Category Archives: Non classé

Join us, Non classé

CFA – CEU-CEFRES Mobility Grants at CEFRES

Call for application for 2nd year and above PhD students enrolled at the Central European University (CEU)

Deadline for submission: 16 March 2026
Duration: 2 to 5 months between September 1, 2026 & June 30, 2027

Central European University (CEU), the French Institute in Austria & the French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences (CEFRES) offer mobility grants at CEFRES in Prague to 2nd year and above PhD students enrolled at the CEU.

FELLOWSHIPS

An envelope of 5 000 € will be granted for stays ranging from 2 to 5 months (1000 € per month). Continue reading CFA – CEU-CEFRES Mobility Grants at CEFRES →

Non classé, Research Projects

Agency of the Presence and Absence of Religious Buildings in Europe

A project developed within CU-CNRS Tandem Program supported by Charles University, CNRS and CEFRES

Project principal investigators:
Anne FORNEROD (CNRS, University of Strasbourg / CEFRES)
Barbora SPALOVÁ (ISS FSV / CEFRES)

ANNOTATION Continue reading Agency of the Presence and Absence of Religious Buildings in Europe →

CEFRES Team, Non classé

Marija Martinović – Research & CV

Unification and disunity: philosophy of the socialist crisis in Yugoslavia (1945–1990)

Research area 1: Displacements, “Dépaysements” and Discrepancies: People, Knowledge and Practices

Marija Martinović is a PhD student in philosophy and Slavic studies at the École doctorale 20 at Sorbonne University, affiliated with the Eur’Orbem research unit (UMR 8224, CNRS/Sorbonne University). A member of the “Passage” junior research laboratory within Eur’Orbem, she is writing a thesis under the supervision of Philippe Gelez and Daniel Baric entitled Unification and disunity: philosophy of the socialist crisis in Yugoslavia (1945–1990). 

From a philosophical, political, and historical perspective, this project interrogates the ideological, moral, and symbolic conditions of the fall of Yugoslav socialism. Drawing on the distinction between unification and inclusion, she proposes a conceptual rethinking of the Yugoslav crisis based on its internal contradictions: the concealment of diversity in the name of proclaimed diversity, and the resulting disillusionment within a regime which based itself on an ideology of national cohesion. This study therefore seeks to clarify the philosophical mechanisms of disunity, in dialogue with the works of Slavoj Žižek, Milovan Djilas, and Balkan critical traditions.

By orienting this thesis around a comparative approach between political philosophy, sociology and history of ideas, it interrogates the specificity of Yugoslav ways of thinking which are often founded on an empirical logic to social observation and philosophical conceptualisation distinct from Western models. She clarifies the passage from Yugoslav socialism to the post-Socialist era, understood as a process of transition and a redefinition of collective, moral, and religious identities. 

Her recent works include a critical report on the work of Sacha Markovic, La Yougoslavie que racontent les humanistes marxistes (to appear in the review Balkanologie, 2025), as well as a presentation from the international conference “Ivan Illich, a century of critical thinking” (Cres, Croatia, 2025) entitled The Influence of Ivan Illich: the Case of Slavoj Žižek”, which will soon be published.

Marija Martinović teaches modern and classical literature whilst undertaking her research into the philosophical forms of crisis, secularisation, and national identity in the post-Yugoslav space. She is a visiting fellow at CEFRES as part of a research trip devoted to the comparative study of ideological crises in Central Europe and the Balkans.

CV

Education

2023-present: Doctoral candidate (ED20, Lettres Sorbonne Université) under the supervision of Philippe Gelez (Paris 4) and Daniel Baric (Paris 4). Doctoral research under the title “« Unification et désunion : philosophie de la crise socialiste en Yougoslavie (1945-1990)”

2021-2022: Master’s degree (year 2), research in philosophy and society, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University (mention bien)

Thesis under the supervision of Philippe Buttgen (Paris 1): “Élucidation de l’échec du socialisme yougoslave, à travers l’Idée communiste inclusive de Slavoj Žižek.”

2021-2022: Erasmus (courses and oral/written exams conducted in English), Sapienza University in Rome, Italy (mention très bien)

2020-2021: Master’s degree (year 1), research in philosophy and society, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University (mention assez bien)

Thesis under the supervision of Magali Bessonne (Paris 1): La religion comme nécessité morale au bien chez Rousseau

2019-2020: International programme (courses and oral/written exams conducted in Serbian (cyrillic)), University of Belgrade, Serbia (mention très bien)

2017-2020: Undergraduate degree, philosophy and humanities, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University (mention bien)

2016-2017: Baccalauréat in literature, Louise de Marillac private lycée, Paris (mention bien)

EFB – École Française de Belgrade, Belgrade

Professional Experience

2025-present: Research fellowship (six months) to assist doctoral research, CEFRES

2024-present: Teacher of modern and classical literatures (second degré), Académie de Créteil (Paris and Versailles)

2022: Culture journalist and assistant editor, FNAC-DARTY, Ivry sur Seine (https://www.fnac.com/Le-blog-de-Marija/cc914/w-4)

  • Monitoring cultural news, steering the editorial line of L’Eclaireur (https://leclaireur.fnac.com)
  • Conception and editing of articles
  • Proficiency in WordPress, SEO and HTML

2019: Project manager for books – philosophy category, VULKAN, Belgrade.

  • Market research on philosophy books, selection of titles to be published and translated

Affiliations

2025-present: Visiting fellow, CEFRES, Czech Republic

2023-present: Research unit UMR 8224 Eur’Orbem (East-Central Europe and the Balkans), Sorbonne University/CNRS

Laboratoire junior at UMR 8224 Eur’Orbem under the title of “Passage”

Publications

October 2025: « Compte rendu de : Sacha Markovic, La Yougoslavie que racontent les humanistes marxistes : aux origines intellectuelles et culturelles des transitions yougoslaves, entre socialisme et nationalisme, des années 1920 aux années 1970 », Balkanologie (to be published)

Conferences

September 2025: Conference at Cres, Croatia: Ivan Illich, a century of critical thinking, on ways of addressing global crises. Presentation: “The influence of Ivan Illich: the case of Slavoj Žižek”, with Sorbonne University (collaborative work to be published)

Non classé

Antonin Vuillemin

A graduate of Sciences Po Strasbourg in International and Global Relations, specialising in Negotiation and Expertise, Antonin Vuillemin is interested in major contemporary political and strategic issues. A history enthusiast, he also places great importance on philosophy, which he knows fairly well, as well as political science, economics, and more broadly, social sciences. He enjoys drawing connections between these different fields to better understand the world. What matters most to him lies elsewhere however, between theology, metaphysics, and spirituality—the only truly meaningful paths toward anything genuinely liberating.

As part of his first-year Master’s studies, he devoted his thesis to examining Czech foreign policy through the lens of Miloš Zeman’s presidency. This work gave him an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between political authority and individual will, between institutions and personal trajectories, as well as on the influence of regional environments and historical legacies on a state’s strategic choices. He particularly observed the deep tension in Czechia between supporters of the West and those aligned with ‘the rest,’ between proponents of “bloc” politics and advocates of a politics of states.

He has been a member of CEFRES since April 2025, where he is responsible for coordinating administrative documents and providing administrative support.

CEFRES Team, Non classé

Sabina Vassileva – Research & CV

“Gender of metabolism: enacting sexed bodies at the intersection of metabolic and sex hormones”

Research Area 2 – Norms and Transgressions

Contact: sabina.vassileva@soc.cas.cz

Sabina Vassileva is a doctoral candidate at Charles University, Prague. Her PhD dissertation, entitled Gender of metabolism: enacting sexed bodies at the intersection of metabolic and sex hormones contributes to CEFRES research area 2.

My dissertation project draws on the growing recognition that the increasing prevalence of metabolic conditions such as diabetes and obesity is shaped by a complex interplay of biosocial factors. These include (epi)genetics, contemporary food environments saturated with ultra-processed foods, socioeconomic precarity, psychosocial distress, and as I argue gender norms, roles, and relations, including gendered reproductive labor. I am particularly interested in how bodies undergoing hormonal fluctuations face heightened risks of metabolic complications due to the intra-actions between declining estrogen and testosterone levels, glucose metabolism, insulin resistance, insulin sensitivity, microbiome shifts, and gendered norms of care. These dynamics remain underexplored, as biomedical research has historically privileged stabilized (male) bodies in clinical trials and research design.

In my dissertation, I explore how biosocial gendered relations shape metabolic health and diagnoses such as diabetes and obesity. I examine how gender is enacted in metabolic health along three axes: self-care practices, clinical care, and biomedical research. My focus is on the hormonal intra-actions between metabolic and sex steroid hormones. I draw on a Baradian material-semiotic framework and build on critical feminist anthropology of hormones, which has foregrounded how hormones not only carry gendered imaginaries but also function as technoscientific tools of sex regulation and bodily governance. While sex hormones such as estrogen and testosterone are often studied in isolation, their intra-actions with metabolic hormones like insulin or glucagon-like peptides remain largely sidelined in sociological research. To address this gap my work combines feminist anthropology of hormones with the notion of postindustrial metabolism that enables me to trace the mutual constitutions of gender and metabolism.

Methodologically, my PhD adopts a mixed-methods approach. I combine qualitative ethnography (semi-structured interviews and participant observation)—exploring embodied experiences and everyday practices of “doing metabolism” and “doing gender”—with critical discourse analysis of biomedical research on metabolism. My ethnographic partners include people with diabetes or obesity who undergo synthetic hormonal therapies: individuals navigating menopause, andropause, or gender-affirming hormone treatments. These bodily transitions are critical sites where gendered and metabolic regulation is negotiated. Through this research, I investigate how gendered metabolic norms are not only discursively repeated but also materially metabolized—becoming embedded in the design of metabolic technologies and medications used in care. For this purpose I use visual ethnography tools like hormonal mapping.

By tracing how gender is materially metabolized in bodies, care practices, and biomedical knowledge, my project offers a feminist rethinking of metabolism as a deeply gendered and politically regulated process. By focusing on hormonal intra-actions, the project foregrounds fluid and dynamic bodily processes and gives voice to bodies that are marginalized in biomedical research on metabolism and whose mutual shaping of sexed embodiments and living in gendered social relations is not sufficiently considered.

CV

Education

  • from 2024 till present: PhD student, Sociology, Prague.
  • 2021-2024: MA, Anthropology, Charles University, Prague
  • 2017-2021: BA, Philosophy, Charles University, Prague.

Participation in research projects

  • Since 2024: PhD-participant Technocultures of extended metabolism, [GA24-12497S], project based at the Czech Academy of Sciences.
  • Since 2025: Junior researcher, Strategie AV21: Umělá inteligence pro vědu a společnost, Využití AI při managementu diabetu 1. typu, project based at the Czech Academy of Sciences.
  • Since 2025: Junior researcher, Platform workers on the czech labour market, project based at the Czech Academy of Sciences

Recent academic activities (selected)

  • June 2025: “Looped in within algorithms: A biosocial case study of a diabetic living with artificial pancreas,” paper presented at STS nordic conference, Stockholm, Sweden
  • June 2025: “Unwriting design injustice: hormonal-algorithmic tinkering
  • with open-source diabetes care technology,” paper presented at SIEF conference, Aberdeen, UK
  • May, 2025: “Attending to risky attachments: a study of a DIY loop for diabetes care, paper presented at an academic workshop “STS concepts for the life as aftermath”, Munich, Germany
  • March, 2025: “Queer metabolism: de/stabilizations of sex and gender binaries in biomedical research on gender affirming care and metabolism”, paper presented at STS HUB conference, Berlin, Germany
  • November, 2024: “Opening the black box of algorithms,” invited lecture within undergraduate course “Společnost, technologie, tělenost,” Faculty of humanities, Charles University, Prague
  • July, 2024: “Digital interfaces, real inequalities: exploring algorhitmic opacity in the platformised Czech delivery sector,” paper presented at EASA conference, Barcelona, Spain.
  • July, 2024: “Chrononormativita z perspektivy genderu a politiky těla, “ invited lecture at Woods sympozium “Time at the tips of conifers”, Orlické mountains, Czech republic
  • June, 2024: “More than Numbers: Health, Digitalization, and Bioethnography,” paper presented at the 15th MAYS Annual Meeting, Bologna, Italy.

Recent publications

  • Borisova V., Vassileva S. 2025. „Caring for more-than-human metabolic health: Self-tracking technologies as tools of calculation and communication in obesity and type 1 diabetes care“. Archivio antropologico mediterraneo. 27 (1). http://journals.openedition.org/aam/10112

Canovas O, Conan L, Gille P, Martinez A, Miranda CK, Palmea K, Roubi T, Suarez M, Vassileva S & Aline Wiame, 2024. « La nature en guerre contre la vie. Une expérimentation d’écriture cyborg entre Guattari et Haraway », Sextant, 41. http://journals.openedition.org/sextant/11409

Non classé

Markus Pollak – Research & CV

“Evaluating Democracies: International Election Observers and the Contestation of Liberal Ordering”

Axes de recherche 1 : Déplacements, dépaysements et décalages : hommes, savoirs et pratiques & 2 : Normes et transgressions

I am a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at Central European University and a DOC-Fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. My research focuses on international election observers in the post-Cold War era. Specifically, I examine practices of contestation facing observation missions sent out by regional organizations. As a key pillar of democracy promotion and liberal international ordering, election observation provides an entry point for understanding contemporary endogenous and exogenous challenges to liberal international ordering.

My project is embedded in the subfield of international political sociology. To collect data, I combine interviews with election observation practitioners and intergovernmental organization staff with archival research, particularly at the OSCE archives in Prague. In line with a Bourdieu-inspired research methodology, my project emphasizes participant observation. I have worked as a OSCE and EU election observer in Bolivia, the United States, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Serbia. I am also a research associate at the NGO Election-Watch.EU.

Currently I work on a research project investigating OSCE election observer careers and the recruitment practices of OSCE missions. Previously, I conducted research on parallel election observation missions and published an article on the election observation missions of the Commonwealth of Independent States in the OSCE region.

Education

  • PhD in International Relations, Central European University (ongoing)
  • MA in International Relations, Central European University
  • Certificate of Social Sciences and Humanities, Sciences Po Paris
  • BA and MA in Political Science, University of Vienna

Selected Publications

Pollak, M. (2025). Mimicking Election Observation: The Politics of Parallel Election Monitoring. Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy.

Teaching experience

2025-2026: Lecturer at the University of Vienna for the course “Politics of Democratization and Autocratization”

2025: Teaching Assistant at Central European University for the courses “International Intervention and Statebuilding” and “Introduction to International Relations”, Vienna

Conferences and Public Presentations

  • European International Studies Association (EISA) – 2025 Pan-European Conference on International Relations (“It´s a small world! For 20 years it´s often been the same people”)
  • Electoral Integrity Conference (EIP) – 2023 (“Mimicking Election Observation”) + 2025 (“It´s a small world! For 20 years it´s often been the same people”)
  • University of Vienna – “The Subversion of Liberal Election Observation?”, presentation at the Marie Jahoda Summer School 2024 (July 2024).
  • University of Oxford – “Mimicking Election Observation”, presentation was a part of the programme of the Europaeum Oxford Spring School 2024, St Antony´s college (April 2024).
  • Sciences Po Paris – “Mimicking Election Observation”, guest speaker at an event of the CERI VERELECT research group (November 2024)
  • Central European University – Pollak, M.“´Being an observer is not a profession – although everyone thinks it is”, guest speaker at the Conflict and Security Research group (March 2025)