International Conference

Dates and place: from 16 to 18 September 2019, Villa Lanna, Prague
Deadline for proposals: 28 February 2019
Organizers: Prague Forum for Romani Histories, in collaboration with CEFRES
Language: English

The Prague Forum for Romani Histories at the Institute of Contemporary History (Czech Academy of Sciences) invites proposals for an international conference on Romani migrations and mobilities, with particular focus on the period from 1945 until today. The conference will bring together scholars from across a variety of disciplines to present empirically grounded accounts of the multiple dimensions of Romani mobilities since 1945 in order to analyse connections between various forms of past mobilities and migrations and the most recent movements of various Romani groupings. The conference will be held in Prague on September 16-18, 2019. It is organized in cooperation with the Seminar on Romani Studies (Department of Central European Studies) at Charles University, the Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics at University of Valle, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies.

Over the past decade, a growing number of research projects, publications, and media have focused on Romani migrations and mobilities. However, most of these studies have only rarely combined the study of historical continuities and social trajectories shaping the present-day migratory movements. Anthropological and sociological accounts have documented contemporary strategies of Romani migrants, the production of legal classifications, and explored the politics shaping Romani mobilities. Additionally, the trope of ‘nomadism’ has continued to inform the discussions as a foundational concept (often as a simplified ‘straw man’) that researchers embrace or oppose to explain their arguments. We invite researchers to interrogate the utility and limitations of this binary, bearing in mind that a large proportion of local Romani communities have been part of the European sedentary population, and to move beyond it through conceptually innovative analyses of movement, circulation, migration and the concomitant social and existential mobilities they imply in the context of the post-World War II era.

The conference aims to contribute to the incipient field of comparative studies of Romani mobilities with a focus on the second half of 20^th century and from intersectional perspectives. Whereas recent research has documented the suffering and persecution of Romani groups during World War Two, post-war developments have not received the same measure of attention. These include, for instance, Romani experiences of returning to destroyed homes, government attempts to resettle and disperse Romani populations by force, labor and other internal migrations in search of better lives enchanted by the opportunities available in more industrialised cities, or navigating through ‘compensation schemes’ introduced by various state and international agencies. Many members of previously persecuted minorities, including Roma, hoped for a better future as a result of massive post-war projects to restructure European states. In Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, most of the local Roma aspired – together with others – to greater social mobility and full membership through socialist citizenship. Socialist projects to reach the ‘greater common good’ and societal equality, however, also entailed forced displacements and new regimes of disciplining the Romani bodies to cultivate working-class citizens out of Romani/Gypsy groupings. On the other hand, post-war aspirations and trajectories of (social) mobility of the Roma in the “West” remain largely unexplored, as well as the participation of Roma in movements and navigations across the East-West divide.  Similarly, relatively few studies explore the social mobility of Roma linked with gendered changes and (re)negotiation of tradition in inter-community relations, as well as other mechanisms and dispositifs along which members of Romani communities renegotiated their (stigmatized) “Gypsyness” in post-war times.

Thus, we invite various contributions to explore a wide range of mobilities and different intersections and/or entanglements between often contradictory developments, which can be understood as a condition for mobility, including physical movement and a change in social position. Additionally, the conference organisers welcome empirical and theoretical discussions of Romani mobilities as oscillating between modes of dispersal and containment, between forced mobilities and efforts to carve out autonomous movements and spaces.

Conference themes and areas of interest

The conference aims to bring together various empirically grounded and historically informed studies exploring different kinds of mobility and immobility in Europe and beyond. Locating these mobilities in the broader political, social, historical and cultural contexts and forces, contributors are invited to reflect on both voluntary and forced migration, patterns of seasonal mobility, and various forms of mobility (e.g. existential, physical, social) as a reaction to oppressive conditions as well as newly opened possibilities.

We welcome in particular proposals that focus on one or more of the following areas:

• Different trajectories and modes of Romani mobilities from 1945 to the present
• Movement as a mode of escaping oppressive and asymmetric conditions and taking up new possibilities of social mobility
• Intersectional studies of mobilities addressing gendered, classed, raced/ethnicised differentiations and other intertwined dimensions of social domination
• Connections between mobilities and forms of violence (physical, symbolic, everyday, structural)
• Romani migration during the period of socialist high-modernist policies – strategies deployed to attain upward social mobilities; forced displacements and resettlement schemes
• Mobility between oppressive policies of racial containment and dispersal, on the one hand, and resistance and resilience of various Romani individuals and groups, on the other
• Romani civil and political rights movements and their relation to physical and social mobility
• Continuities and discontinuities of migrations; historicizing the present moment and connecting past trajectories of migration and mobilities to current developments
• Methodological issues in exploring ‘histories of the present’ of Romani migrations and mobilities
• Attempts at conceptualisation/critical revision of migration and mobility beyond the concept of ‘nomadism’ and traditional ‘statist’ tropes; examinations of various modes of being beyond relying on the assumption of “Roma/Gypsy proneness to movement”

The conference will include a panel highlighting research based on the archival holdings of the International Tracing Service (ITS). The ITS collections include more than 35 million multi-page Holocaust-era documents relating to the fates of more than 17 million people who were subject to incarceration, forced labour, and displacement during and after World War II.  The Archive included significant holdings on Romani victims and survivors, as well as documentation of Romani interactions with refugee resettlement agencies and compensation schemes. Proposals that feature ITS-based research are particularly welcome. As additional conference program a public session will be organized in cooperation with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC., during which experts working on the ITS collections will introduce the research tools available to the interested public and assist Romani participants and visitors in searching for the documentation on their ancestors.

Those wishing to present a conference paper are invited to submit an abstract of no more than 350 words and a brief CV of no more than 150 words to the conference organisers, Jan Grill & Helena Sadílková, by February 28, 2019. We will inform applicants of the decision of the organising committee by March 30, 2019. Full written papers will be due July 1, 2019.

For further information regarding to the conference, please contact: Jan Grill and Helena Sadílková

E-mails: jan.grill@correounivalle.edu.co, helena.sadilkova@ff.cuni.cz

Members of organizing committee:

• Ilsen About, Assistant Professor at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Centre Georg Simmel (EHESS) Paris
• Yasar Abu Gosh, Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague
• Kateřina Čapková, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Celia Donert, Senior Lecturer in Twentieth-Century History in the Department of History, University of Liverpool
• Jan Grill, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Valle
• Krista Hegburg, Senior Program Officer, International Academic Programs, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Ari Joskowicz, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, European Studies, and History and Director of the Max Kade Center for European and German Studies at Vanderbilt University
• Angéla Kóczé, Assistant Professor of Romani Studies and Academic Director of the Roma Graduate Preparation Program at Central European University, Budapest
• Helena Sadílková, Assistant Professor, Seminar on Romani Studies, Department of Central European Studies, Charles University, Prague
• Eszter Varsa, Fellow at the Leibniz-Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS) in Regensburg

Graduate and Post-Graduate Workshop

Dates: 20-21 May 2019
Venue: French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences (CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1, Czech Republic), Centre for Medieval Studies (CMS, Jilská 1, Prague 1, Czech Republic)
Deadline for proposals: 15 January 2019
Organizer: Martin Pjecha (CEU, CEFRES)
Organized in collaboration with: CEFRES, Centre for Medieval Studies (CMS), Central European University (CEU)
Language: English

The second millennium of the Church is one of a connected series of “total revolutions”, enacted by those who had been promised Christ’s return and blissful paradise, yet experienced only desperation. Their hatred of this status quo, hatred of heaven’s absence, reached such a state that they fought to bring heaven into the world.[1]

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy’s classic reading of European revolutions,[2] medieval to modern, gave central significance to the religious perspective. Previously, the violent deposition of rulers or the destruction of hierarchies—especially by the people-were almost unthinkable due to their significance in maintaining “political” and “religious” order. Since Rosenstock-Huessy, however, researchers have tended to prefer socio-economic, politico-ideological, ethno-linguistic, and generally materialist explanations—depending on current fashions—for such violence. This has been at the expense of religious and theological elements, though the 1979 Iranian revolution certainly brought these back into academic awareness. Cross-disciplinary insights suggest that what is today labelled “religious” often was (and is) the internal meaning-structures which revolutionary agents used to express and inform their own actions, fitting themselves into existing divine or supra-mundane narratives (Augustinian, apocalyptic, mystical, etc.), or re-working these narratives under the influence of new or rediscovered ideas (humanist, Joachite, Christian Platonist, etc.).

Modern researchers still struggle to balance emic and etic explanations of revolutionary action, yet at least since the 14^th century, movements and thinkers began to arise which clearly defined their violent, revolutionary action in theological terms, or terms in which the “religious” and “political” are not clearly separate spheres of existence: the Apostolic Brethren or Cola de Rienzo in Italy, the Hussites in Bohemia, Thomas Müntzer in the German lands, György Dozsa in Hungary, the Lollards and Oliver Cromwell in England. The list could also potentially move to include such events as the French, pan-European (1848), and Russian revolutions, which have traditionally lacked theological analysis. Such movements built and innovated upon existing understandings of matters like the human condition and history, the perfectability of the world, and the human relationship with God, to not merely legitimize violent action (post facto), but to motivate, guide, and inform it along the way.

Our workshop aims to discuss and elaborate upon these and other themes related to revolution from the medieval to the modern periods in Europe, west and east. We hope to address the implications of re-opening historical debate on revolutions which take seriously the input of political-religion. We especially want to emphasize a broad geographic and chronological field, and welcome new and inter-disciplinary approaches to challenge established historiographic narratives. The workshop will organize participants thematically and ask them to react to each others’ papers. Some common topics/questions that interest us include:

• Do the “total revolutions” of the second millennium have a common religious form?
• Is modern man born out of revolution?
• To what extent can revolutions be compared, treated as part of a trend, or be seen as unique?
• How “novel” were the cultural/intellectual/religious heterodox figures who led rebellions and revolutions?
• Are there periods unique for European history in regards to rebellions and revolutions?
• What are some methodological approaches which move us past the sociological, ethnic, and materialist emphases on society, economics, and ethnicity?
• To what extent did the “new” ideas and traditions emerging from earlier periods influence later religio-political thought, up to today?

Keynote speakers:

• Dr. Phillip Haberkern (Boston University)
• Dr. Matthias Riedl (Central European University, Budapest)

Scientific organizing committee:

• Dr. Jérôme Heurtaux (French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences, Prague)
• Dr. Matthias Riedl (Central European University, Budapest)
• Dr. Pavel Soukup (Center for Medieval Studies, Prague)
• Martin Pjecha (CEU/CEFRES)

Applicants are asked to send a brief abstract of their 20-minute project contribution (200-300 words) to Martin Pjecha (Pjecha_Martin@phd.ceu.edu) by 15 January, 2019, especially focusing on how their work can fit into, contribute to, or challenge the workshop’s theme. Speakers should be prepared to engage in lively, English-language discussions of participants’ projects and broader themes.

Limited travel bursaries will be available for those without institutional funding opportunities. Please indicate your application for funding along with your abstract.

[1] Wayne Cristaudo, “Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/rosenstock-huessy/>.

[2] Especially in his Die europäischen Revolutionen und der Charakter der Nationen (1931).