International Workshop organized by the CEFRES, in cooperation with the Institute of Sociological Sciences (Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague), Fundacja Zatoka (PL) and Periféria (HU)
Date: 4-6.11.2021 Place: CEFRES, Prague and online Language: English Deadline for submission: 30.5.2021
Pre-program:
Thursday evening: keynote and reception;
Friday: presentations Saturday morning: critical urban tour in the Karlín district: from a working-class neighborhood to a symbol of gentrification
PhD Students Workshop organized by EHESS and CEFRES will be held on the theme of Humanities and Social Sciences Facing the Unexpected.
Date: April 12th, 2021 (9:30-19:00) Deadline for propositions: March 15th, 2021
Location: online and at CEFRES, Na Florenci 3 (Prague)
Language: English
The sanitary crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown the whole world into deep uncertainty and radically shaken almost all our habits. This also applies to the research community. Lockdowns, travel restrictions, curfews, closures of libraries or archives and other measures of distance and protection have a direct and sometimes brutal impact on many scientific projects, especially those of many young researchers on fixed-term contracts. This context therefore leads us to question the ways in which humanities and social sciences can deal with uncertainty, the unexpected and the unforeseen, and this in two directions:
(1) On the one hand, it is a question of our own research practices, i.e., the techniques and methods that we have – or that remain to be developed – to confront us with a reality that has abruptly changed. In particular, how to deal with the sudden impossibility to access a research field or archives (whether it is due to the current pandemic or to any other unexpected event)? How to react in the face of external conditions making it impossible to carry out a project as originally planned? What opportunities offer the new means of remote research, but also what are the risks they entail – and how can we think about these two phenomena together in a methodological reflection that is both lucid and productive?
(2) On the other hand, it is relevant to raise the question of the rapid changes that sometimes affect our research objects, sometimes leading to their radical reformulation. The occurrence of an unexpected event or a brutal reversal – human history abounds in wars, revolutions, pandemics, or other cataclysms which each time induce a more or less complete reversal of the current norms and practices in the societies concerned. How can we analyse the effects of these transformations on past and present societies, both collectively and individually (biographical ruptures, etc.) and report on the forms of resistance and adaptation? How can we think about these disruptions, the reactions they provoke and the forms of resilience they give rise to?
We invite all PhD students interested affiliated to CEFRES, EHESS or a Czech University to submit their application, which will include, in a single PDF file, a CV (maximum two pages) as well as a brief description of the planned intervention (approximately 1.500 characters, including spaces). The workshop will be organised around the presentations of the young researchers and their discussion by the supervisors and other participants. In addition, there will be time for an exchange of individual experiences about the global pandemic. Please send your application by March 15th, 2021 to the following addresses: falk.bretschneider@ehess.fr and jerome.heurtaux@cefres.cz
For the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the French Association for Artistic Action (AFAA) and the foundation of the French Works Abroad Service (SOFE), the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and the French Institute, together with Sorbonne-Nouvelle University, are organizing a series of events to study the history of French cultural diplomacy. Other higher education and research establishments also have the opportunity to become partners in this initiative.
Among these events, an academic conference is planned for spring 2022 at Sorbonne-Nouvelle University, which will focus on the history and action of the French cultural network abroad, including the Cooperation and Cultural Action Services (SCAC), Instituts Français and Alliance Française branches. It will also look at the public policies underpinning this action. The proceedings of this conference will be published.
The scientific committee responsible for the conference is launching a call for submissions open to academics of all languages, nationalities and disciplines, although the main focus of the conference is historic.
Submissions could cover various fields of the French cultural diplomacy (such as language, artistic exchanges, cultural and creative industries, academic research, teaching and debate), its actors, including figures, public, semi-public and private institutions (departments of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture, Alliance Française branches, foundations, major cultural institutions, cultural and creative industry companies, profiles of major figures and studies of staff) and the core focuses of its action (audiences, vehicles and means of distribution, purposes and goals, and multilateralism). A comparative approach looking at other national models could also be proposed, as well as a country- or geographical region-based approach (French cultural diplomacy in Latin America, Asia, Europe, etc.).
The scientific committee will prioritise submissions which will make use of the abundant archival material available at the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, in the La Courneuve and Nantes archive centres (documents from consular services, Instituts Français, Alliance Française branches, cultural centres, the AFAA, the SOFE, the Directorate-General of Cultural Affairs, etc.) and which could be enriched with the input from various diplomatic missions requested in view of the conference.
Submissions should be sent in French or English (1,000 to 3,000 characters) to the scientific committee by 4 December 2020 to the email address HistDiplo2022@gmail.com, accompanied by the CV of the author.
The authors of submissions selected by the scientific committee will be informed by 20 December 2020.
Venue: Prague Date: 6 November 2020 Deadline for applications: 30 June 2020 Contacts: jakub.strelec@fsv.cuni.cz Organizing institutions: CEFRES, Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Collegium Carolinum in Prague
The history of psy-sciences under communist rule in the former Eastern Bloc has been widely perceived as a mirror image of state socialist mental health policies. In the last years, however, the situation has changed: the history of psy-sciences in communist Europe has become an evolving field of research dealing with a variety of topics ranging from the transnational history of psychiatry to the history of social control and criminality.
Date & Venue: 27 February 2020, Prague Deadline for applications: 15 November 2019 Organizers: Institute of Art History (CAS) & CEFRES In partnership with: Institute of Contemporary History (CAS), Université Paris-Nanterre Language: English
Interwar East-Central Europe gave rise to an international movement of left-wing activist photographers, whose aim was to expose the workers’ living and working conditions through mass-produced documentary photographs. Despite growing research in the wake of the landmark exhibition “The Worker Photography Movement” in Madrid in 2011, we still have difficulties grasping this photographic production in its full scope because the conditions in which it was preserved and transmitted over generations have not been systematically explored.
Originally, social, proletarian, or worker photography, as named by its proponents, was presented by the Communist propaganda as a weapon in the class struggle. It was meant to supply left-wing printed media with images documenting the life of workers in order to counteract the influence of “bourgeois” illustrated magazines. Therefore, some of the photographs were kept in the picture archives of newspapers, while others remained in the hands of their authors. The Nazi occupation of Europe brought about a shift in the conservation of worker photography by leading the Communists to hide or to destroy archives that were deemed compromising. As a result, picture archives in journals such as Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung in Germany, Regards in France or Rudé Právo in Czechoslovakia, as well as other archives of press agencies and leftist organizations across Europe, disappeared.
After World War II, however, many of these photographs resurfaced and were granted a second life. Some were moved to documentary collections of the Communist historical museums which blossomed in countries of the Eastern Bloc in the 1950s, while others were included in the photographic collections founded in art museums from the 1970s. Such transfers brought about shifts in the status and uses of these images. Worker photographs turned into historical documents or works of art, despite having been originally conceived of as news or reportage photography and mass-reproductions. Having become cultural objects in their own right, they were used for political or historical purposes. Today, this visual material still raises issues of status and past political uses, which art and history museums in East-Central Europe have to address through new museum practices.
This international workshop examines the legacy of worker photography as
museum object, cultural heritage and history in East-Central Europe from 1945
until today. How was worker photography preserved, historized, and mediated in
East-Central European museums? The goal is to provide a multifaceted
perspective on worker photography by confronting its political and historical uses
and its musealization (van Mensch 1992) after 1945 on the one hand, and
the memory issues it raises today on the other.
The workshop is part of the interdisciplinary and international sessions organized by the Photography Research Centre at the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences (https://www.udu.cas.cz/en/photography-research-centre/). Established in 2018, the Centre ambitions to become a singular platform for interdisciplinary research in the Czech Republic, with the objective of overcoming national, branch-based and mono-institutional approaches of photography and photographic history in Central Europe.
Papers are sought on worker photography in museum collections in East-Central Europe, addressing the following questions :
Contextual and ethical reasons that led to conserving worker photography;
Actors and institutions involved in this process;
Conservation and cataloguing procedures (themes, metadata and documentation);
Exhibition, mediation and display practices;
The political, ideological and cultural uses of worker photography in museums;
Historiography: uses of worker photographs as illustrations of official narratives, or worker photography histories, be they local or transnational;
Worker photography as evidence, historical document, work of art;
Shifts observed: from the private to the public sphere, from one medium or format to another;
Material forms: analogue (prints, photomechanical reproductions) or digital;
International exchanges between institutions and circulation of photographs;
Comparative outlooks on worker photography collections in East-Central Europe and beyond.
This call for
papers welcomes presentations from scholars, curators, archivists and
collection managers who engage with the questions of the preservation,
collection, exhibition and historiography of worker photography in East-Central
European museums after 1945.
Deadline for submissions: 15 November 2019
Paper proposals: abstract of up to 300 words for 20 minute talks and a short biography (c. 150 words) can be sent to Fedora Parkmann (parkmann@udu.cas.cz).
Conferences costs: Help with travel and accommodation costs may be offered to participants who are not able to secure funding from their institutions.
The workshop will take place in Prague on 27 February 2020 at the CEFRES (French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences). The workshop language is English.
Organization:
Fedora Parkmann (Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Sciences/CEFRES)
Christian Joschke (Université Paris-Nanterre, Paris) – scientific collaboration
Scientific committee:
Jérôme Heurtaux (CEFRES)
Petr Roubal (Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague)
Petra Trnková (Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester/Photography Research Centre, Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague)
Post-revolutionary hopes and disillusions. Interpreting, promoting and disqualifying revolutions.
International Conference – Doctoral and student workshop
Date: 6 & 7 December 2019 Venue: Prague Deadline for the applications : 30 October 2019 Organizers: CEFRES, Faculty of Arts of Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University, Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the ERC Project„Tarica“ In partnership with: French Institute in Prague, Centre of French civilization and francophone studies (CCFEF) of the University of Warsaw, Centre of Polish Civilization of Sorbonne University, Scientific Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Paris, CNRS research unit LADYSS (University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) and Polish Institute in Prague Language: English
Under the frame of the international conference “Post-revolutionary hopes and disillusions. Interpreting, promoting and disqualifying revolutions” is organized a special workshop for PhD students and Master students to debate about issues and perceptions of post-revolutions’ situations in Central and Eastern Europe or elsewhere. This session will be held beside an academic debate, as well as a large public discussion about the topic.
2019 represents an important symbol and a major commemorative moment in Europe.
Marking thirty years since the collapse of the communist regimes of Central and
Eastern Europe, as well as fifteen years since their European integration, this anniversary gives rise to political, memorial and academic
initiatives throughout Europe. In a way, it does undoubtedly crystallize the
tensions and controversies surrounding the “1989 event” interpretation,
as it renews the assessment of countries transformations in the region since
the Velvet Revolution.
The political landscapes of post-communist countries provide contrasting
situations. Democracies and the rule of law have emerged everywhere in a
context of universalization of political and economic liberalism in Europe.
Nevertheless, several societies are experiencing current upheavals, which are
often described as illiberal, authoritarian or populist, or even as
„conservative revolutions“.
Hence, the scientific production on the concerned societies, based on
tried methods of investigation and analysis, invite us to think and rethink the
“1989 event”, which remains a major moment in our contemporary
history, and the transformations that Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the
other European countries and the European Union, have undergone since the
collapse of communism.
This thirtieth anniversary is a unique opportunity to think about
revolutionary experiences and regime change in various historical contexts. Thereby, this conference aims at offering wider and new academic
perspectives on regime transformations and democratic transitions, through a
comparative approach. Post-Communist Europe will undoubtedly be one of our
focus, as well as the Arab world following the 2011 uprisings or the political
transitions in Sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, this unprecedented proposition is to offer
an equal value of those revolutions in our comparative analysis, without any
ranking based on success of failure.
The chosen perspective is to question
the object “revolution” in terms of contradictory investments that it
is the object of a variety of actors. To analyze the multiple interpretations
that the revolution raises: promotion, even sublimation; but also
disqualification, even outright rejection.
In fact, the expressions of
disillusionment that accompany a revolutionary episode is far from rare. If
there is a law of revolutions, it may be this one. The narrative of
disappointment occurs almost constantly, despite the great diversity of regime
change trajectories. It emerges from democratic regressions led by new
political actors, from the recycling of the old regime, a counter-revolutionary
process, the lack of any major social changes, or merely because the hopes
carried by the revolution were not translated into political acts. Yet common
in the public space, expressions of disappointment have barely been the object
of academic research.
Thus, here are some exciting questions that fully justify a comparative examination:
I-Describing and representing hopes and disappointments
Expressions of hopes, expectations, disappointment, disenchantment, disillusion, are multiple: discursive and political, as well as artistic, literary and cinematographic. What forms do they take in the Eastern European, Arab of African context? What are their lexical and moral registers?
How is shape disillusion following the so-called “Old regime return”? Are these objective or ideal facts?
What is the impact of social inequalities persistence, economic reform lack, fading of sovereignty?
Which individuals, professional and social groups are more like to express hopes and disappointment? Are hopes and disappointment expressed individually or collectively?
What are the post-revolutionary disappointment temporalities: immediate or differed?
Are all kind of disappointments expressed?
II-Understanding and explaining hopes and disappointment
It goes without saying that the expression of hope or disappointment is not only a matter of individual and collective psychological mechanisms.
What are the mechanisms by which hope and disappointment is built? What are the specific actors, strategies, circumstances into play? What are the particularities of the moral, ethical and political framework from which disenchantment is deployed?
As Bronislaw Baczko mentioned, recalling the “emotional climate created by the revolutionary fact, the upsurges of fears and hopes (which) necessarily drive the production of social imaginaries”, to what extent is emotional over-investment part of political effervescence?
Is disillusionment only the natural product of prior illusion? Disappointment would then impose itself as a mirror of revolutionary hope, but it is not reduced to it as long as one is not the natural consequence of the other: it is the moment where some create and exploit the disappointment that must be the object of the investigation.
What is the materiality of disappointment? How do political, emotional, psychological, social vectors articulate themselves?
III- Uses and Effects of Disappointment
What are the social and practical practices of disappointment? Does all or part of society share it? How do some political entrepreneurs exploit it as a strategy?
What are the disappointment consequences on scholars and experts’ perception of the post-revolutionary process?
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Thanks to the richness and diversity of these
questions, this conference will gather specialists from several disciplines of
social sciences and humanities without borders, neither temporal nor spatial. We
will still be dedicated to contemporary Central Europe, the Arab world and sub-Saharan
Africa. The papers will have to mobilize original sources and be based on a
clearly exposed method (literary analysis, oral history, political sociology,
social psychology, etc.). PhD students and young researchers are particularly
encouraged to propose a paper.
Schedule
Deadline for paper proposals (max 500 words) : 30 October 2019
Selection of contributions and feedback from the conference organizers: 10 November 2019
Paper proposals (max 500 words) must be sent to jerome.heurtaux@cefres.cz, by 30 October 2019 at the latest.
This
international conference is organized by CEFRES, the Faculty of Arts of Charles
University, the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University, the Institute
of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the ERC
Project„Tarica“.
In collaboration with the French
Institute in Prague, the Centre of French civilization and francophone studies
(CCFEF) of the University of Warsaw, the Centre of Polish Civilization of
Sorbonne University, the Scientific Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences in
Paris, the CNRS research unit LADYSS (University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) and
the Polish Institute in Prague.
This conference is the third in the framework of a cycle of three
conferences, entitled “1989-2019: Beyond the Anniversary, Questioning 1989”,
held consecutively in Paris, Warsaw and Prague, coordinated by Maciej Forycki
(Scientific Centre in Paris of the Polish Academy of Science), Jérôme
Heurtaux (CEFRES–French Research Centre in Humanities and Social Sciences),
Nicolas Maslowski (Centre for French Studies (CCFEF), University of Warsaw) and
Paweł Rodak (Centre of Polish civilization, Sorbonne University).
Conferences costs
Due to limited funding, the organizers will be able to support some
prospective or underfunded participants. Hence, conference attendees are
advised to start exploring financial support from their home institutions or
outside sponsors.
Scientific Committee
Jérôme Heurtaux, Cefres
Michal Pullmann, Charles University
Miroslav Vaněk, Czech Academy of Sciences
Pavel Mucke, Czech Academy of Sciences
Eliška Tomalová , Charles University
Alia Gana, ERC « Tarica »
French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences – Prague
