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SUMMARY:The rise of modern physics in Spain: knowledge\, power and memory 
 - Xavier Roqué (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
DTSTART:20111027T153000Z
DTEND:20111027T170000Z
UID:TALK33101@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Karin Ekholm
DESCRIPTION:In the decades following the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)\,
  General Franco's regime enlisted modern physics in the construction of an
  autarkic\, totalitarian new state. The regime launched costly research an
 d development programmes in nuclear physics\, aeronautics and material sci
 ences\, and moulded a scientific community depleted by the war. It has pro
 ved difficult to make sense of these developments\, especially since our u
 nderstanding of the power relations of science in the dictatorship is shap
 ed by the way its legacy has been handled. Francoism remains such an urgen
 tly conflicted issue\, that these relations have been dismissed or minimiz
 ed. Physicists and historians have emphasized that Francoist policy was in
 different if not hostile to modern science\, and that the regime's officia
 l ideology\, National Catholicism\, did not reach beyond the rhetorical su
 rface. I will challenge these views by discussing one important if neglect
 ed aspect of the coproduction of science and the regime. Beginning in the 
 1930s\, prominent right-wing ideologues sought to replace the progressive 
 liberal reading of physics that had prevailed in the country through the f
 irst decades of the century\, for a reactionary modernist reading that str
 essed the spiritual dimension of the discipline. They explicitly echoed Ge
 rman debates on technology and culture\, yet were careful to avoid any mat
 erialistic or atheistic implication and argued rather for the integration 
 of science in the Christian scheme of the world. Physics was thus aligned 
 with the political and religious discourse that became hegemonic after the
  war. I will reflect on the implications of this story for our understandi
 ng of science in totalitarian regimes\, and account for its invisibility.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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