Зустріч “Adventures in Cybernetics: From ARPANET and OGAC to the Brave New World”

The Fulbright Program in Ukraine is pleased to invite you to a TALK “Adventures in Cybernetics: From ARPANET and OGAC to the Brave New World” by U.S. Fulbright Scholar 2017-2018 Jessica Zychowicz, to be held on Thursday, April 19, 2018, 6:00 p.m., at the Fulbright Office (20 Esplanadna Street, Suite 904, M “Palats Sportu”, Kyiv).

This talk is an overview of Dr. Zychowicz’s research into the cultural and social history of the Internet in the U.S.S.R. As a U.S. Fulbright Scholar, she has been able to build on her knowledge through scholarly collaboration with her Ukrainian colleagues also working on the topic of Cybernetics, in her teaching at Kyiv-Mohilya Academy, through interviews with scientists and developers who worked in the Soviet era, as well as in her own research at public archives, institutes, and private libraries. The findings from her research will form the basis of a book that will provide a comprehensive look at women, in particular, and their stories–scientists, workers, and state officials–who under the Soviet regime in the mid-late 20th  century managed to navigate the dangers of the bureaucracy in order to live imaginative lives as intellectuals involved in passionate debates ranging from the ethics of data and the human genome, to the mathematical theorems of game theory, the  politics of design, the language of anti-Stalinism, and debates on the social functions of optimization and management.  How did these scientists perceive themselves and their work, each other, and their position at the center of the space race?

Dr. Jessica ZYCHOWICZ, U.S. Fulbright Scholar 2017-2018, is currently based at National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy teaching gender studies and completing a book on civic activism in the inter-revolutionary period 2004-2014 in Kyiv (University of Toronto Press). She is co-editing a series at the academic journal Krytyka on questions of race and postcolonialism. Dr. Zychowicz recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs and earned her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in 2015. She holds a B.A. from the University of California Berkeley, and served a full term as a Peace Corps volunteer from 2005-2007. Beginning Fall 2018 Dr. Zychowicz will be based at CUSP: Contemporary Ukraine Studies Program at The University of Alberta in Canada.

This talk will be conducted in English.

Registration for the event.