such as literature, art, and anthropology. Just like the Cold War, which was originally researched mainly as a superpower conflict – with Soviet-American relations in the foreground – the cultural Cold War had global implications. A global web of connections, including transnational relations and entangled narratives, further complicates the picture of what we understand and research as the Cultural Cold War. Especially the role of actors involved in the cultural Cold War has raised several questions about agency and primary sources in general. Additionally, new approaches, access to sources, and theoretical developments have seen historical research branch out into several new subfields. In my presentation, I am hoping to work through some of the challenges that arise when a research field expands, while also thinking about ways to make the most out of the promise of interdisciplinary approaches. 

// Prof. Rósa Magnúsdóttir