Date: Thursdays, at 9:30 am Place: Online, room YT211, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University Lecturer: Mátyás Erdélyi (CEFRES / FHS UK) Language: English
Our task in this course is to explore the application and diffusion of statistical thinking in Central Europe in the long nineteenth century. Statistical thinking is not merely investigated as an academic discipline, but the course will look at practical uses of statistical methods ranging from the public sphere to the private economy that constantly exploited advances in statistical mathematics and probability theory. It thus plans to reconcile specific forms of statistical knowledge about society and economy with their equally diverse forms of application by natural and social scientists, private and public clerks, and other intellectuals.
A seminar of the Institute for International Studies of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague, and CEFRES
Organizers: Jérôme Heurtaux (CEFRES) and Maria Kokkinou (postdoctoral researcher, CEFRES / Charles University) When: Fall Semester, Wednesdays, 12:30 – 1:50 pm Where: Online, upon registration. Please contact the organizers: maria.kokkinou(@)cefres.cz. Language: French
Seminar presentation:
The crisis has the wind in its sails: due to the appearance and extensive spread of Covid-19 in 2020, this concept has regained a world-wide attention, not observed since the financial crisis of 2009. Apart from these spectacular moments of global turmoil, we can no longer count the events or phenomena that are described as crises.
A concept inextricably linked to modernity, a “crisis” (pre)occupies our societies in all its dimensions. The polysemic uses of the term and its very topicality prompt us to revisit this concept, its different meanings and uses. This seminar course is devoted to this task. It will involve the intervention of researchers from various disciplines – political sociology, history, art history, anthropology, philosophy, etc.
What realities are qualified as “crises” and in which ways are they critical? What is a crisis and how to explain its emergence? How does a crisis unfold, what are its effects and consequences? Why do crises give rise to conflicts of interpretation over their meaning? Is the notion of crisis a central operator of our modernity and a key to understanding the challenges that contemporary societies face?
Wednesday, January 6th, 12:30 – 1:50 Presentation of the Students’ work
Evaluation:
Students read one text per week, sent in advance by the lecturer. They prepare a 5-page essay in French on a “crisis” not addressed during the class, based on at least three sources (1 academic and 2 non-academic ones). The assignment must be turned in by January 4th 2021 and presented orally on January 6th during the last session (5 minutes each).
Bibliography:
Arendt, Hannah, La crise de la culture, Paris, Gallimard, 1991.
Dobry, Michel, Sociologie des crises politiques, Paris, Presses de Sciences po, 1986.
Gaïti, Brigitte, « Les incertitudes des origines. Mai 1958 et la Ve République », Politix, n° 47, 1999, p. 27-62.
Gobille, Boris, « L’événement Mai 68. Pour une sociohistoire du temps court », Annales HSS, mars-avril 2008, n° 2, p. 321-349.
Grossman, Evelyne, La créativité de la crise, Paris, Minuit, 2020.
Lacroix, Bernard, « La ‘crise de la démocratie représentative en France’. Eléments pour une discussion sociologique du problème », Scalpel, vol. 1, 1994, p. 6-29.
Morin, Edgar, « Pour une crisologie », Communications, n° 91, 2012.
