Publications

“Real- Existing” Utopia: Science, Technology, and the Creation of a National Identity in German Democratic Republic

Mario Bianchini’s soon-to-be-completed first book,“Real-Existing” Utopia, explores how the German Democratic Republic sought to create a socio-technical imaginary of a future free from the exhausting, repetitive labor of factories and agriculture (Routinearbeit) in order to legitimate “real-existing” socialism: state socialism not as mere stepping stone to full communism, but as the goal itself. Technological utopianism was meant to be a solution to all of the most fundamental problems of the GDR: the collective lack of domestic legitimacy, distinct national identity, and natural resources. State institutions such as the Ministry of Education and the Academy of Science therefore jointly articulated a promise of a coming socialist “scientific-technological revolution” in order to unify the population behind a singular goal, to self-define the GDR as a nation of scientists, and to educate a workforce capable of producing exportable technologies. Maintaining such a promise was a delicate endeavor: it required, wherever possible, the careful management of East German everyday life. The core of the book, then, revolves around three case studies – education, hobbies, and sports – each a primary locus of institutional efforts to both inspire the future and impart the technical skills to actually bring it about. In relying on this promise, however, the GDR produced an even more intractable problem: it raised expectations that the it could not meet and thereby contributed to its collapse. Thus, his work excavates an otherwise unexplored but key explanation for the ultimate downfall of the GDR, and offers some important lessons for the academy and beyond: a better understanding of how technology shapes politics, how concepts of the future can be used to manage the present, and, perhaps most importantly in a world threatened by looming environmental catastrophe, how promises of an undefined future redemptive technology are used to excuse action in the present.

PEER REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS

1. Mario Bianchini. “Training Future Comrades: East German Model Train Sets and the Scientific-Technological Revolution” in Science, Technology, and Human Values, currently published online first https://doi.org/10.1177/01622439241292086 (2024)

2. Mario Bianchini. „Durch das Spiel zum Wissen“. Computerspielzeug als 'real-existierende Utopie' in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik” (Through Play, Knowledge: Computer Toys as ‘Real-Existing’ Utopia in the German Democratic Republic) in Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung. 87-102. (2021)

3. Mario Bianchini. “Theoretical Soldiers: German Economists and the Cold War” in German Studies Review, vol. 43.1. 41-58. (2020)

Upcoming Publications

1. Mario Bianchini. “Power vs. Promise: The Bifurcation of Economics in the GDR” Book chapter for External Drivers of the Evolution of Economic Thought under Communism, (2025)

2. Mario Bianchini and Ken Knoespel. “The (Third) World of Ruth Fischer: The Bandung Conference and the New Left” (Under Review)

WORKS IN PROGRESS

1. Mario Bianchini. “Real-Existing Utopia: The Management of the Future in the German Democratic Republic” Book Manuscript (In initial publishing talks)

2. Mario Bianchini. “Society as Cybernetics: The New Economic System and Cybernetics in the GDR” (With working group at the University of Vienna)

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

1. Mario Bianchini. Introduction to Roundtable Review of Kristie Macrakis. Nothing is Beyond Our Reach: America’s Techno-Spy Empire, in H-Diplo. (2024)

2. Mario Bianchini. Eloge for Kristie I. Macrakis, in ISIS, vol. 115.1. 164-165. (2024)

3. Mario Bianchini. Review of Uhl, Karsten, Technology in Modern German History. H-Sci-Med-Tech, H-Net Reviews. August, 2022.

4. Mario Bianchini. Review of Schlombs, Corinna, Productivity Machines: German Appropriations of American Technologies from Mass Production to Computer Automation. H-Sci-Med-Tech, H-Net Reviews. June, 2022.

5. Mario Bianchini. Tagungsbericht Zwischen Sozialdisziplinierung und Vergnügen: Politik und Praktiken des Spielens im Staatssozialismus / Between Social Discipline and Pleasure: The Politics and Practices of Play and Games in State Socialism. 04.12.2019–06.12.2019, Berlin, in: H-Soz-Kult (2020)

6. Mario Bianchini. “Women on the Right Track” in Technology’s Stories (2017)