Existing research on infrastructure in the Western European context has opened up a number of questions on the history of infrastructure in East Central Europe: What were the imperial and national infrastructure building projects from the 18th century to the end of Empire? Which were realized, and which were not, and for what reasons? What did infrastructures connect, and what did they bypass? What impact did the two World Wars have on the developing of infrastructure? To what extent did the Iron Curtain create a rupture in existing infrastructure predating the Cold War? To what extent was infrastructure used to integrate the Eastern Bloc? And to what extent, on the contrary, did pre-existing infrastructural systems impose their own, "outdated" logic on a changed continent? How did infrastructural projects transform the societies in which they were embedded, and which they connected? At the same time, how did populations in contact with infrastructure appropriate them to their own needs? And what happens when infrastructure malfunctions? How has European integration impacted infrastructure? What new infrastructure projects promise to transform East and Southeast Europe?

The conference intends to facilitate an interdisciplinary dialogue. We also encourage comparative and transnational perspectives.

Access the call for papers HERE