edited by Claire Shaw, Co-Director of the European History Research Centre, and Anna Toropova, EHRC Associate.

The project to create a 'New Man' and 'New Woman' initiated in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc constituted one of the most extensive efforts to remake human psychophysiology in modern history. Playing on the different meanings of the word 'technology' - as practice, knowledge and artefact - this edited volume brings together scholarship from across a range of fields to shed light on the ways in which socialist regimes in the Soviet bloc and Eastern Europe sought to transform and revolutionise human capacities. From external, state-driven techniques of social control and bodily management, through institutional practices of transformation, to strategies of self-fashioning, Technologies of Mind and Body in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc probes how individuals and collectives engaged with - or resisted - the transformative imperatives of the Soviet experiment.

Researchers from the Department of History will be delivering a series of talks at Warwick Words History Festival.

Now in its twentieth year, Warwick Words is a popular annual event, bringing internationally acclaimed historians to share stories from the past to venues around Warwick.

Since 2012, the University of Warwick has collaborated with the festival on a series titled Tea Time Talks, where academics from the Department of History discuss their research. This year, topics are:

• History and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine – Professor Christoph Mick and Dr Claire Shaw - Saturday 8 October
• Picking up the Pieces: Gender and Romantic Failure in late 20th Century Britain – Dr Zoe Strimpel - Saturday 22 October
• The Politics of Touch in the late 18th Century – Professor Mark Philp - Saturday 26 November

The programme also includes a play written by PhD student David Fletcher and performed by Loft Theatre company: Taking the Waters tells the story of a cholera epidemic that took place in Leamington Spa in 1849, and the medical and political conflicts that surrounded it.

Other speakers at the festival include Tracy Borman, Max Hastings, Dan Jones, Adam Rutherford, Charles Spencer and Alison Weir.

Tickets are available from Warwick Words’ website: https://warwickwords.co.uk/ 

Dr Pierre Perseigle is interviewed in part three of the Urbanist's summer series covering the legacies of the biggest names in architecture, city planning and design.

Listen to the interview here

Dr Pierre Purseigle was interviewed by France 24 about the post-war reconstruction of Ukrainian cities destroyed by war.

Read the article hereLink opens in a new window