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Re: [xmca] Russian-American collaborations, historically speaking

Mike, Unfortunately I can not help with the deeper history, I can only add
that there was a waiting list for students and doctors who wanted to work
with Luria. Alfred Ardila was a doctoral student of Homskaya and close to
ARL; there were medical doctors as stagers- Richard Hurt, Thomas Hutton and
many short term visitors- M. Gazzaniga, Lauren Harris, Jogannath Das
(Canada). It would be possible to ask them how it influenced their work.
May be because of my experience of growing up in Lurian environment  and his
international status I always had a feeling of science as overborders
activity ( our regular seminars with reviews and reports on publications in
international journals etc.), though even then I felt that it is not so for
everybody and every researcher in the USSR. It was an exclusive privilege
thanks to Luria as a scientist and as an extraordinary  personality.
Bella Kotik-Friedgut

On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 6:08 AM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> Anton, Jean, Bella, Anna, et. al--
>
> I have been corresponding with a Russian colleague about the history
> of Russian-American collaborations/mutual influences in psychology. I
> wonder if you could help fill out this picture?
>
> Up to the early 1920's I really know of nothing. Perhaps Sechenov was
> influenced
> by and influenced people in the U.S. Or perhaps it was just an
> undifferentiated
> zeitgeist.
>
> Horsely Gantt translated Pavlov, who certainly had a big influence in the
> U.S. and later
> Luria. He was influenced, in his work, but i know of no mutual
> collaboration
> other than the
> translations. Luria interacted with Americans as a result of his visit to
> the US in 1929, but
> so far as I know, the collaborations were at the level of journal editing,
> prefaces, and
> that sort of thing. There were also interactions around psychoanalysis, but
> i think that was
> mostly with Europeans.
>
> Some like to think that Dewey and Vygotsky met and were mutually
> influenced,
> but that never
> has seemed likely to me. The influence of Dewey on Russian psychology seems
> clear, but the
> reverse doubtful at best.
>
> Hebert Mueller (sp?) the geneticist went to the USSR in the late 1930's,
> but
> I know of no collaborative
> consequences. The topic of genetics was kind of life threatening in the
> USSR
> at the time (in one
> way) and in the US in another.
>
> Seems like cooperation really began after Stalin's death with visits from
> Luria, Sokolov and others to the
> "west," delegations of Americans going to Russia, the start of the
> post-doctoral exchange program circa
> 1959. Herb Pick worked with Gippenreiter, I worked with Luria, Jim Wertsch
> worked with AA Leontiev,
> and there was probably mutual influence in all these cases of some sort.
>
> Very sketchy, I realize. I know there were more extended exchanges from
> 1970-1991 and then a lot of
> different kinds of mutual interaction. But perhaps there are older and
> deeper connections.
>
> Can anyone help on this topic?
> mike
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-- 
Sincerely yours Bella Kotik-Friedgut
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