Archives

Archives Stories: Writing thinkers and their archives

Archives stories: Writing thinkers and their archives

The conference aims at fostering a collective reflection about methodologies and digital tools that could enable us to better perceive, beyond and through the manuscripts, the intellectual figures and their transcultural trajectories, the stories and their roots in cultural contexts, the networks and the collective practices they have been grounded in. Besides giving a different image of the history of ideas, such approach could also produce more intuitive narrations, enabling these materials to reach – thanks to their digital representation – a broader public and a non-scholar audience. The event will gather all the major actors of the network « AITIA – Archives of International Theory, an Intercultural Approach ».

Date: December 12, 2024, from 9:30 a.m.
Location: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague, and online
Language: English

Provisional program

MANUSCRIPTS

Morning: Writing Thinkers

Jan Frei, Jan Patocka Archives, Prague

Julia Jensen and Emanuele Caminada, Husserl Archives Lewen

Ladislav Hejdanek Archives*, Prague

Benedetta Zaccarello, ITEM (CNRS/ENS) (on dialogues in philosophical manuscripts)

Afternoon: Displaying Literature

Museum of Literature (ML PNP) Prague*

Archives et Musée de la Littérature*, Brussels

The School for Cultural Texts and Records*, Jadavpur University Kolkata (on Tagore’s digitalarchive “Bichitra”) (will be held online)

Mateusz Chmurski, director at CEFRES (CNRS/MEAE), Prague (on a facsimile edition)

Round table: “interpreting and (digitally) archiving intellectual manuscripts”, a dialogue with Alois Pichler*, Wittgenstein Archives at the Bergen University, followed by a round table on the topic.

Conference dinner

ARCHIVES

Morning: Archiving Research

Lucie Merhautová and Milan Hanis, on the collections at “The Masaryk Institute and Archives of the CAS”

Sylvie Archaimbault, Eur’ORBEM (CNRS/Sorbonne Nouvelle), on « Numerislav » digital archive

Nirmalya Chakraborty (Professor of Philosophy, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata) and Madhucchanda Sen (head of Philosophy Department, Jadavpur University Kolkata), on Darshan Manisha Digital Library (Sanskrit Philosophy) (will be held online)

Daniel Raveh, Professor of Indian and Comparative Philosophy, Tel Aviv University, on Daya Krishna digital archive online

Afternoon: when research shapes the archives

Emmylou Haffner* and Christophe Eckes* (ITEM, CNRS/ENS), on Banana ANR project, digital archives of “Nicolas Bourbaki” (mathematics collective manuscripts) (will be held online)

Venkat Srinivasan*, National Centre for Biological Sciences Archives, on the making of NCBS archives and collections (will be held online)

Institut Français de Pondichéry*, CNRS/MEAE, on the making of their own archives (Indology, Ecology, Indian Traditional Medicines) and the history of their French-Indian institution (will be held online)

Round table: Archives on the make, the making of archives – a dialogue with Laetitia Zecchini* (THAMIL, PI IRN Postcolonial Print Cultures), on the Pen India archives, followed by a round table on the topic.

Cartography and art history in dialogue

Cartography and art history in dialogue. Reflections on the functions of maps in Warburgian iconology

Fifth session of the 2023-2024 CEFRES Francophone Interdisciplinary Seminar The map and the border
In 2023, we would like to start by beginning by questionning the very act of bordering and representing (a territory, a period, a trajectory), in short, thanks to the interdisciplinarity of our respective disciplines, to question the map and the border.

Location: CEFRES Library, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1
Dates: Friday, June 14th, 10 – 11.30 am
Language: French

Speaker : Lara BONNEAU, Institute of Philosophy of Czech Academy of Sciences (FLÚ – AV ČR), associate researcher at CEFRES
Discussant : Danièle COHN, Université Paris 1

Has the tendency towards ornamentation in the graphic gesture been an obstacle to the scientific development of cartography? In other words, has cartography had to liberate itself from the artistic dimension, which is too imbued with a sensitive end emotional life, to become a planimetric abstraction? These were central questions for the German art historian Aby Warburg, who saw the cartographic gesture as one of the ways of distancing oneself psychologically from the senses. By giving contours to what is presented as moving, changing, even chaotic in perceptual experience, by assigning it a place within an order (kosmos), and by presenting it in space rather than in time, mapping has a psychological function: it gives the subject points which help him to anchor himself and distance himself from reality. Nevertheless, as the demon-populated astrological natal charts demonstrate, cartography cannot totally abolish the dimensions of fear and desire of our relationship with the world and the universe. Maps have a sensitive “cosmetic” dimension, which is perhaps not directly opposed to the ambition to bring cosmic order. In order to study how these demons moved historically, providing lasting fertile ground for the iconographic tradition as much as for scientific attempts to conquer the space of thought, Aby Warburg was led to draw… maps. Maps of the migratory routes of motifs and styles, of the “formules of pathos” from Athens to Babylon, from Babylon to Southern and the Northern Europe. Drawing in particular on the recent work od Phillipe Despoix (2023), we shall try to present the function of cartography in Warburgian iconology.

Racializing Romani People in the 19th Century

Racializing Romani People in the 19th Century

A conference, jointly organized by the Prague Forum for Romani Histories at the Institute of Contemporary History, the Czech Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Gonzaga University, the Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU, and the Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences, and supported by Strategy AV21 (Research Programme: Identities in the World of Wars and Crises), Lumina Queruntur award (LQ300582201), and Gonzaga University.

Date: 20-21 May, 2024 at 12:45pm
Location: Villa Lana, V Sadech 1/1, 160 00 Praha 6-Bubeneč
Language: English

Participants

  • Rafael Buhigas JIMÉNEZ (member of  the History and Commemoration department of the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture, ERIAC)
  • Maria CHIOREAN (PhD candidate at Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu)
  • Martin FOTTA (head of the Department of Mobility and Migration at the Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences – EÚ AV ČR)
    Carolina García SANZ (associate professor in the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Seville)
  • Margareta (Magda) MATACHE (lecturer at the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)
  • Dezso MATE (Romani Rose Fellow at the Research Centre on Antigypsyism at the Heidelberg University’s Department of History)
  • Verena MEIER (PhD candidate at the Research Centre on Antigypsyism at the Heidelberg University’s Department of History)
  • Sunnie RUCKER-CHANG (associate professor at the Ohio State University)
  • Laura Soréna TITTEL (postdoctoral researcher at Justus Liebig University Giessen)
  • Tom TYSON (PhD on the history of Gypsies in early modern Scotland at Cambridge University)
  • Dalen WAKELEY-SMITH (assistant professor of history at Washington University in Saint Louis)
  • Egemen YILGÜR (professor of anthropology at Yeditepe University)

Program

Monday, May 20th

12:45 – Welcome 

Ann Ostendorf and Vita Zalar 

13:00-15:00 – Keynote session 

  • Chair: Ann Ostendorf 
  • Margareta Matache: The Racialization of Romani People Across Time and Geographies: Patterns and Mechanisms.
  • Sunnie R. Chang: Relational Perspectives on the Origins and Uses of ‘Blackness’ in Roma and African American Communities 

15:00-15:30 – Coffee break 

15:30-17:30 – Panel I: Intellectualizing Race 

  • Chair: Tina Magazzini 
  • Dezso Mate: History of the Gypsy Lore Society
  • Martin Fotta: Race, Nation, and Lusophone Gypsylorism 
  • Tom Tyson: Antiquarians, Missionaries, and the ‘Romantic Gypsies’ of Scotland 

Tuesday, May 21 

10:00-12:30 – Panel II: Racializing Nations 

  • Chair: Martin Fotta 
  • Rafael Buhigas Jiménez: ‘Gitanos’ from Working-Class Neighbourhoods in the (Proto)Gossip Magazines: Racialization and Criminalization in Madrid (1850- 1900) 
  • Dalen Wakeley-Smith: ‘A Very Undesirable Class of Immigrants’: Immigration Officials, Race, and ‘Gypsies’ in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era Egemen Yılgür: Ethno-racialization of the ‘Gypsy’ in the Modern Ottoman Censuses 
  • Carolina García Sanz: Constructing the ‘Racial Enemy’ against the Spanish Colonial Crisis: The Civil Guard and the ‘Gypsies’ 

12:30-13:00 – Lunch break 

13:00-15:00 –  Panel III: Contradictions and Critiques of Racialization 

  • Chair: Renata Berkyová 
  • Verena Meier: Antigypsy Special Legislation in Germany: Labels for State Repression and the Ambivalences of Definition 
  • Laura Soréna Tittel: Marx’s Critique of Vagabondage and the Policing of Roma in the Nineteenth Century 
  • Maria Chiorean: Racialization in Abolitionist Fiction: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Măriuca’s Cabin, a Comparative Case Study 

17:00-18:30 – Roundtable discussion hosted by the French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences (CEFRES), Na Florenci 3, Prague. The event is open to the general public. No prior registration needed.

  • Chair: Vita Zalar 
  • Speakers: Margareta Matache, Sunnie R. Chang 

Abstract 

The scholarly study of race, racism, racialization, and racial capitalism on a global scale has significantly reframed our understanding of the nineteenth century. It has been established that ideas about race influenced the thoughts and experiences of all people who lived in the nineteenth century. Racial thinking permeated law, politics, science, and diplomacy. It supported colonizing projects, caused removal from traditional homelands, diminished access to resources, limited citizenship rights, criminalized individuals, and dislocated countless people around the world.

This two-day conference brings the scholarship on nineteenth-century racecraft into conversation with Romani history. The organizers invite contributors to consider the impact of racialization on Romani communities in the nineteenth century.

The intimate two-day conference will be centered around panels consisting of 20-minute presentations with extensive discussion. Scholars from all disciplines were encouraged to apply. We particularly welcomed applications from Romani scholars and early-career scholars.

The conference is an in-person event only. Interested attendees should contact Marek Jandák (jandak@usd.cas.cz) to register.

For further details regarding the discussion content, please visit the Program Forum for Romani Histories website.

The End of the Five Solitudes?

The End of the Five Solitudes? Towards a Linguistic and Cultural Map of Contemporary Montreal

Sixth session of the 2023-2024 CEFRES Francophone Interdisciplinary Seminar The map and the border
In 2023, we would like to start by beginning by questionning the very act of bordering and representing (a territory, a period, a trajectory), in short, thanks to the interdisciplinarity of our respective disciplines, to question the map and the border.

Location: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1
Date: Friday 10th, May 2024 from 10am to 12pm CET
Language: French

Speaker: Eva Voldřichová – Beránková  (Faculty of Arts, Charles University)
Discussant: Mateusz Chmurski (CEFRES)

Abstract

In 1945, Hugh MacLennan’s renowned novel Two Solitudes explored the cultural alienation between Quebec’s French-speaking and English-speaking populations. Over three centuries, language, religion and socioeconomic factors have traditionally acte as barriers between these communities, fostering coexistence rather than integration. Since the 1980s, a revived academic interest in Montreal’s Yiddish culture had led to discussions of a “third solitude” characterizing certain Jewish diasporas in Canada. Simultaneously, a cultural and political renaissance among First Nations and Inuit peoples has been decribes as the “fourth solitude”, reflecting their unique life experiences. Today, authors of migrant literatures frequently evoke a “fifth solitude”, encompassing immigrants, their descendants, and native Quebecers who explore themes of exile and cultural adaptation. Montreal emerges as a historical nexus of these “five solitudes”, each shaping the city’s landcape and narrative. By examining specific neighborhouds, insights can be gained into how diverse linguistic and cultural communities have become ingrained in Montreal’s urban fabric, expanding across space and time. Through their literary contributions, they offer distinctive perspectives on the Canadian metropolis, contributing to its intricate linguistic, cultural and mental map. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commits to addressing the “trauma of historical solitudes”, consideration is given to the practical tools available to realize this aspiration.

View the complete seminar program for 2023-2024 here.

‘Post-’. The Past in the Present. CEFRES–CETOBaC Workshop

In 2024, the French Center for Research in Humanities and Social Studies (CEFRES) together with the institution reunited by its Platform – Charles University and the Czech Academy of Sciences will be CETOBaC’s guest during a one-day workshop.

Date: April 26 2024, 9 am–7 pm CET
Location: CETOBaC, Campus Condorcet, 14 cours des Humanités, Aubervilliers (Bât. recherche Nord, room 0.010)
Language: English, French
Organizers: Mateusz Chmurski (CEFRES), Lucie Drechselová (CETOBaC, EHESS), Fabio Giomi (CETOBaC, EHESS)
Partner Institutions: CETOBaC, EHESS / CEFRES

Program

9:00 – 9:15 – Greeting word

09:15 – 09:30 – Introduction

Marc Aymes, Center for Turkish, Ottoman, Balkan, and Central Asian Studies (CNRS / EHESS, CETOBaC)

Mateusz Chmurski, French Center for Research in Social Sciences (CEFRES)

09:30 – 11:00 – ‘Post-’. Thinking the Present Through the Past

Moderator: Emmanuel Szurek (EHESS, CETOBaC)

  • Adrian Brisku (Charles University / Ilia State University), Imperial Political-Economic Legacies in New (Inter)national Economic Order: Albania, Czechoslovakia, and Georgia’s Foreign Trade Discourse and Policy after the Great War
  • Václav Šmidrkal (Czech Academy of Sciences / Charles University), ‘Post-’ and ‘Trans-’: the Legal Status of World War II veterans in Czechia after 1989
  • Jelena Božović (CEFRES / Charles University), Languages in a post-conflict multiethnic society: The interplay of official and unofficial policies in Bosnia and Herzegovina

11:00-11:30 – Break

11:30-13:00 – Memories. Reflecting on the Past in the Present

Moderator: Lucie Drechselová (CETOBaC, EHESS)

  • Marie Černá (Czech Academy of Sciences), The Czechoslovak Prague Spring of 1968 from the point of view of local communist actors
  • Anna Huláková (Charles University), Situated Knowledge, Feminist Frameworks of Analysis and Women’s Representation in the Post-Soviet Central Asia
  • Camille Leprince (EHESS, CETOBaC), La guerre d’Espagne comme représentation de l’escalade de violence en Syrie

13:00-14:30 – Lunch break 

14h30-16h00 – Reflecting on Genocidal and Mass Violence: Yesterday, Today

Moderator: Xavier Bougarel  (CNRS, CETOBaC)

  • Elif Karakaya (Rochester University / CETOBaC), Unfinished Empire: Place and Memory in Post-Ottoman Visual Art
  • Kateřina Králová (Charles University), Holocaust Ruins: Ethnography of Hirsch quarter in Thessaloniki 
  • Özgür Sevgi Goral (Gerda Henkel Stiftung / CETOBaC), Our Wound Runs Deep: Colonial Aphasia and the Memory Field in Turkey

16:30-18:00 – Behind the Scenes of Political Documentaries 

Moderator : Ilshat Saetov (EHESS, CETOBaC)

Screening of Robert Mihály, The Best Corner in the World (2022), 25’, and screening and discussion with the director Sibil Çekmen, On the Trail of Missing Documentaries (in preparation in 2024), 14’.

18:00 – Closing cocktail

Abstract

The Center for Turkish, Ottoman, Balkan, and Central-Asian Studies (CETOBaC) at the Parisian Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) examines the past and present situations of Turkish speaking people throughout the geographical area of Turkey, the regions that once formed part of the Ottoman Empire, and Central Asia. The Center’s work concerns not only this population group but also their relationships with their neighbors, and social, cultural, and political questions. For certain research questions, the Center extends its reach towards the east to include Iran, Afghanistan, and China, and, to the west, towards Central and Eastern Europe. CETOBaC brings together historians, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, linguists, and political scientists in 6 research areas: History of the Ottoman Empire; Contemporary Turkey; Balkans in the Contemporary Period; Central Asia and the Caucasus; Languages, Culture and Societies in the Turkish region; Islam and Sufism.
Each year, CETOBaC organizes an annual meeting with a research institution sharing similar scientific interests: these exchanges between researchers and provide a platform for discussing our research on the Balkans, Turkey, the Ottoman Empire and Central Asia in all disciplines.
The 2024 CEFRES-CETOBaC workshop will be structured around three main themes:

  1. Post-Ottoman, post-Habsburg, post-socialist. Thinking the past in the present.
    We will jointly explore the legacies left by the great imperial configurations that had such a profound impact on Central and Eastern European in the 19th and 20th centuries. Particular attention will be paid to how these configurations not only influenced social structure, but also organized the field of social sciences. How do we think about the categories of the multiple “post-“? How do we construct them? By looking at the situated production of knowledge, this first section will address through concepts the institutionalization of “cultural areas” in France and Central and Eastern Europe. This section continues in a successful collaboration launched by Lucie Drechselová during her fellowship at CEFRES in September 2023, that resulted in a doctoral workshop entitled “Dynamics of Political Participation: Disciplinary knowledge through the prism of ‘area studies’”.
  2. Memory studies.
    Closely related to the first section, the second part of the day will explore memory studies. memory studies. The aim is to stimulate dialogue on current research devoted to the formation, preservation, transmission, contestation and forgetting of individual and collective memories. We will also address practices of commemoration and interpretation and interpretation of the past, as well as strategies for reconciliation and healing in post-conflict societies. This section will also examine from several angles the recurring theme of “nostalgia” that animates a multiplicity of the contexts in the post-Soviet and post-Ottoman spaces, as well as – to a lesser extent – in former Czechoslovakia.
  3. Social sciences in danger.
    The third part of the day will take the form of a round-table discussion, focusing on the difficulties facing our disciplines, both in France, in Eastern Europe and in Turkey. We will discuss the combined effects of funding cuts and government decisions restricting academic freedom, controlling research subjects, as well as limiting the dissemination of the dissemination of potentially politically disturbing results. This debate will be followed by the screening of a documentary.

Contested Energy Transitions

Contested Energy Transitions.
Conflicts and Social Innovations in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, and France

Kick-off meeting of a research project developed within AV ČR–CNRS TANDEM Program by the Czech Academy of Sciences, Charles University and CNRS, at CEFRES.

When: Tuesday 23 April 2024, 2 pm–3:30 pm
Where: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1 and online (to get the link, please register at cefres@cefres.cz)
Language: English

With the participation of the project coordinators:

et de

The meeting will be opened by:

  • Mr. Tomáš KOSTELECKÝ, Member of the Academy Council, Czech Academy of Sciences

Presentation

Gilles Lepesant, Martin Durdovic, and Krzysztof Tarkowski will present this project in energy social research. The project aims to better understand transition resistance and stakeholder conflicts arising from the adoption of EU energy transition policies and to identify new patterns in energy governance that will help overcome these challenges. The research is based on a comparative approach between countries and focuses on case studies at the local or regional level.