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

Symposium organised by the Institute of Ethnology AV ČR and CEFRES s with the support of the program Strategy AV21 – Diversity of Life and Health of Ecosystems

Venue: Vila Lanna, V Sadech 1, 160 00 Prague 6
Date: 8.11.2019, 10:00-16:00

Contact: broz@eu.cas.cz

International Conference

Venue: Scientific Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences (74, rue Lauriston, Paris), Sorbonne University (17, rue de la Sorbonne, “Salle des actes”, Paris)
Date: 7-8 June 2019.
Organizers: Science Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Paris, Centre of Polish civilisation (Sorbonne University), CEFRES,  Centre of French Civilisation and Francophone Studies in Warsaw
Language: English

This conference is the first in a cycle of conference entitled “1989-2019: Beyond the Anniversary, questionning 1989“, held in Paris, Warsaw and Prague.

You can check the detailed program here.

Argumentary

What is known about 1989, this chain of major events that have shaken up the map of Europe and the world? The collapse of communist regimes has been extensively studied and commented on. The human and social sciences have long focused on the 1989 enigma, which saw the un-anticipated collapse of the European part of the Soviet bloc in just a few months. However, the work on 1989 quickly led to other research agendas, proposing to study the current transformations in Central and Eastern Europe. Because contrary to what the large number of stories about 1989 may suggest, there are few empirical studies on this object and for good reasons. Because of its historical situation as the final moment of the communist period and as the inaugural moment of the “democratic transition”, 1989 was finally little addressed as such and for itself. Retrospective analyses of the reasons for the fall of the communist bloc and prospective studies on the democratization of Eastern European societies quickly marginalized the event as an object of investigation, in favor of more interpretation-oriented writings. More recently, it is more a questioning around the memory controversies on 1989 that has caught the attention of researchers. This conference therefore proposes a return to the event itself. Going back to the field, diving in the past, mobilizing new sources, without of course sacrificing the analysis to pure facts. This is the perspective adopted which consists in questioning the event through its social margins, actors who have until now remained in the shadows (for example workers or women), through writing and cultural practices and by engaging in a debate on the archives of 1989, raising new or too long ignored questions. Several leads seem to be possible:

• 1989 and social margins : What did 1989 mean for the Eastern European working classes, rural communities, people living in urban areas far from the heart of events, women, young people or the regime’s elites? Crossing the political event and the social worlds offers an original perspective on the dynamics of the collapse and makes it possible to rethink the relationships between the “revolutionary process” and social classes, which are known to be central to Marxist theory.
• Writing and cultural practices : How was 1989 figured, documented and co-constructed, both during and after, through various writing practices (diaries, actors’ memoirs, underground press, samizdats, correspondence) and artistic genres such as literature, theatre, happening, painting or documentary? What traces does it leave in the visual memory of the event? What exactly is described, from what point of view?
• New archives : Which archives were constituted on 1989 and on the period preceding the event? Are the archives on 1989 part of the archives of communism? Did 1989 produce its own archivists? Who are they and how can these archives be used? How can we interpret the development of oral history in the East and the multiplication of real “banks of testimonies”, which are emerging as new archives of communism and post-communism?

It is therefore about revisiting 1989 by consciously taking a fragmented look on the series of political events that have transformed Central and Eastern Europe. Hence the use of new and heterodox sources: oral history with ordinary citizens, self-writing, memoirs written by former members of the opposition or communist parties, posters, literary and artistic materials, etc., which have been the subject of so few publications since then.

Scientific direction of the Cycle of conferences

• 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
• Paweł Rodak, Centre of Polish Civilisation, Sorbonne University

Music as a Universal Form of Art ? Internationalization of Musical Life and Forming of National Identity in 19th Century Europe

A lecture by Michael Werner (CNRS-EHESS) on the occasion of the workshop When All Roads Led to Paris.

When & Where: from 6 pm to 7:30 pm, French Institute in Prague, Štěpánská 35, Prague 1, 5th floor
Language: French with simultaneous translation in Czech

Abstract (FR)
Dans la conférence, on reviendra sur les transformations de la vie musicale en Europe au 19^e siècle, en particulier relatives au concert. On assiste en effet à un phénomène paradoxe : d’un côté une véritable internationalisation, fondée, entre autres, sur la mobilité des musiciens, la constitution d’un répertoire, l’émergence d’un marché et d’une presse spécialisée ou encore la professionnalisation des métiers de la musique. De l’autre une nationalisation progressive des schèmes interprétatifs de la musique et des phénomènes de réception, voire l’appropriation de la musique par les mouvements nationaux. On proposera quelques outils d’analyse permettant d’éclairer ces mutations et de les inscrire dans une histoire croisée des cultures en Europe.

Michael Werner is a research director at Centre national de la recherche scientifique, and a lecturer at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. His main focus is history of social and cultural relations between France and Germany between and 18^th and 20^th century. Along with Michel Espagne he introduced a theory of cultural transfers; with Bénédicte Zimmermann he then developed a similar concept of „histoire croisée“, i.e. entangled history. Besides cultural transfers between France and Germany, Michael Werner focuses also on the perspectives of entangled history in humanities, on literary science and social history of music. The latter will be the subject of his Prague lecture.

• Begegnungen mit Heine. Berichte der Zeitgenossen, Hamburg, 1973, 2 vol.
• avec Michel Espagne, La construction d’une référence culturelle allemande en France: genèse et histoire (1750-1914), Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 42, 1987, n^o 4, p. 969-992.
• avec Bénédicte Zimmermann (éds.), De la comparaison à l’histoire croisée, Paris, 2004.
• Musikgeschichte als « Histoire croisée ». Zu den Verflechtungen des Musiklebens, in : Anne-Madeleine Goulet, Gesa zur Nieden (éds), Europäische Musiker in Venedig, Rom und Neapel (1650-1750) / Les musiciens européens à Venise, Rome et Nâples (1650-1750), Kassel, Laaber, 2015 (Analecta musicologica 52), p. 49-67.

Illustration : The Piano Lesson, Edmund Blair Leighton (1896)

International Conference

Organizers: Benedetta Zaccarello (CNRS-CEFRES) and Thomas C. Mercier (CEFRES / FHS UK)
When & Where: 7-9 June 2018 at the French Institute of Prague, 5th Floor, Štěpánská 35, 110 00 Prague 1
Partners: FHS UK, The Jan Patočka Archive, FLÚ AV ČR, ITEM (CNRS-ENS), Bibliothèque Nationale de France, The Wittgenstein Archives at Bergen University, with the support of the French Institute in Prague and the program PARCECO of the MENESR

The conference will comprise four sections:

1. Archive (Hi)stories: Thinking Theory through Authors’ Manuscripts.
2. Archives in the digital age.
3. What archives do to philosophy: methodologies in editing and interpreting.
4. The Political Implications of Archives and their Conservation.

The afternoon session of the first day (7^th June) will be dedicated to Jan Patočka and his archives.

See the program below

Abstract

The international conference “The Wording of Thoughts: Philosophy from the Standpoint of its Manuscripts and Archives” aims to establish a dialogue between experts of different archival corpuses coming from various countries and continents, so as to sketch methodological lines and to build a pioneer network focused on philosophical archives. Philosophy is written, practiced, lived through: it is the translation of the experience of a thinking subjectivity in a conceptual alphabet and a verbal fabric. The “making of a philosophical text”, including its cultural features and societal contingencies, challenges the representation of the discipline’s history as a series of abstract findings and innovative intuitions that constitute the landmarks of our paradigms. The philosopher who writes is the first inclined to erase the complex intricacies of the negotiations between existence and theory, between conceptual inventiveness and shared vocabulary inherited from a centuries-old tradition. Yet it is obvious that the dynamics of philosophy production and reception are a complex phenomenon whose writing nature is a crucial stake.

For all these reasons, the philosophical manuscript is an odd object that has only recently started to receive proper appraisal. In Europe, nevertheless, the creation of archive centres gathering major philosophical data has sustained the memory of philosophical writing and enabled such “arches” to cross time. It is beyond doubt that accessing these archives often enables to better understand the appearance, the method, the approach and even the sources, along with the polemical targets and the hints that published books tend to excise or dim. Moreover, in exploring the history of several philosophical archives and their rooting in specific social and cultural contexts, we aim to appreciate the role of such archival materials and their importance so as to develop new approaches to philosophical studies, including the history of philosophy and the exegesis of theoretical thought.

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