CEFRES is glad to contribute to the international conference
Ernest Gellner Legacy and Social Theory Today,
organized by the Czech Association for Social Anthropology (CASA)

When:  May 6th, 7th and 8th, 2021 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. (CEST)
Where: CEFRES and online

Organising committee: Nikola Balaš, Jérôme Heurtaux, Petr Skalník, Daniel Sosna, Zdeněk Uherek
Main organizer:  Petr Skalník

This conference is supported by the Open Society Policy Center (Open Society Foundations).

Does Ernest Gellner remain an inspiration for 21st century social theory?

A quarter of century after his death in 1995, is the British-Czech anthropologist still a reference for those dealing with such different topics as modernity, neo-nationalism and populism in Europe, migratory pressure from Africa and Middle East on Europe, revolutions and civil wars in Arab countries, Islamic terrorism, the historical ascent of Asia, the crisis of European unity, post-communist illiberalism, Russian post-Soviet nostalgia or with any other topics which Gellner paid attention to?

Leading Ernest Gellner scholars will come together for three days to discuss Ernest Gellner’s strengths and tools for thinking about our contemporary world.

Program

Thursday May 6, 2021 at 2 p.m.

Chair: Daniel Sosna

Opening

2 p.m.–2.05 p.m. Martin Heřmanský (Past President, Czech Association for Social Anthropology)
2.05 p.m.–2.10 p.m. Jérôme Heurtaux (Director, French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences)
2.10 p.m.–2.15 p.m. Petr Skalník (Main organiser, Czech Association for Social Anthropology)

Papers and Comments

2.15 p.m.–2.35 p.m. David Shankland: Gellner: Right and Wrong
Discussant: Lale Yalçın-Heckmann 

2.35 p.m.–2.55 p.m. Johann Arnason: Gellner and the Habsburg, Window on Modernity
Discussant: Christopher Hann

2.55 p.m–3:15 p.m. Daniele Conversi: Gellner in the Anthropocene. Modernity, Nationalism and Climate Change
Discussant: Thomas Hylland Eriksen 

3:15 p.m.–3:30 p.m. Break

3:30 p.m.–3.50 p.m. Ian Jarvie: The Persistence of the Individualism Debate Today
Discussant: David Gellner

3.50 p.m.–4.10 p.m. Alan Macfarlane: Ernest Gellner and the Limits of Understanding
Discussants: Adam Horálek and Richard Marshall

4.10 p.m.–4.30 p.m. Adam Horálek: Nation Building in Aging Taiwan: Gellnerian Perspective
Discussant: Alan Macfarlane

4.30 p.m.–5.00 p.m. Discussion

Main discussant: Aleksandar Bošković
General discussion

Friday  May 7, 2021 at 2 p.m.

Chair: Thomas Hylland Eriksen

Papers and Comments

2 p.m.–2:20 p.m. David Gellner: Ernest Gellner and Populism
Discussant: Mihály Sárkány

2:20 p.m.–2:40 p.m. Grażyna Kubica: Gellner’s Theory of Nationalism and the Study of Silesianess
Discussant: Marcin Brocki

2:40 p.m.–3:00 p.m. Guido Franzinetti: Gellner and the Historians
Discussant: David Shankland

3:00 p.m.–3:20 p.m. Chris Hann: Conditions of Liberty Revisited: The Bitter Consequences of Sweet Commerce and Liberal Utopias
Discussant: Johann Arnason

15:20-15:35 Break

3:35 p.m.–3:55 p.m. Ralph Schroeder: The Ghost in the Machine: Gellner and Beyond with Data-Driven and Formalized Social Theory
Discussant: Siniša Malešević

3:55 p.m.–4:15 p.m. Vytis Čiubrinskas: Politics of Ethnification: Political Subjectivity of  Nation-States vis-à-vis Polish Minority in Eastern Europe
Discussant: Zdeněk Uherek

4:15 p.m–4:35 p.m. Zdeněk Uherek: Conceptualizations of Nations and Nationalisms and their Developments: The Czech Reflection
Discussant: Vytis Čiubrinskas

4:35 p.m.–5:00 p.m. Discussion

Main discussant: Nikola Balaš
General discussion

Saturday May 8, 2021 at 2 p.m.

Chair: David Shankland

Papers and Comments

2 p.m.–2:20 p.m. Thomas Hylland Eriksen: Postcolonialism as a Possibility: A Dialogue that Never Happened
Discussant: Grażyna Kubica

2:20 p.m.–2:40 p.m.  Siniša Malešević: War and Group Solidarity: From Ibn Khaldun to Ernest Gellner and Beyond
Discussant: Guido Franzinetti

2:40 p.m.–3:00 p.m.  Nikolay Kradin: Ernest Gellner and Debates about World History Periodization
Discussant: Anatoly Khazanov

3:00 p.m.–3:20 p.m. Anatoly Khazanov: After Ernest Gellner: Nationalism and Nation-States Today
Discussant: John Hall

3:20 p.m.–3:35 p.m. Break

3:35 p.m.-3.55 p.m.  Andre Gingrich : The Importance of Reading Ernest: Historical Methodologies as Hidden Resources for Anthropology
Discussant: 4.35 p.m : Daniele Conversi

3.55 p.m.-4.15 p.m. John Hall: The Philosopher of Anthropology: Ernest Gellner (1925-1995)
Discussant: Ian Jarvie

4.15 p.m.-4.35 p.m. Lahouari Addi: L’islam, Platon et le protestantisme : Gellner et la société maghrébine
Andre Gingrich  will introduce Lahouari Addi´s paper and comment on it as well

4.35 p.m.-5.00 p.m. Discussion

Main discussant: Petr Skalník
General discussion

Closing

The first session of the conference (May 6) will be streamed on CEFRES Facebook page.

 

List of Participants

1. Lahouari Addi (Professor Emeritus, Sciences Po Lyon, Visiting Researcher at Georgetown University)
2. Johann Arnason (Professor Emeritus, La Trobe University)
3. Nikola Balaš (Board member, Czech Association for Social Anthropology)
4. Aleksandar Bošković (Professor of Anthropology, University of Belgrade)
5. Marcin Brocki (Associate Professor, Institute of Ethnology, Jagiellonian University)
6. Vytis Čiubrinskas (Professor of Social Anthropology, Vytautas Magnus University)
7. Daniele Conversi (Research Professor at the University of the Basque Country)
8. Thomas Hylland Eriksen (Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo)
9. Guido Franzinetti (Lecturer, Department of Humanistic Studies,
   University of Eastern Piedmont)
10. David Gellner (Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford)
11. Andre Gingrich (Founding Director, Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences)
12. John Hall (Emeritus James McGill Professor of Comparative Historical Sociology)
13. Chris Hann (Director, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)
14. Martin Heřmanský (Past President, Czech Association for Social Anthropology)
15. Jérôme Heurtaux (Director, French Center for Research in Humanities and Social Sciences)
16. Adam Horálek (Head, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Pardubice)
17. Ian Jarvie (Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, York University)
18. Anatoly Khazanov (Ernest Gellner Professor of Anthropology (Emeritus), University of Wisconsin)
19. Nikolay Kradin (Director, Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography, Far Eastern Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences)
20. Wolfgang Kraus (Professor, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna)
21. Grażyna Kubica-Heller  (Associate Professor, Social Anthropology Section, Institute of Sociology, Jagiellonian University)
22. Adam Kuper  (Professor Emeritus, Brunel University)
23. Alan Macfarlane (Professor Emeritus, Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge)
24. Siniša Malešević (Professor of Sociology, School of Sociology, University College Dublin)
25. Richard Marshall (Editor of 3:16am, on line magazine of philosophy, art and culture)
26. Mihály Sárkány (Senior honoris causa, Institute of Ethnology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences)
27. Ralph Schroeder (Professor of Social Science of the Internet, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford)
28. David Shankland (Director, Royal Anthropological Institute)
29. Petr Skalník (Main organiser, founding member of the Czech Association for Social Anthropology)
30. Daniel Sosna (Senior Researcher, Institute of Ethnology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic)
31. Zdeněk Uherek (Director, Institute of Sociological Studies, Charles University)
32. Lale Yalçın-Heckmann (Professor Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)

Informations : cefres@cefres.cz

CEFRES and Primorska University organize the first Proteus Webinar as part of the bilateral program PHC Proteus.

When: Wednesday April 14, 2021, 2 p.m.- 6 p.m.
Where: Online (see below fo the link) 
Language: English
Organisators: CEFRES and Primorska University
Funding and Evaluation: Campus France, French Institute in Slovenia, MEAE, MESRI (France) Slovenian Research Agency,  Slovenian ministry of science (Slovenia)

This webinar focuses on the current representations of the “dismantling” and “re-membering” of intra- and extra-European empires, following the First and then the Second World Wars, that recast populations, landscapes, borders, historiographies, belongings and memories. Today, while European countries work to form a common world, space and history, they remain reluctant to address these ghostly legacies of empires and wars that led to the forced displacement and loss of millions of people, such as ethnic minorities expelled from East Prussia and Silesia, Germans from the Sudetenland and Bukovina, Italians from ex-Yugoslavia, Portuguese from Angola and Mozambique, among others. 

 How and why have some of the memories of displacements been erased, ignored, forgotten, and others memorized and commemorated? In what ways do they still matter in Europe and beyond today? Under what circumstances, some of the features of the past have remained so persistent and resilient?

The proposed webinar objective is to answer these questions by exploring parallel collective memories, offering mirror images of each other: the memories of the displaced, and the memories of those who remained and/or (re)populated the cultural and physical spaces after them. From specific case studies of depopulation and repopulation movements linked to the troubled European History of the 20th Century and in the remnants of empires and wars, we intend to explore what memories and silences do to places and what places do to memories and silences.

Program

2.00 -2.20 pm

Short presentation of the Proteus Program by Valentine Morel, Attaché for Scientific and Academic cooperation at Ministère des Affaires étrangères français Slovenia, and of the project by Michèle Baussant and Katja Hrobat-Virloget

Divided and uprooted

2.20-2.35 pm

Aleksej Kalc, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Slovenian Migration Institute (Ljubljana), University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities (Koper)
Population transfers and ethnic transformations in Koper and Trieste after WWII: some aspects

2.35-2.50 pm

Neža Čebron Lipovec, University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities
“Visual continuity” of the landscape« in a contested city: The role of architecture in the process of (up)rooting a community

2.50-3.05 pm

Petra Kavrečič, University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities
Living on the border. Everyday life in the border region of Istria after WWII

Short Discussion 3.05- 3.20 pm, Ghislaine Glasson-Deschaumes, Head of Project Labex Pasts in the Present, Université Paris Nanterre

Break 3.20-3.30 pm

Remade, remained and planted

3.30-3.45 pm

Felipe Kaiser-Fernandes, CEFRES/ IIAC
When torn apart landscapes are remade: the politics of post-socialist bazaars in the Czech Republic.

3.45-4.00 pm

Katja Hrobat Virloget, University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities
About the ones who came. Symbolic boundaries and questions of  “home” after “exodus” in Istria

4.00-4.15 pm

Irene Dos Santos, CNRS/URMIS, ICM Fellow
Imperial Debris in post-colonial Angola: the silence of those who remained after 1975

Short Discussion 4.15- 4.30 pm, Ghislaine Glasson-Deschaumes, Head of Project Labex Pasts in the Present, Université Paris Nanterre

Break 4.30-4.40 pm

Traces and in-between spaces

4.40-4.55 pm

Maria Kokkinou, CEFRES and Charles University
Tiehonin: Persistent memories of transformed spaces

4.55-5.10 pm

Johana Wyss, Czech Academy of Sciences/CEFRES and Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
Silesian identity: caught in between hegemonic and counter-narratives

5.10-5.25 pm

Michèle Baussant, CNRS, CEFRES (USR3138, CNRS, Mae), ICM Fellow
Displaced histories without traces and traces of past without history:  Egyptian Jews in and out Egypt

Discussion 5.25-6.pm, Ghislaine Glasson-Deschaumes, Head of Project Labex Pasts in the Present, Université Paris Nanterre

To join the  meeting, click on the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87114991116 

                      

         

A Tandem Webinar
organized by Catherine Perron (Centre for international relations (CERI) – SciencesPo: Research group migrations and mobilities and Johana Wyss (Czech Academy of Sciences/CEFRES), with the collaboration of Michèle Baussant (CEFRES, CNRS) and Maria Kokkinou (CEFRES/Charles University).

Date: March 25th, 2021, 1.30 to 3.30 pm
Place: Online (see the Zoom link below)
Language: English

Lecturers:

Christophe Bertossi – Centre for Migration and Citizenship, French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), Paris/Department INTEGER, Fellow Institut Convergences Migrations, Paris
Jan Willem Duyvendak –  University of Amsterdam (UvA), /Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS-KNAW), Amsterdam
Nancy Foner – Hunter College and Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York

Will be presenting the Special Issue they published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Discussants:

Wulf Kansteiner – School of Culture and society – History subject – Aarhus University, Denmark
Evelyne Ribert – CNRS/Institut interdisciplinaire d’anthropologie du contemporain (IIAC)/EHESS – Fellow Institute Convergences Migrations

For more information about the Tandem programme, see the website: https://cefres.cz/en/tandem-program.

To join the Zoom meeting, please click on the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84864576020

     

 

Launch of the TANDEM Project led by

Michèle Baussant (CNRS/CEFRES),
Johana Wyss (Czech Academy of Sciences)
Maria Kokkinou (CEFRES / Charles University)

Defeated Memories. De-imperial Europe: A Resentful Confederation of Vanquished Peoples?

When: Friday 20th November, 9 am – 11 am
Where: Online
Please, access the zoom conference by following this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81054592971?pwd=UkJjZW90T0lDK0MwNm5PZit2S2U3QT09
Language: English

With the participation of:
Sylvie Démurger, Deputy Scientific Director, Europe and International Affairs (CNRS)
Jérôme Heurtaux, Director of CEFRES
Tat̕ána Petrasová, member of the Academy Council and coordinator of Czech Academy of Sciences  for the TANDEM program

Discussants:
Catherine Perron, Research Fellow, CERI, Sciences Po Paris
Valérie Rosoux, Director of Research-Professor, Université Catholique de Louvain
Thomas Van de Putte, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Trento

Abstract:

This online launch of the new Tandem project is dedicated to the ghostly, material and symbolic memorial landscapes of defeated minorities, who have been displaced and dispersed after the successive collapse of imperial and multinational entities during the 20th century. The aim of the project is to offer a new critical perspective on the multiple, persistent, and sometimes connected forms of European (post)imperial pasts along the old extra- and intra-European borders and on their diverse and entangled uses. 

The project is based on a choice of different cases – Germans expelled from East Prussia and Silesia, Europeans of Algeria, “foreign” or “local” minorities of Egypt, Portuguese of Angola and Mozambique-, and deeply rooted in ethnographic fieldwork. It will cross the memories of the displaced peoples, and of those who have repopulated or continued to live in the physical spaces after them, in an unprecedented way, offering mirror images or images that are shifted, distorted or blind. 

Initiated by Michèle Baussant, anthropologist and research director at CNRS, this Tandem project is also carried out, on the Czech side, by Johana Wyss, anthropologist and researcher at the Czech Academy of Sciences. Maria Kokkinou, anthropologist and postdoctoral fellow at CEFRES and Charles University is a member of the Tandem team as well. 

BEYOND 1989. Hopes and Disillusions after Revolutions
(A Global Approach)

International Conference – Film Screening “Solidarnosc. La Chute du Mur commence en Pologne” (EN subtitles)

Date: 6 & 7 December 2019
Venue: Prague (Charles University Karolinum, Faculty of Arts, French Institute)
Organizers: French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences (CEFRES), Faculty of Arts of Charles University (FF UK), Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University (FSV UK), Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences (ÚSD AV ČR), and ERC Project “Tarica”
Partners: French Institute in Prague, Faculty of Humanities of Charles University, Centre of French Civilization and Francophone Studies of Warsaw University (CCFEF), Scientific Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Paris, Institute of Polish Culture of the University of Warsaw (IKP), CNRS Research Unit LADYSS (University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) and GDR Europe Médiane (CNRS)
Language: English

➤To attend Friday’s conferences, a registration is needed by sending an email at: cefres@cefres.cz

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.
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 a comparative analysis, without any ranking based on success of failure.
The chosen perspective is to question the object “revolution” by the multiple interpretations that the revolution raises: promotion, even sublimation; but also disqualification, even outright rejection.

Friday 6, December
Karolinum

Modrá posluchárna, Charles University, Ovocný trh 560/5

13:30-14:00: Registration

14:00-15:00: Keynote Addresses
Translation CZ / EN / FR
Mr. Tomáš Petříček, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic
Mr. Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs of  the French Republic

15:00-15:30: Introduction
Lenka Rovná, Vice-Rector for European Affairs, Charles University
Miroslav Vaněk, Director of ÚSD AV ČR
Jérôme Heurtaux, Director of CEFRES

15:30-16:15: 1st Academic Keynote
Moderation: Michal Pullmann, Dean of Faculty of Arts, Charles University
Adéla Gjuričová (ÚSD AV ČR): The Unbearable Lightness of Women’s Rights: On Gender Order in Post-Socialist Transformation

16:15-16:45: Coffee Break

16:45-17:30: 2nd Academic Keynote
Georges Mink (College of Europe / CNRS): 1989 Revisited in the Light of its Consequences. Thoughts of a Committed Observer

17:30-18:45: Roundtable: Hopes and Disillusions towards European Integration
Ivo Šlosarčík (FSV UK)
Marie-Elizabeth Ducreux (CNRS / EHESS)
Marion Van Renterghem, Journalist / Albert-Londres Prize
Michael Žantovský, Director of the Václav Havel Library

18:45: Reception

Saturday 7, December
Faculty of Arts / nám. Jana Palacha 1/2
Room 104

9:30-10:15: 3rd Academic Keynote
Moderation: Eliška Tomalová (FSV UK)
Michal Kopeček (ÚSD AV ČR): Democratic Hopes and Liberal Illusions: the 1989, Post-Dissident Politics of Memory and the Challenge to “Liberal Consensus” in East Central Europe

10:15-12:00: Panel 1: Promoting Revolutions
Moderation: Pavel Mücke (ÚSD AV ČR)
Federico Tarragoni (Paris-Diderot University): From Revolutions to Revolutionary Subjectivities. Some Sociological Tracks
Matěj Spurný (FF UK / ÚSD AV ČR): Environment in Capitalism. Paths to a Neoliberal Consensus
Ester Sigillò (ERC Tarica): Engaging in Civil Society in Response to the Failure of Political Parties in Tunisia
Eliška Tomalová (FSV UK): Velvet Revolution in Cultural Diplomacy and Nation Branding
Jana Wohlmuth Markupová (FHS UK): Meaning of 17th November 1989 in the Memory of Former Student Protagonists in Czech Republic
Emmanuelle Boulineau (ENS Lyon): Spatial Illusions and Disillusions in Central Europe: Borders, Flows, and Territorial Cooperation

12:00-12:15: Coffee Break

12:15-13:45: Panel 2: Disillusions after Revolution
Moderation: Jérôme Heurtaux (CEFRES)
Éric Aunoble (University of Geneva): Post-Revolutionary Syndromes: The Case of Ukrainian Communists after 1920
Clément Steuer (ERC Tarica): Discrediting the Revolution in Political Discourse: the Role of Counter-Revolutionary Parties in Egypt
Alia Gana (CNRS / ERC Tarica), Maher Ben Rebah (ERC Tarica): Political Disenchantment in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia in the Light of Electoral Processes
Nicolas Maslowski (CCFEF): Post-Dissent: Between Social Resource and Source of Disillusion
Marcel Tomášek (FHS UK): Scholars and Experts’ Disillusions on Post-1989 Dynamics in East-Central Europe

13:45-14:45: Lunch

14:45-17:30: Students’ Presentations
Moderation: Paweł Rodak (Warsaw University), Marie-Elizabeth Ducreux (EHESS / CNRS)
Michal Louč (FHS UK / ÚSTR): The Former Czechoslovak Political Prisoners from the 1950s and their Perceptions of the Velvet Revolution and Dealing with Communism
Václav Rameš (ÚSD / FF UK): The 1989 as an Opportunity for a New Economic Order. Expectations and Disillusionments in the Czechoslovak Postcommunist Ownership Transformation
Marek Skála (FHS UK): The Beginnings of Small Businesses during the Economic Transformation Period
Martin Babička (Oxford University): “We are Buying the Future”: Neoliberalism, Historicity, and the Case of Voucher Privatization in Postsocialist Czechoslovakia
Filip Keller (FF UK): And Then Wolves Have Come. Czechoslovakian Technical Intelligentsia on The Postcommunist Transformation
Pavel Jonák (FHS UK): Great Expectations? Czech Post-Revolutionary Way of Teaching Creative Writing from the Perspective of its Actors
Eliška Černovská (FSV UK): The Role of Guy Erismann in French-Czech(oslovakian) Musical Relations before and after the Velvet Revolution
Igor Zavorotchenko (FHS UK): One Example the 1989/1991 Revolution could not Change the Historical Assessment, Although we did Hope So

16:30-16:45: Coffee break

Klára Žaloudková (FSV UK): Preying on the State: Oligarchization of Bulgaria after 1989
Jiří Kocián (FSV UK): Persistent Burden: Post-1989 Romania and The Quest for Democratic Maintenance
Marek Suk (FF UK): Were Dissidents Representing the Alternative to the Normalisation Regime? Their Political Performance before and shortly after November 1989
Claire Laurent (University of Strasbourg): “Polszczyzna”: The Hope of a Nation without a State and the Disillusion of a Post-Revolutionary Nation-State

17:30-18:30: Break. Move to French Institute

French Institute, Stepanska 35
Kino 35

18:30-20:00 Screening of Anna Szczepanska’s film Solidarnosc. How Solidarity Changed Europe, LOOKSfilm/Arte-NDR, Germany, 2019, 52 mn (English subtitles).
Moderation: Luc Lévy, Director of the French Institute
Debate with Anna Szczepanska and Georges Mink

20-20:30 Closing Remarks
Nicolas Maslowski (CCFEF), Paweł Rodak (Warsaw University), Aneta Bassa (Polish Academy of Sciences), Jérôme Heurtaux (CEFRES), Eliška Tomalová (FSV UK), Michal Pullmann (FF UK), Pavel Mücke (ÚSD AV ČR), Alia Gana (CNRS, ERC Tarica)

Read more about the event subjects on: http://cefres.cz/fr/11961