Conceptual art in Bratislava in the 1960s-1980s

Research Area 1: Displacements, Dépaysements and Discrepancies.
Research Area 2 : Norms & Transgressions.

Contact: perin-emel.yavuz@cefres.cz

This project focuses on the avant-garde microcosm of Bratislava in the 1960s-1980s, which included artists such as Július Koller (1939-2007), Stano Filko (1937-2015), Miloš Laky (1948-1975 ), Peter Bartoš (1938), Alex Mlynárčik (1934), Jana Želibská (1941). Provocatively compared with the communist context that prevailed then, I designate these artists as entrepreneurs because they had to find their own ways to create and show their work, in a context where private galleries were rare and where State dominated the worlds of art. These artists should therefore invent experimental forms and exhibition solutions that were very similar to those of Western avant-garde at the same time. One can perceive in these inventions, outside this official circuits of recognition of art, a way to access a kind of freedom from not only material contingencies but political oppression.

Through historical research on this avant-garde microcosm and its local context, I want to investigate the origins and deep motivations of these artists’ “disguised” solutions to create and show their work. Starting from the assumption that art and politics are part of a relationship of interdependence, my goal is, first, to observe individual paths in relation to local art history, and secondly, to study their relationship with the coercive framework imposed by the State. In this way, the challenge is to determine the genesis of artistic innovation. In terms of reception, I also will question how the actions of these artists, these transgressive ways of making art, were perceived by connoisseurs and authorities. Including the use of institutional approaches and functional George Dickie Nelson Goodman from analytic aesthetics, this project thus commits an aesthetic thought on the status of an artistic production once it is not recognized by official channels. By using analytical aesthetics methods (including George Dickie’s institutional approach[1] and Nelson Goodman’s functional approach[2]), this project thus commits an aesthetic thought on the status of an artistic production when it is not recognized by official channels.

Beyond the local context, sources of these transgressive forms and practices will also be to find, according to the theory of cultural transfers, in exchanges with the Western world and the artists of the former Eastern bloc networks. This will enable to lay the groundwork for a histoire croisée of the turn of art in the 1960s-1980s and to review the chronologies of this artistic phenomenon which is still dominated by Western avant-garde.

[1] Dickie George, 1964, « The myth of the aesthetic attitude », American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 1, n^o 1, p. 54-64 ; 1969, « Defining art », American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 6, n^o 3, p. 253-256 ; 1974, Art and the Aesthetic. An Institutional Analysis, Ithaca, Cornell University Press.

[2] Goodman, Nelson, 1992 [1977], « Quand y a-t-il art ? », transl. by Daniel Lories, in Genette, Gérard, Esthétique et poétique, Paris, Seuil, p. 89-90.

CV

Current situation

• Associated to Centre for the Study of Arts and Language (CRAL UMR 8566) at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris.
• Co-founder of the research group ARVIMM, which is engaged in the study of contemporary visual arts in Maghreb and Middle East.
• Member of the editorial board of the French online review on art theory Proteus.
• Member of the scientific board of the French and German online review Trajectoires. Travaux des jeunes chercheurs du CIERA.

Personal web page

Education

7 Jan. 2015 : Audition for the residency competition within the program “Approches et théories de l’art mondialisé et du post-colonialisme”, National Institute for Art History (INHA), Paris, ranked second for one position.

23 Oct. 2014: Audition for the post-doc competition of the research programm “Labex Creation, Art and Heritage” (CAP), Paris.

27 June 2014: Audition for the post-doc competition Fernand Braudel IFER outgoing, Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme (FMSH), Paris, ranked fourth for three positions.

2014: Qualification to become a university assistant professor in sections 18 (Aesthetics) and 22 (Art History).

2013 : PhD in Arts : History and Theory, EHESS, under the supervision of Jean-Marie Schaeffer, CRAL. Jury: Jacques Morizot, Jan Baetens, André Gunthert, Michel Gauthier. Mention très honorable. Dissertation title: Narrative art : de l’expérience du monde quotidien au monde de l’œuvre. Herméneutique de l’événement esthétique [Narrative Art: from the Everyday Life Experience to the Artwork. Hermeneutic of the Aesthetic Event].

9 June 2011 : Interview to  “concours externe de professeur des écoles nationales supérieures d’art”, École nationale supérieure d’art of Dijon, ranked 3^rd.

2002 : 2^nd year of MA in Contemporary Art History, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne – Paris I. Mention bien.

2000 : 1^rst year of MA in Contemporary Art History, Université Louis Lumière – Lyon II – Ruprecht Karls Universität, Heidelberg, Allemagne (Erasmus program). Mention bien.

Professional Experience

Research Experience

2008-2009 : Fellow, “History of Art and Aesthetic” Programm, Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte (Paris)

2006 : Fellow, Graduiertenkolleg “Körper-Inszenierungen”, Department of Theater Studies, Freie Universität (Berlin, Germany)

2006 : Fellowship from the Centre Interdisciplinaire d’Études et de Recherches sur l’Allemagne (Paris) for a field trip in Germany (Berlin, Munich, Germany)

2004 : Fellow at the École Française de Rome, Villa Medici (Italy).

Teaching Experience

2014-2016 : In charge (with Annabelle Boissier, Fanny Gillet, Alain Messaoudi and Silvia Naef) of ARVIMM’s seminar, EHESS, Paris

2012-2013 : Tutor, Master Trans — Mediation Teaching, Haute école des arts et de design, Geneva (Swiss)

2008-2011 : Professor of History of Art at ESAL-Art School, Metz-Epinal (France)

2010-2011 : Part-time Lecturer of Contemporary Art History at University of Marne-la-Vallée (France)

2007-2008 : In charge (with Jean-François Guennoc) of the seminar Interart — Penser l’interdisciplinarité et les formes artistiques, EHESS, Paris

2005-2007 : Part-time Lecturer of Comparative Literature at University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin (France).

Curating Experience

Sept. 2014-Aug. 2015 : (with Alain Messaoudi & Fanny Gillet) TYPOGRAPHIAe ARABICAe, Bibliothèque Universitaire des Langues et Civilisations (BULAC), 15 June-8 August 2015.

Communication and Edition Experience

June 2013-Dec. 2015 : Scientific Communication Manager, Institute for Advanced Studies in Islam and Islamic Societies (IISMM), EHESS, Paris.

Dec. 2007-Oct. 2010 : Managing Editor, Trivium, French-German online journal for Human and Social Sciences, Paris — http://trivium.revues.org/

Conferences and Workshops

9 July 2015 : Panel Images, narrativités, identités. Ce que nous disent les arts plastiques des sociétés du Maghreb et du Moyen Orient (XIX^e-XXI^e siècle) [Images, Narrativities, Identities. What do tell Visual Arts about Maghreb and Middle East (XIXth-XXIrst Century)] — Congress of the Groupement d’intérêt scientifique “Moyen-Orient et mondes musulmans” (CNRS), INALCO, Paris. Co-organized with Annabelle Boissier, Fanny Gillet and Alain Messaoudi.

15 June 2015 : Workshop Typographie et graphisme de la lettre arabe : enjeux et perspectives [Arabic Typography and Graphic Design: Issues and Perspectives], Pôle des langues et civilisations, Paris. Co-organized with Fanny Gillet and Alain Messaoudi.

2014-2015 : Lecture series Conversation du spectateur, Théâtre de la Cité internationale, Paris. Co-organized with Edith Magnan and Bruno Trentini.

8 Nov. 2010 : Conference Sur les routes. La marche et les pratiques artistiques [On the Road. Walking and Artistic Practices], ESAL-Art School, Metz-Epinal, Musée de l’image, Epinal (France).

6-7 May 2010 : Conference Avant-gardes politiques / Avant-gardes artistiques dans les années 60-70. Un parallèle en question [Political Avant-gardes/Aesthetical Avant-gardes in the 60s-70s: from Parallel Towards Interaction], CRAL-EHESS/INHA, Paris. Co-organized with Malika Combes and Igor Zubillaga Contreras.

13-14 March 2009 : Conference Agencements – arrangements – a-genre-ments? Narrations en tous genres (France-Allemagne) [Gender-Collage? Gender-Muster? Gender-Er-zählung? Geschlecht(er) und Narration(en)], CIERA-EHESS-University of Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris. (Co-organized with Patrick Farges and Cécile Chamayou-Kuhn).

Publications

Books and Special issues

• (ed. with Annabelle Boissier, Fanny Gillet & Alain Messaoudi), “The Visual Arts in Islamic Lands: New Approaches, New Challenges”, special issue, Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, 2017. (Project accepted)
• (ed. with Bruno Trentini), “Que fait la mondialisation à l’esthétique?” [What Does Globalization Make to Aesthetic?], special issue, Proteus, 2015: 8.
• (ed. with Malika Combes & Igor Contreras), A l’avant-garde ! Art et politique dans les années 60-70 [In the Vanguard ! Art and Politics During the 60s and 70s], Peter Lang, March 2013.
• (ed. with Patrick Farges & Cécile Chamayou-Kuhn), Le Lieu du genre. La narration, un espace de performation du genre [Narrative, a Space where Gender Performs], Presses de la Sorbonne-Nouvelle, 2011.

Articles in peer-reviewed journals

• “La traversée du Delaware, l’aventure esthétique de Bill Beckley” [The Delaware Crossing, the Aesthetical Adventure of Bill Beckley], in: Danièle Méaux (ed.), “Espaces phototextuels” [Phototextuals Spaces] (special issue) Revue des sciences humaines, 319, 2015: 3, p. 155-166.
• “Narative Art. Da autoridade do referente a uma possível ficcionalidade da fotografia”, in : Ana Maria Pacheco Carneiro, Beatriz Rauscher & Daniel Luís Barreiro (eds.), “Interdito: fotografia e fabulação” (special issue), ouvirOUver (Brazil), [online journal], vol. 11, no. 2, 2015. See online.
• “La mythologie individuelle, une fabrique du monde” [Individual Mythology, a Factory of World], in: Florence Baillet & Arnaud Regnauld (eds.), “L’Intime et le Politique dans la littérature et les arts contemporains” (special issue), Poétique de l’étranger (Paris), [online journal], no. 8, 2011. See online.
• “Photographie, séquence et texte. Le Narrative art aux confins d’une temporalité féconde” [Photography, Sequence and Text. Narrative art within a Fecund Temporality], in : Jan Baetens, Alexander Streitberger & Hilde Van Gelder (eds.), “Time and Photography” (special issue) Image&Narrative (Louvain), [online journal], no. 23, 2008. See online.

Chapters in Collective Works

• “Le Narrative art. De l’autorité du référent vers un possible fictionnel de la photographie” [Narrative Art. From Referential Authority to Fiction in Photography], in: Bernard Guelton (ed.), Fiction et Intermédialité, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2013, p. 31-36.
• “La politique de l’image aux confins d’une avant-garde qui ne dit pas son nom” [Picture Politics within an Avant-garde without Name], in: Malika Combes, Igor Contreras & Perin Emel Yavuz, A l’avant-garde ! Art et politique dans les années 60-70, Peter Lang, 2013, p. 157-168.
• (With Patrick Farges & Anne-Isabelle François) “Les Gender Studies entre transfert et institutionnalisation: une circulation des modèles et des pouvoirs” [Gender Studies between Tranfers and Institutionalization: a Circulation of Models and Powers], in: Aline Le Berre, Angelika Schober & Florent Gabaude (eds.), Le Pouvoir au féminin – Spielräume weiblicher Macht. Identités, représentations et stéréotypes dans l’espace germanique, Limoges, PULIM, 2013, p. 27-42.
• “La lecture comme paradigme esthétique. De l’extase moderniste au plaisir du texte” [Reading as Aesthetic Paradigma. From Modernist Excatsy to Pleasure of the Text], in: Andreas Beyer & Danièle Cohn (eds), Die Kunst denken. Zu Ästhetik und Kunstgeschichte, Berlin et Munich, Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2012, p. 199-213.

Communications

• (with Annabelle Boissier) “Temporalités en histoire de l’art. Valeurs et usages de la notion de retard” [Temporalities in Art History. Values and Uses of the Notion of Delay], ARVIMM’s seminar, EHESS, Paris, 2016-2-17.
• “Le tournant de l’art en Turquie, importation ou appropriation du modèle européo-américain? Lecture des écrits du STT” [Turn of Art in Turkey, Importation or Appropriation of the European and American Model? Reading the STT’s Writings], Conference Écrits et paroles d’artistes d’Afrique du Nord, du Moyen-Orient et de l’Europe de l’Est dans la guerre froide (1947-1989), IISMM-EHESS, 2015-11-4/5.
• “Sanat Tanımı Topluluğu (The Art Definition Group), passeur de l’Art conceptuel en Turquie” [Sanat Tanımı Topluluğu (The Art Definition Group), a Purveyor of Conceptual Art in Turkey], Conference Arts visuels et islams. Inventions, constructions, prescriptions (XIX^e-XXI^e siècle), Maison méditerranéenne des sciences de l’homme d’Aix-en-Provence, 2014-10-2/3.
• “Le tournant de l’art des années 1970-1980 en Turquie: formes et enjeux” [The Turn of Art during the 70s-80s in Turkey: Forms and Issues], ARVIMM’s seminar, EHESS, 2014-12-19.
• “L’introduction de l’art conceptuel en Turquie : le Sanat Tanımı Topluluğu (1978-1981)” [The Introduction of Conceptual Art in Turkey: the Sanat Tanımı Topluluğu (1978-1981)], Frédéric Hitzel & Timur Muhidine’s seminar, “Art, patrimoine et cultures dans le monde turc et ottoman”, IISMM-EHESS, 2014-11-19.
• “L’achèvement de l’œuvre. Implications esthétiques de la narrativité dans la réception” [The Achievement of the Artwork. Aesthetical Rule of Narrativity in Reception], Bernard Guelton’s seminar “Le spectateur face à l’œuvre interactive”, Research Project “Fiction et interactions”, Institut ACTE, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne-Paris-1, Paris, 2013-12-13.
• “Le Narrative art: de la destitution du modèle romanesque du récit à la narrativité” [Narrative Art: from Destitution of Novel’s Narrative Model to Narrativity], Anne-Isabelle François’ seminar, “Récit et sens de l’intrigue”, Master de recherche de littérature générale et comparée, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, Paris, 2013-12-12.

Eastern Bohemia in the First Globalization (1870s-1940s)

Research Area 1: Displacements, “Dépaysements” and Discrepancies.

Contact: s.plyer@cefres.cz

My research focuses on Eastern Bohemia from the 1870s to the 1940s. Despite its fringe position at the Silesian border, between the Elbe and Moravia, this territory developed the most modern textile industry within the Double Monarchy and fully integrated the circuits of global exchanges of the end of 19th century. At the same time, Eastern Bohemia’s society experienced violent clashes between its Czech- and German-speaking populations. The expulsions of Germans in 1945-1946 put an end to a period tainted with globalization, democratization and nationalist drifts.

According to the available sources, the local society was organized within networks of information, business and sociabilities (as evidenced by the matrimonial alliances contracted between textile business families,  the pendular migrations of workers down to Silesia, and the circulation of local papers). These networks more or less fit the same regional geographical borders.

My aim is to study how such networks – and through them, local actors – would make use of the various spatial scales as ressources or as ways to escape in time of crisis. The efforts undertaken by some to impose a mainstream action – in order to integrate parochial conflicts into larger national politics for instance, or as they assimilated the national goals for their own local purposes, or as they chose to emigrate overseas – shall be scrutinized as they met growing nationalist discourses. Such analysis should provide a better understanding of how multiculturality was managed in a regional frame in the context of this first globalization.

CV

Current Situation

Since 2010, assistant professor at the Strasbourg University.

Education and professional career

2007: PhD at the Sorbonne Panthéon (Paris I) University, under the supervision of Robert Frank and Étienne François, cum summa laude.
Dissertation title: Germans from Sudeten and from Germany: Group Identity Mutations (The Case of Braunau/Broumov in Bohemia).

1995: received at “agrégation” national competitive examination in history (national recruitment examination for high-school/university professors).

Teaching

Since 2010: courses preparing to the national recruitment examination for high-school/university professors; courses in BA and MA; seminars for PhD students, at the Strasbourg University.

2014-2015: co-organization of two trinational summer schools “Gathered within Diversity?” with the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Bonn, Paris-Sorbonne University, Warsaw and Wrocław University, Bonn 2014, Strasbourg 2015. Course given in 2015: “Cities”. Courses given in 2014: “Informationsgesellschaft” and “Migration und Grenzen”.

2002-2008: high-school teacher within the Versailles academy.

Affiliations

• Member of the research center EA 3400 (Faculty of history, Strabourg University).
• Member of the CNRS research group no. 3607  « Connaissance de l’Europe médiane ».
• Member of the peer-review committe of Revue d’Allemagne.
• Partner researcher of the UMR SIRICE-Sorbonne research center “European Identities,  International Relations and Civilizations”.

Last Publications

• « Récits de vie et expulsion : l’exemple des Allemands des Sudètes », in Dominique Herbet et Caroline Hähnel-Mesnard (dir.), Fuite et expulsion des Allemands : transnationalité et représentations, XXe-XXIe siècle, Lille, Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2015, p. 367-388.
• « Restaurer la sensibilité au paysage. Deux mouvements de patrimonialisation aux confins de la Bohême pendant la seconde moitié du XXe siècle », Revue d’Allemagne, t. 47, n° 2, 2015, p. 151-168.
• « Expulsion, grands récits nationaux et petits récits européens. Mémoires individuelles et construction des communautés en Europe centrale depuis 1945 », Source(s). Cahiers de l’équipe de recherche ARCHE, n°4, juin 2014.
• Notices : “Charte 77”, “Luxembourg (Rosa)”, “Spartakisme”, “Mur de Berlin”, “Rideau de fer”, “Contraception (et avortement)”, “Féminisme et mouvements féministes”, “J’écris ton nom Liberté”, dans : Georges Bischoff et Nicolas Bourguinat (dir.), Dictionnaire historique de la liberté, Nouveau monde éditions, 2015.

You can see Ségolène Plyer’s full list of publications here.

Animal Matters: Challenging the Anthropological Difference and Literary Norms

Research Area 2: Norms & Transgressions

Contact: chiara.mengozzi@cefres.cz

The general goal of the project is to investigate the political, ethical and aesthetic questions that arise, when 20^th and 21st-century literature try to represent non-human animals and to address them by adopting an approach that is both comparative (I will analyse selected works from French, English, Italian and Czech literature) and interdisciplinary (it will be necessary to draw from the recent debates about the Animal question in different fields of study, ranging from philosophy to bioethics, from law studies to sociology, from cultural anthropology to ethology).

I do not intend to compile an additional contemporary bestiary, i.e. to appraise the animal symbolism in various authors’ poetics, but rather to address a different issue: how literature (the realm of discourse, of narratives, of words) questions itself when it faces animals, their silence and their irreducible and uncanny alterity? More precisely, I will inquire how the irruption of animals into the writing subverts or undermines: a) the norms of discourse (how to represent their peculiar being-in-the-world?); b) the ethics of writing (how to speak on behalf of someone who cannot?); c) the idea of human (where to draw the line between human and non-human?).

CV

EDUCATION

2011 (April 21): PhD in Literary Theory and Comparative Literature/ Doctoral School in Humanities / University of Trieste/ Prof. Sergia Adamo (supervisor)/ Starting date:  January 2008. Title: Narrazioni contese. Pratiche e dispositivi di (auto)rappresentazione nelle scritture italiane della migrazione.

 2009 (September 22): Diploma in Archive Research, Paleography and Diplomatics at the State Archives of Trieste (Italy). Two years school. Final grade: 150/150.

2005 (October 25): Master’s degree in Modern Literature/ Faculty of Arts and Philosophy/ University of Trieste. Title: Animalità e scrittura. Animali non-umani e figure dell’alterità. Final grade: summa cum laude.

CURRENT POSITION(S)

2017-: researcher and teacher at the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures (French section)/ Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague.

 2019-: Co-president of the international network OFFRES (Organisation Francophone pour la Formation et la Recherche en Sciences Sociales) https://offres.hypotheses.org.

2017-: Associate researcher at CEFRES in Prague (Centre Français de Recherche en Sciences Sociales)/ CNRS

PREVIOUS POSITIONS

2014-2016: assistant professor of French literature at the Faculty of Education, University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic

LANGUAGES

Italian: mother tongue
French: perfect knowledge (C2)
English: proficient (C1)
Czech: proficient (C1)
Latin: professional knowledge

FELLOWSHIPS/VISITING PROFESSORSHIPS/AWARDS

2016-2017: two years fellowship at CEFRES in Prague. Title of the project: “Animal Matters: Challenging the Anthropological Difference and Literary Norms.”

2015: (April-May): Visiting Professor at Hosei University-Tokyo, Japan/ Program “Europhilosophie”–Erasmus Mundus.

2007: one year fellowship at Lumière University Lyon 2 to participate in the CICLIM’s activities and LIMAG project (database on the literature of the Maghreb), under the direction of Prof. Charles Bonn.

2006: Degree award/ best graduate of Trieste’s Faculty of Arts (all exams passed with honors).

TEACHING ACTIVITIES

2013-2015: Co-director with prof. Ondřej Švec of interdisciplinary seminars at the OFFRES’ summer schools at the Universities of Trnava (July 2013) on “The struggle for recognition between literature and philosophy,” Brussels (July 2014) on “the narrative of the sick body between objectification and metaphor,” and Warsaw (September 2015) on “Antigone’s posthumous life.”

2014-2016: “Modern and Contemporary French Literature” at the University of Hradec Králové, Department of Education (courses in French).

2017-: Director of the PhD seminar “Literary Theory and Research Methodology,” at Charles University, Department of Romance languages and literatures (course in English and Czech, see above).

2017-2019: “Inverted Canons. Italian Literature in the Era of Transnational Migrations” at Charles University (course in Italian)

2017-2019: “Introduction to Postcolonial Theories and Literatures,” Charles University (course in French, held with a PhD student, Vojtěch Šarše).

2018-2020: course “Literary Theory and Textual Analysis” (course in Italian)

2020-: course “New Approaches to Literary Theory and Comparative Literature” (course in French)

REVIEWING ACTIVITIES

2020/2019/2018: Review panel member/ PhD and post-doc entrance examination at CEFRES

2020/2019: Scientific Evaluation /PhD entrance examination at Charles University

2021-: Advisory Board of Romanica olomucensia (Olomouc, CZ)

2017-: Editorial Board of Meta. Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy (Romania)

2015-: Reviewing Board of Études romanes de Brno (Masaryk University, Brno)

2011-: Copyeditor of Between. Journal of the Italian Association for the Theory and Comparative History of Literature(COMPALIT-Italy)

Occasional reviewer for the following journals: Narrativa. Nuova serie (Paris X-Nanterre), Quaderns d’Italià (Autonomous University of Barcelona), Écho des études romanes (University of South Boemia), Socio. La nouvelle revue des sciences sociales (Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris), Scritture migranti (University of Bologna), MediAzioni. Rivista online Rivista online di studi interdisciplinari su lingue e culture (University of Bologna), Griselda online (literary blog, Italy), Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland).

CAREER BREAKS

2012-2014 (January-September)
January 2012: moving for personal reasons to the Czech Republic and starting of intensive Czech language course, 5 days a week, 5 hours a day, at UJOP, Institute of Czech for Foreigners, Charles University in Prague. End of the course: July 2013. Diploma C1.
September 2013-July 2014: lecturer in French at the high school “Božena Němcová” in Hradec Králové (Comenius teaching fellow)

2016 (August-January): maternity leave

Publications

Monographs

• Ch. Mengozzi, Narrazioni contese. Vent’anni di scritture italiane della migrazione, Roma, Carocci, 2013, 214 pp.

(http://www.carocci.it/index.php?option=com_carocci&task=schedalibro&Itemid=72&isbn=9788843069323)

• Ch. Mengozzi, Raccontare la Grande Guerra. Lettura di un epistolario di San Vito al Torre, vol. XIII, Mariano del Friuli, 2007, 243 pp.

Articles in peer-reviewed journals 

Under review 

• Mengozzi, C., “Metabiography, or the evasive character of real life: from modernism to post-truth” (under review: Modern Fiction Studies).
• Mengozzi, C. – Wacquez, J. “Re-searching Fiction. Interspecies Assemblages between Science and Fiction in the Anthropocene”  (under review: Critical Inquiry).

Published

• Mengozzi, C. – Wacquez, J. “La défamiliarisation du monde. Trois exemples de fiction climatique française,” Modern Language Notes, vol. 135, n. 4, 2020, pp. 936-965.
• Mengozzi, C. “Le diable est dans les périphéries (du texte). Karel Čapek et la destitution du centre”, Revue de Littérature comparée, n. 1, janvier-mars 2020, pp. 17-37.
• Mengozzi, C. “La letteratura italiana all’epoca del riscaldamento climatico”, Narrativa. Nuova serie, 41 (2019), pp. 23-39.
• Ch. Mengozzi, “La guerra di Flaiano, o l’etica della farsa”, Italia Studies, 74.1 (2018), pp. 57-70
•  Ch. Mengozzi, “Aux frontières de l’humanité: (in)efficaticé de l’empathie et de l’expérience esthétique”, Romanistika Pragensia, n. 1, vol. XXII, 2018, pp. 165-78
• Ch. Mengozzi, “Les marges de l’homme en jeu aux limbes du Pacifique”, Revue romane. International Journal of Romance Languages and Literatures, 52.2 (2017), pp. 260-281

• Ch. Mengozzi, “Le leggi del mercato e le preferenze dei lettori. Ipotesi sulla circolazione e il successo della narrative italiana ultra-contemporanea in Repubblica ceca”, Narrativa. Nuova serie, Presses Universitaires de Paris Ouest, 38 (2017), pp. 101-113
• Ch. Mengozzi, “Pinocchio, ragazzo di strada. Il teatro di Baliani nelle bidonville di Nairobi, Arabeschi, 10 (2017), Online journal: http://www.arabeschi.it/42-pinocchio-ragazzo-di-strada-il-teatro-baliani-nelle-bidonville-nairobi/

• Ch. Mengozzi, “Lo sguardo e la colpa: Tempo di uccidere di Ennio Flaiano e la dialettica servo-signore alla prova del colonialismo”, Modern Language Notes – Italian issue – John Hopkins University Press, 31.1 (2016), pp. 175-195
• Ch. Mengozzi, “Pinocchio migrant et postcolonial. Parcours de subjectivation entre Europe centrale, Italie et Afrique”, Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, 8.2 (2016), pp. 36-61
• Ch. Mengozzi, “De L’utilité et de l’inconvénient du concept de World Literature”, Revue de littérature comparée, 3 (2016), pp. 335-349
• Ch. Mengozzi, “Scrivere la storia significa incasinare la geografia: mappe postcoloniali”, Etudes romanes de Brno, 37. 2 (2016), pp. 31-44
• Ch. Mengozzi, “What little I know of the world I assume. Cornici nazionali e mondiali per le scritture migranti e postcoloniali“, Modernità letteraria, 8 (2015), pp. 27-42

• Ch. Mengozzi, “Minor is beautiful. Il concetto di letteratura minore come strategia di (auto)legittimazione per le scritture migrant”, Studi culturali, IX.1 (2012), pp. 28-48
• Ch. Mengozzi, “Scena interlocutoria e paradigma giudiziario nelle scritture italiane della migrazione”, Between, II.3 (2012), online journal http://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/article/view/376/364
• Ch. Mengozzi, “Strategie e forme di rappresentazione di sé nella “letteratura italiana della migrazione”, Italies. Littérature. Civilisation. Société, 14 (2010), pp. 381-399
• Ch. Mengozzi – E. Pizzinat, “Mito infranto. Il miraggio italiano e la prospettiva coloniale nel romanzo di una scrittrice etiopica”, Zapruder. Storie in movimento, 23 (2010), pp. 116-123.
• Ch. Mengozzi – R. Kirchmayr, “Sartre e le retoriche dell’oppressione. Dall’Orfeo Negro alla Prefazione ai Dannati della terra di Fanon”, aut aut, 339 (2008), pp. 104-120
• Ch. Mengozzi, “Se focaliser sur les animaux. Une lecture de En attendant les barbares de J. M. Coetzee”, Le bateau fantôme, 7 (2008), pp. 69-91

Book chapters

• Mengozzi, C. “Au seuil d’un autre monde. Réchauffement climatique et formes littéraires,” dans Humain, Posthumain, sous la dir. de Cristina Alvares, Ana Lucia Curado, Sergio Guimaraes de Sousa, éditions Le Manuscrit Savoirs, Exotopies, 2020, pp. 51-78.
• Mengozzi, C. “On Recognition, Iterability and Self-Creativity in Colonial Contexts”. In Perspectives on the Self. Reflexivity in the Humanities, eds. Vojtěch Kolman and Tereza Matějčková, Berlin, De Gruyter (forthcoming – 2021).
• Mengozzi, C. “Ways out of the Anthropological Machine, or How and Why Venturing into (De)familiarization,” Outside the Anthropological Machine. Crossing the Human-Animal Divide and Other Exit Strategies, London-New York, Routledge, 2020, pp. 1-23.
• Mengozzi, C. “The Blind Spot of the Plot. Thinking Beyond Human with Karel Čapek,” Outside the Anthropological Machine. Crossing the Human-Animal Divide and Other Exit Strategies, London-New York, Routledge, 2020, pp.  114-128.
• Mengozzi, C. “Il romanzo degli altri. Trent’anni di narrativa italiana postcoloniale e della migranza”, Storia del romanzo in Italia, eds. G. Alfano, F. De Cristofaro, Roma, Carocci, vol. IV, 2018, pp. 435-47.
• Mengozzi, C. “Griot Fulêr. L’émigration/immigration à l’épreuve d’une (im)possible traduction”, Récits de migration. En quête de nouveaux regards, J. Ghidina, N. Violle (eds.), Clermont-Ferrand, Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, 2014, pp.257-272.
• Mengozzi, C. “Archivio, mercato e strategie del vissuto. Su alcune scritture collaborative degli anni Duemila”, Transkurturelle italophone Literatur / Letteratura italofona transculturale, M. Kleinhans – R. Schwaderer (eds.), Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann, 2013, pp. 37-55.
• Mengozzi, C. “Paris est un livre toujours ouvert. Les Nuits de Paris di Rétif de la Bretonne: flâneries e narrazioni”, Metropolis, A. Masecchia, (ed.),  Quaderni di Synapsis, vol. IX, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2010, pp. 75-87.
• Mengozzi, C. “Città e modernità. Nuovi scenari urbani nell’immaginario della “letteratura italiana della migrazione“, Moderno e modernità: la letteratura italiana, C. Gurreri et al. (eds.),  Roma, 2008, online http://www.italianisti.it/FileServices/Mengozzi%20Chiara.pdf.

Editorial works

• Mengozzi, C. – Comberiati, D. Non solo letteratura migrante. Nuovi percorsi di analisi e approfondimento sulle migrazioni nel panorama culturale italiano, Roma, Carocci, 2021.
• Mengozzi, C.  (ed.), Outside the Anthropological Machine. Crossing the Human-Animal Divide and Other Exit Strategies, London-New York, Routledge, 2020.
• Mengozzi, P. Vurm (eds.), (E)migrations, transferts : métissages et dynamiques de la ville / Dinamiche urbane : migrazioni, dislocazioni, creolizzazioni”, special issue Études romanes de Brno, vol. 37, n° 2, 2016.
• Mengozzi, G. Zanfabro (eds.) “Davanti alla legge. Tra letteratura e diritto”, special issue Between, II. 3 (2012).

Translations of my articles

• Ch. Mengozzi, “A World Literature fogalmának hasznáról és káráról az irodalomtudományban”, Helikon: Transnational Perspectives in Literary Studies, n. 2, 2015, pp. 157-173 (translated from French to Hungarian by Berkovits Balázs)
• Ch. Mengozzi, “Le roman des autres: trente ans de littérature italienne de la migration”, Du Colonial au mondial. Anthologie théorique transculturelle, Silvia Contarini – Claire Joubert – Jean-Marc Moura (eds.), Mimesis France, 2019 (translated from Italian to French by Ramona Onnis – being published)

Reviews

• Ch. Mengozzi, “Paolo Vignola, La lingua animale. Deleuze attraverso la letteratura”, Between, I, 2, 2011, http://www.between-journal.it.
• Ch. Mengozzi, Review of “Scuola e Laboratorio di Cultura delle Donne” (Duino, 25 giugno-1 luglio 2011), Archivi dei sentimenti e culture pubbliche. Un percorso di lettura, http://www.interculturadigenere.org/
• Ch. Mengozzi, “Riccardo Bonavita, Spettri dell’altro. Letteratura e razzismo nell’Italia contemporanea”, Between, I, 1, 2011, http://www.between-journal.it.
• Ch. Mengozzi, “Franca Sinopoli, Silvia Tatti (eds.), I confini della scrittura. Il dispatrio nei testi letterari”, Semicerchio. Rivista di poesia comparata, 40 (2009), http://semicerchio.bytenet.it/articolo.asp?id=158

The Spatial Control of Central European Concierges

Research Area 3: Objects, Traces, Mapping: Everyday Experience of Spaces.

Contact: istvan.adam@cefres.cz

István has been awarded the degree of PhD at the University of Bristol. His doctoral project examines the role of an understudied group of everyday Hungarians during and before the Holocaust: the Budapest building managers, concierges, or in Hungarian: the házmester. He analysed the building managers’ wartime acts in the light of their decades-long struggle for a higher salary, social appreciation and their aspiration to authority.

As he was working on his doctoral dissertation, gradually István has started to realize that it was not only the Hungarian context where building managers could play a critical role in the Jewish citizens’ survival. This is why his postdoctoral project investigates the similarities and differences among ordinary professionals working as concierges in different Central European territories in the 20th century: in Hungary, in the Czech Lands, in Slovakia and in Poland, and finally in a Western European country: France.

The comparative nature of Istvan’s postdoctoral project is useful in drawing up a European pattern of behaviour of those who belonged to the concierge profession. This could help to better understand the motivation of the general population, who witnessed the persecution of the European Jewry and who welcomed back the survivors in a transitional period. Instead of focusing on the wartime actions (or inactions) of the entire population of a specific country, or instead of drawing up righteous and less righteous realms, Istvan’s research shows that is makes more sense to choose certain groups with similar social and professional problems from various countries, and compare their long time acts and agencies.

CV

Education

2010-2015: PhD in Historical Studies, University of Bristol. Dissertation Title: “Bystanders” to Genocide?: The Role of Building Managers in the Hungarian Holocaust, written under the supervision of Tim Cole and Josie McLellan.

2008-2009: MA in History, Central European University, Budapest. Thesis Title: Post-Holocaust Pogroms in Poland and Hungary.

1998-2003: BA in Law, University of Szeged. Thesis Title: The History of Refugee Legislation.

1994-1998: BA in History, József Attila University, Szeged. Thesis Title: Polish Refugees in Hungary during World War II.

Grants and Fellowships

• Claims Conference Saul Kagan Fellow in Advanced Shoah Studies, 2013–2015.
• EHRI/European Holocaust Research Infrastructure Fellow at the Prague Jewish Museum, November 2014.
• Junior Fellow at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, March 2014 – August 2014.
• Tziporah Wiesel Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, December 2012 – May 2013.
• EHRI/European Holocaust Research Infrastructure Fellowship at Yad Vashem, October-November, 2012
• J. & O. Winter Fund Grant, 2011.
• University of Bristol, Faculty of Arts Scholarship For Postgraduates, 2010.

Selected Publications

Monography

• Budapest Building Managers and the Holocaust in Hungary. London, Palgrave, 2017.

Articles

• Review on Barna-Pető, Political Justice in Budapest after WWII, Hungarian Historical Review 3 (2015), p. 790-795.
• “Tipping the Rescuer? The Financial Aspects of the Budapest Building Managers’ Helping Activity during the Last Phase of the Second World War”, in: S:I.M.O.N. – Shoah: Intervention. Methods, Documentation 2 (2015) 1, p. 4-14.
• “Das verletzte Selbstwertgefühl des Herrn Professor” in S.I.M.O.N. – Shoah: Intervention. Methods, Documentation 1 (2014), p. 22-27.
• “A házmesterek szerepe a magyar holokausztban” [The Role of Building Managers in the Hungarian Holocaust], in Randolph L. Braham (ed.), Tanulmányok a holokausztról VI [Studies on the Holocaust, vol. VI], Budapest, Múlt és jövő, 2014, p. 103-137.