Third International Workshop:
Central European Masculinities in a Comparative Perspective
The international conference is organized by the Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, within the framework of the Central European Masculinities research project.
Date: September 29 – October 1, 2025
Location: University Library, Michalská 1, Bratislava
Language: English
Program
DAY 1
8:30 Registration
8:50 Opening
9:00 – 10:00
Panel 1: Constructing National Man
Panel chair: Martin Braxatoris (Institute of Slovak Literature SAS, Bratislava)
Filip Mazurkiewicz (University of Silesia in Katowice)
Does the Concept of Hegemony Still Explain Anything?
Václav Smyčka (Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences)
Crying men
Ivana Taranenková (Institute of Slovak Literature SAS, Bratislava) Male Bonding in 19th Century Slovak Literature
10:00 – 10:10 Coffee break
10:10 – 11:40
Irena Bilińska (Institute of Slovak Literature SAS, Bratislava)
Jánošík as a Transgressive Realization of the Topos of the Social and National Defender
Ľubica Schmarcová (Institute of Slovak Literature SAS, Bratislava)
The Masculine Ideal of the Cultural Saint in Romantic Biography
11:40 – 12:30 Lunch break
Panel 2: Jewish Masculinities in Central Europe in the Age of Nationalism and Modernization
Panel chair: Filip Mazurkiewicz (University of Silesia in Katowice)
12: 30 – 14:30
Gergely Kunt (University of Miskolc)
Narrating Coming-of-Age Heterosexuality in the Diary of a Jewish Young Man in Budapest
Miklós Konrád (HUN-REN, Budpest)
Duelling Jews. Male Code of Honour, Assimilation and Jewish Identity in Hungary During the Dualist Period
Mariusz Kałczewiak (University of Potsdam; University of Wrocław)
Male Jewish Bodies – Discourses about Beauty, Disease and Masculinity
Galia Hasharoni (University of Haifa)
Aging Masculinity in Migration: From Central Europe to Palestine in the 1930s
14: 30 – 14: 40 – Coffee break
14:40 – 15:40 Keynote Anne Tomiche (Sorbonne University)
Dandyism as Gender Norm/Transgression in the Early Twentieth Century Avant-gardes
15:40 – 15:50 Coffee break
Panel 3: The Male Body in Central European Turn of Century: Beauty, Health, Disease, Crisis
Panel chair: Josef Šebek (Charles University, Prague)
15:50 – 17:50
Jan Pezda, PhD. (University of Ostrava)
Apollo versus Hercules. Sport Stars, Physical Culture and Hegemonic Masculinity in Bohemian Lands around 1918
Michał Narożniak (European University Institute)
Galician Men between Moral Panic and Fantasies of Delight: Negotiating Masculinity in the Prostitution Discourse
Darko Ilin (University of Nova Gorica)
Contagious Desires: Medico-Literary Discourses of Masculinity and Sexuality in Lojz Kraigher’s Young Love (1917–18)
Gergely Magos, PhD (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
Masculinity and the Degeneration of the Hungarian Nation. Male Mental Disorders in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century
19:30 Dinner
DAY 2
9:00 – 11:00
Panel 4: Forging Modern Masculinities: Work, Culture, and Identity in 20th Century Central Europe
Panel chair: Richard Müller (Institute of Czech literature CAS, Prague)
Marcin Szymczyński (University of Silesia in Katowice)
Mining Work as an Experience of Masculinity in Upper Silesia: A Literary Perspective
Tereza Jiroutová-Kyčlová (Charles University)
Messy Democracy: Boyhood, Masculinity, and Leadership in The Minor Theater’s Staging of Jaroslav Foglar’s Canonical Work
Wojciech Smieja (University of Silesia in Katowice)
Krzysztof Varga and his Hungarian HIStories
Elisa-Maria Hiemer (Freie Universität Berlin)
Constructing Fatherhood in Court: Divorce, Law, and Gender Norms in Socialist Europe
11:00 – 11:15 Coffee break
Panel 5: Transgressive Masculinities: Desire, Alterity, and Non-Normativity in Central Europe I.
Panel chair: Mateusz Chmurski (Sorbonne University / CEFRES)
11:15 – 12:45
Agnieszka Sobolewska Alsberg (University of Illinois at Chicago / CEFRES)
Wild Masculinities and Psychoanalytic Heterodoxies: From Vienna and Paris to Prague and Back
Nicolas Aude (Sorbonne University): Men Under the Whip: Deleuze, Sacher-Masoch and the Galician Context
Luca Baruffa (Sapienza, University of Rome): Forests of Desire. Discipline and Dissent in the Twentieth-Century. Homoerotic Naturecultures: from Hans Blüher to Heinz Rutha
12:45 – 13:45 Lunch break
Panel 6: Transgressive Masculinities: Desire, Alterity, and Non-Normativity in Central Europe II.
Panel chair: Marcin Bogucki (University of Warsaw)
13:45 – 15:15
Slaven Crnić (University of Rijeka, Croatia)
A Peculiar Undoing: Male (Non)Normativity and Cultural (Non)Belonging in Ivo Andrić’s Omer Pasha Latas
Josef Šebek (Charles University)
Topography of Masculine Desire: Queering the Metropolis in Czech Literature of the 1980s and early 1990s
Šimon Čižmár (Institute of Slovak Literature SAS, Bratislava)
Queer Masculinity in Slovak literature
15:15 – 15:30 Coffee break
Panel 7: Forging Modern Masculinities: Dissent and Liminal Spaces in 20th Century Central Europe
Panel chair: Wojciech Smieja (University of Silesia in Katowice)
15:30 – 17:30
Richard Müller (Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences)
The Condemned Men’s ominous Bonds in Kafka, Nabokov (and Beyond)
Jan Matonoha (Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague)
Central European Masculinities in Extreme Liminal Topoi: from the Critique of Václav Havel to Appraisal of Bruno Schulz and Miron Białoszewski
Judit Acsády, PhD (HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences)
De-heroizing Masculinities: Narratives of Male Dominance in Dissident Circles under Kádárism in Hungary
Martin Pavlov (Institute of Slovak Literature SAS, Bratislava)
Nature as a Space of Masculinity Formation in Ivan Laučík’s Poetry
19:00 Dinner
DAY 3
09:30 – 11:30
Panel 8: Central European Masculinities in Transition and Contemporary Global Challenges
Panel chair: Ivana Taranenková (Institute of Slovak Literature SAS, Bratislava)
Ludmiła Janion (University of Warsaw)
Responsibilization of Masculinity in Poland the Transition Era: Sexuality, Pregnancy, Violence
Rafał Majerek (Jagiellonian University, Poland)
Wounded Masculinity in Contemporary Slovak Prose (Based on Selected Texts by Márius Kopcsay)
Andrija Golubović (University of Belgrade)
Masculinity Hidden in Plain Sight: Dominant Social-scientific and Sedia Portrayals of the First Two Mass Shootings in Serbia
Ruslana Koziienko (Central European University)
Masculinities at the Home Front: Ukrainian Civilian Men and (Im)mobility Under Martial Law
13:00 Farewell
The conference is organized as part of the research project VEGA 2/0031/24 Between Norm and Transgression: “Contact Zones” in 19th-Century Slovak Literature and Central-European Masculinities in a Comparative Perspective.