Category Archives: CEFRES Team

Filip Herza: Research & CV

Imaginations of Bodily “Otherness” and Prague’s Freak Show Culture 1860-1939

Research Area 2: Norms & Transgressions

Contact: filip.herza@cefres.cz

My dissertation project traces the history of freak show culture in the 19th- and 20th-century Prague and the Czech lands from the perspective of disability theory. By studying popular exhibitions of “freaks” and other living “curiosities”, I try to explore reproduction of the 19th– and 20th-century disability discourse, including concepts and images of disability and related forms of socially produced “otherness”, namely class, gender and racial difference.  I am particularly interested in the significance of the embodied “Other” in fashioning social norms and imaginary social bodies of the time, namely the collective body of nation. Four case studies from Prague’s freak show stages, ranging from 1860s through 1920s, demonstrate the significance of “abnormal” bodies for the imagined Czech national society. The project thus ventures into a disabled history of Czech nationalism, offering a new perspective on nation building and its interconnectedness with biopolitical reasoning, from the late 19th century up until the interwar period.

Beside representations of disability in popular entertainment culture, Filip works on the history of science, expert cultures and social movements (such as social hygiene and eugenics) in the 19th and the 20th century, mainly from the perspective of gender, disability and postcolonial theory.

His latest research concerns disability, hygiene and health related politics in the colonial setting of interwar Czechoslovakia, particularly the activities of Czech scientists in Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia.

CV

Education

Filip holds a Mgr. in cultural and social anthropology from the Faculty of humanities, Charles university Prague (2012), where he also pursue his PhD, under the supervision of PhDr. Lucie Storchová, Ph.D.

Academic jobs and fellowships

From 2017, Filip works as a researcher at the department of gender studies and from 2018 as an assistant professor at the department of anthropology, Faculty of humanities, Charles University Prague. In the years 2014-2016, Filip received fellowships from the University of Vienna, Central European University Budapest and Collegium Carolinum in Munich.

Research projects

2017-2019 Joint grant project GAČR (Czech Grant Agency) and DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft): (Post)Socialist Modernity and social and cultural politics of disability and disablement

2017-2018 Participation on an international project called Staged Otherness: Human Oddities in Central and Eastern Europe 1850-1939 (Polska Akademia Nauk)

Selected Publications    

Herza, Filip. (forthcoming). “Faces of Masculinity: Shaving Practices And The Popular Exhibitions Of “Hairy Wonders” In Early 20th Century Prague”. In Beauty And The Norm: Debating Standardization In Bodily Appearance. Palgrave Macmillan.

Herza, Filip. 2016. “Anthropologists and Their Monsters: Ethnicity, Body and Ab/normality In Early Czech Anthropology”. East Central Europe 43 (1-2). Leiden: Brill: 64-98.

Herza, Filip. 2016. “Black Don Juan and The Ashanti From Asch: Representations Of “Africans” In Prague And Vienna, 1892–1899”. In Visualising The Orient: Central Europe And The Near East In The 19Th And 20Th Centuries, Adéla Jůnová Macková, Lucie Storchová, and Libor Jůn, 95-106. Prague: Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (AMU), Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU).

Herza, Filip. 2012. “Tiny Artists From The Big World: The Rhetoric Of Representing Extraordinary Bodies During The Singer Midgets’ 1928 Tour In Prague”. In Exploring The Cultural History Of Continental European Freak Shows And ‘Enfreakment’, 193-210. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Ludovic Lepeltier-Kutasi: Research & CV

Does the Residential Renewal Stand the Test of Residual Public Housing? Urban Policies and Social Dynamics in a Peripheral Budapest District

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

Contact: lepeltier-kutasi@cefres.cz

Photo_Ludovic Lepeltier-KutasiMy research project focuses on the social and spatial issues of residual public housing in Hungary. This particular category of housing, inherited from the massive nationalization of joint ownership housing at the end of the 1940s, is managed directly or indirectly by local government. This type of housing has been spared by the massive waves of privatization in the 1990s, generally because of proven “discomfort”. The concentration of this type of housing in the margins of provincial towns or in the peri-central neighbors of Budapest emerged at the end of the 1990s as a public problem related to “degraded municipal housing”. In order to stop the “vicious circle of ghettoization”, district government in Budapest launched around 2000 several programs of urban rehabilitation. The most iconic of them, the “Magdolna program” in the eighth district, touches upon several issues concerning control of residential dynamics in a context of urban transformation. Grounded in an ethnographic approach, the aim of this work is to provide a sharp analysis of the articulation between these regulation policies and subtle mechanics of social exclusion. Continue reading Ludovic Lepeltier-Kutasi: Research & CV

List of Interns at CEFRES 2016/2017

Clara Zgoła

PhD candidate in Art, Language and Cultural studies – School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences/University of Warsaw
Research field: cultural, urban and literary studies, history of art, cultural history (20th-21st centuries), anthropology
Dissertation title: “Literary Explorations of the City: Parisian Identities of Contemporary Novelists”
Period of internship: July 2017
Research interpship

Eva Krejčová

Master in Politic Theory, Faculty of Arts, Charles University / Master in Comparative Politics, Sciences-Po Paris
Research fields: political parties, elections, voting systems
Period of internship: June 2017
Administrative internship

Kévin Leuret

Master in Culture and society, 16th-21st century, faculty of human sciences, University of Bourgogne
Research field: French-Czech relations from 19th century until today
Thesis subjectL’Alliance Française, a Mediator of French culture in Czech lands 1886–1938
Internship period: May 2017
Research internship

Renata Jardin Kocourek

PhD student in social psychology  –  Charles university, faculty of philosophy
Domain of research : The social representation of motherhood in european context
Period of internship : May 2017
Research and administrative internship

Alžběta Stančáková

Master: comparative literature, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague
Research field:
poetry (Romanian avant-garde in France), Prague architecture
Period of intership:
may—june 2017
Administrative internship

Carole Benoit

Master Information-Communication speciality esDOC (Documentation, Library, Monitoring) – University of Poitiers
Research fields: digital humanities, research data processing, technical and scientific information, global cooperation
Period of internship: April-June 2017
Administrative internship

Aurore Lafforest

Master in Public Administration – Lyon 2 Lumière University – France
Research field: Transnational Cooperation and science diplomacy
Subject of master thesis: Central Europe : the influence of science diplomacy and transnational cooperation in the process of European integration
Period of internship: from march to june 2017
Research internship

Markéta Jirkovská

MA Interpreting: English-Czech, French-Czech, Institute of Translation Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague
Domain of research: translation, interpreting, intercultural communication
Period of internship in CEFRES: March – April 2017
Administrative internship

Marie Šindelářová

Master Translation and Interpretation – Charles University, Prague
Research field: translation Czech-French
Period of Internship: february – april 2017
Administrative Internship

 

Kateřina Vorlická

Master Interpreting: French and Czech, English and Czech; Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague
Fields of research: interpreting in intercultural communication
Internship Period: February-April 2017
Administrative internship (interpreting)

Cécile Poulot

PhD student in German studies  – University of Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle
Research fields: German and European cultural history, history of art and architecture
Thesis subject: “Adolf Loos: a Viennese architect with a Connected Career Interwar Europe”
Internship period: February-March 2017
Research internship

Elisa Chazal

UntitledMaster History Civilization Patrimony – University Jean Monnet of Saint-Etienne / Bachelor of History – University Jean Monnet of Saint-Etienne
Field of research: patrimonialisation, history, local memory
Subject of master thesis: Patrimonialisation of buildings of the world exhibition of Prague in 1891
Period of internship: November—January 2016/2017
Administrative internship

Margot Creach

Masteimm017_7r Tema EHESS/ FF UK/ELTE
Bachelor in History at the University Pierre Mendès-France in Grenoble
Fields of research: heritage, patrimonilaisation, Jewish community
Master’s thesis topic: Heritage as Expression of Jewish History: Walking Tours in Le Marais
Internship Period: October—November 2016
Administrative internship

Nicolas Ausello

Master’s degree in Territorial Management of Sustainable Development at Bordeaux Montaigne University / Bachelor of geography – Governance at Lumière Lyon 2 University.
Fields of research: Urban and environmental policies. European politics on a local scale, cartography and GIS. Environment.
Master’s thesis topic: The Uncertainty of Public Spatial Data : their Valuation by the Private Sector for the Land Sector.
Internship period: October—December 2016

CEFRES Team of Researchers 2016-2017

Benedetta Zaccarello

Contact: benedetta.zaccarello@cefres.cz

is a CEFRES senior researcher from January 2017. She works on “Hybridations of Paradigms and Circulation of Traditions in the Writing of Contemporary Philosophy” looking through the manuscript archives of such philosophers as Jan Patočka and Aurobindo Ghose. Her research is embedded in CEFRES research area 1.

István Pál Ádám

Contact: istvan.adam@cefres.cz

is from January 2016 a post-doctoral researcher at CEFRES and at the Faculty of Humanities of Charles University, benefitting from the support of the Charles University in Prague. His research project is entitled The Spatial Control of Central European Concierges and contributes to CEFRES research area 3.

Chiara Mengozzi

Contact: chiara.mengozzi@cefres.cz

is from January 2016 a post-doctoral researcher at CEFRES and at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, benefitting from the support of the Charles University in Prague. Her research project is entitled Animal Matters. Challenging the Anthropological Difference and Literary Norms and contributes to CEFRES’s research area 2.

Alessandro Milani

Contact: alessandro.milani@cefres.cz

benefits from a three month long fellowship (February-April 2017) at CEFRES. A post-doctoral researcher at EPHE, Paris, he conducts his research on the condition of Western Ukrainian Greek-Catholics in interwar Poland and Czechoslovakia between 1919 and 1929. His project fits into CEFRES research area 2.

Aurore Navarro

Contact: aurore.navarro@cefres.cz

benefits from a three month long fellowship (February-April 2017) at CEFRES. A post-doctoral researcher in geography at Laboratoire d’études rurales –Lyon 2 University, she studies artisanal food and retail trade in the Czech Republic. Her project fits into CEFRES research area 1.

Ayse Yuva

Contact: ayse.yuva@cefres.cz

benefits from a four month long fellowship (February—May 2017) at CEFRES. A post-doctoral researcher at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University (Paris 1), her project focuses on the the borders of philosophy and the writing of its history in 19th century Prague, and fits into CEFRES research area 1.

PhD Fellows Team 2016-2017

Magdalena Cabaj

Contact: magdalena.cabaj@cefres.cz

is a PhD student in cotutelle between the University of Warsaw and the École normale supérieure in Paris under the supervision of Wincenty Cesluk-Grajewski and Dominique Lestel. Her PhD dissertation on Hermaphrodite Writing is at the crossroads between philosophy and literature, and contributes to CEFRES research area 2.

Mátyás Erdélyi

Contact: matyas.erdelyi@cefres.cz

is a fourth-year PhD student at the Central European University in Budapest under the supervision of Karl Hall and Susan Zimmermann. His dissertation is entitled The Making of a Productivist Middle Class in the Habsburg Monarchy, is at the crossroad between history and sociology, and contributes to CEFRES research area 1.

Filip Herza

Contact: filip.herza@cefres.cz

is a PhD student at Faculty of Humanities of Charles University (CEFRES Platform PhD Fellowship) under the supervision of Lucie Storchová. His dissertation is entitled Imaginations of Bodily “Otherness” and Prague’s Freak Show Culture 1860-1939, is at the crossroad between cultural anthropology and history, and contributes to CEFRES research area 2.

Lenka Kužvartová

Contact: kuzvartova@cefres.cz

is a PhD student at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University (CEFRES Platform PhD Fellowship) under the supervision of Richard Biegel. Her dissertation is entitled The One Who Sings Needs to Dwell. Experiments in Residential Architecture in Brazil from the 1980s, is at the crossroad between art history and sociology, and contributes to CEFRES research area 3.

Katalin Pataki

Contact: katalin.pataki@cefres.cz

is a PhD student at the Central European University in Budapest under the supervision of László Kontler. Her dissertation in history is entitled The Implementation of Joseph II’s Monastic Policies in the Hungarian Kingdom and contributes to CEFRES research area 3.

Associated PhD students 2016-2017

Lara Bonneau

Contact: lara.bonneau@cefres.cz

is a PhD student at Paris I University under the supervision of Danièle Cohn. Her dissertation in philosophy is entitled Form and orientation in Aby Warburg’s thought and contributes to CEFRES research area 1.

Ludovic Lepeltier-Kutasi

Contact: lepeltier-kutasi@cefres.cz

is a PhD student at Tours University under the supervision of Nora Semmoud and Olivier Legros. His dissertation in geography is entitled Does the Residential Renewal Stand the Test of Residual Public Housing? Urban Policies and Social Dynamics in a Peripheral Budapest District and contributes to CEFRES research area 3.

Pascal Schneider

is a PhD student at Paris-Sorbonne University (Paris IV), under the supervision of Johann Chapoutot. His dissertation in Contemporary History is entitled La sociologie des membres du NSDAP, le Parti National-Socialiste des travailleurs allemands dans les territoires annexés du IIIe Reich (Alsace, Moselle, Eupen-Malmédy, Sudètes) de 1938 à 1944, and contributes to CEFRES research area 2.