Fellowship Fund

The Karen Johnson Freeze Fellowship Fund is a joint initiative of the Foundation for the History of Technology (SHT) and the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) to encourage research in the field of history of technology in Central, Southeastern, and Eastern Europe. The fund also wants to contribute to the international dissemination of research results. The Karen Johnson Freeze Fellowship Fund seeks to encourage scientific research and facilitate active participation of early career scholars in Central, Southeastern, and Eastern Europe, in particular in Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, the Ukraine, and Turkey.

A Call for proposals for the 2012 awards will be posted in spring 2012.

Karen Johnson Freeze Fellows of 2011

The 2011 Fellowships have been awarded to:

• Dora Vargha from Hungary, to support her research project Iron curtain, Iron Lungs: Governing Polio in Cold War Hungary 1952-1963, a project that focuses on Polio epidemics in communist Hungary in the fifties and early sixties, and on transfers of knowledge and technologies. She will use the grant of Euro 2000 euros to finish her dissertation and to disseminate the results of her research.

• Anna Kotomina from Russia, to support her research project Pre-cinematic projection technology and the public sphere in Russian Imperia in 1863-1915. She will use the fellowship for archival research in the Russian State Archives in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Karen Johnson Freeze

The fund is established in memory of Karen Johnson Freeze (1945-2009). Within the Tensions of Europe Network, Freeze broadened the perspective and managed to include Eastern, Central, and South Eastern Europe in the work and in the network of Tensions of Europe scholars. She was responsible for the early contacts with young scholars in the region and pointed out existing preconceptions and biases, while bridging the scholarly divisions created as a result of Cold War politics. Through her efforts, the history of technology has begun to develop as a field in Central and Eastern Europe. Within the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), she served as a very active chair of the International Outreach Committee. 

Early Career Scholars

The Karen Johnson Freeze Fellowship Fund supports early career scholars preferably working in Central, Southeastern, and Eastern Europe in their pursuit of both pre- and postdoctoral research in the field of history of technology. The award may be used for travel and/or small stipends providing a basic income for a few months. Through the fund, early career scholars will be allowed to attend international conferences or visit distant archives.

What are the Conditions?

Two fellowships will be awarded annually. Calls and deadlines will be published on this website and other platforms. A Karen Johnson Freeze Fellow will be granted an award of a maximum of 2,000 Euros. Fellows are required to publish a report/article in the Tensions of Europe Newsletter and/or the SHOT News-letter. Additionally, the Fellows will be offered the opportunity to publish their report in the Tensions of Europe Working Paper series.

The Karen Johnson Freeze Fellowship Fund is administered by the Foundation for the History of Technology.  Expenses are refunded in accordance with the regulations of the Foundation for the History of Technology. The expenses will be paid directly to the fellow after submission of a statement of expenses and the original receipts. In emergency cases, an advance payment may be available.

For more information, please, contact dr. Jan Korsten, Business Director of the Foundation for the History of Technology.