The Commission on Science, Technology and Diplomacy is pleased to announce that Dr Pete Millwood has been awarded its inaugural Early Career Prize for his paper ‘A Source of Vernacular Knowledge or a Final Frontier for Globalized Science? American and Chinese Discourses on Science in the People’s Republic of China, 1971–1978’.
He will be presenting his paper at a special session of STAND’s Postgraduate and Early Career Virtual Seminar Series.
About the paper:
During the Cultural Revolution, the People’s Republic of China championed a revolutionary approach to science in which knowledge was to be produced and applied by the labouring masses. One particular audience was Americans, who again began to visit China beginning in 1971. Many were enthralled — some by egalitarianism, others by exoticism. Elite American scientists, though, remained sceptical and continued to argue that China lagged in global, teleological scientific development. This paper traces how these two discourses competed through the 1970s. Further, it shows how the latter ultimately won out — not only among Americans but, more consequentially, in China itself.
About Dr Millwood:
Pete Millwood researches the history of the Chinese world’s international and transnational relations, particularly with the United States. He is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at the University of Hong Kong. His first book will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2022, entitled Improbable Diplomats: How Ping-Pong Players, Musicians, and Scientists Remade US-China Relations. He holds degrees from Oxford and LSE.
DHST Commission on Science, Technology and Diplomacy 