Project Coordinator
"Economic Collectivism: Old and New. Lessons from the Communist and Post-Communist Experience"

Current research project :
“Future transformed. Scientific Future Studies in Poland under late- and post-socialism” (working title).

My PhD thesis studies how futurological research on the long-term evolution of Polish society emerged during the 1960s and evolved against the background of sociopolitical changes until the end of the century. It describes, how Polish scholars (re)formulated research agendas, ideas and practices that led to the establishment of institutions of anticipating long-term social futures under changing sociopolitical circumstances. I study the social, intellectual, institutional and transnational influences that contributed to the evolution of these research agendas. By studying concrete actors and their situated knowledge the dissertation aims to contribute to a better understanding of the changing roles played by scientific claims to know the future in understanding and governing society in the present, while the latter is undergoing structural transformations - including the political regime change of 1989.

Thanks to an agreement between the University of Vienna and LMU Munich (“Cotutelle”), the project is situated at RECET and the Institute of Eastern and South Eastern European History at LMU Munich.

Research interests:

• History of scientific forecasting
• history of knowledge and political ideas
• Polish politics since 1989
• time and politics

Publications:

"Potentials and Risks of Futurology: Lessons from Late Socialist Poland", in: Izdebski, Adam/Haldon, John/Filipkowski, Piotr (eds.): Perspectives on Public Policy in Societal-Environmental Crises. What the Future Needs from History, Cham: Springer 2022, pp. 45-57, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94137-6_5 [Open Access].

"Sammelbesprechung: Dietmar Dath: Niegeschichte. Science Fiction als Kunst und Denkmaschine. (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz 2019). Amanda Rees/Iwan Rhys Morus: Presenting Futures Past. Science Fiction and the History of Science (Osiris, Bd. 34, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2019)", in: N.T.M. Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin 4:29, pp. 513–516 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1007/s00048-021-00293-9.

"From euphoria to frustration. Institutionalizing prognostic research in the Polish Peoples‘ Republic, 1969–1976”, in: Acta Poloniae Historica 116 (2017), pp. 277–299.

[with Piotr Filipkowski]: “Ćwiczenie wyobraźni socjologicznej: Polska futurologia naukowa lat 70 dwudziestego wieku”, in: Stan Rzeczy 1:14 (2018), pp. 41–69.

"Zukunft, die nicht beginnen konnte. Stefan Żółkiewskis Futurologie an der Polnischen Akademie der Wissenschaften vor 1968, in: Jahrbuch des Wissenschaftlichen Zentrums der Polnischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien 9 (2018), pp. 217–235.