Archives

Tracing the Legacies of the Roma Genocide: Families as Transmitters of Experience and Memory

When: 20–21 September 2017
Where: Czech Academy of Sciences, Villa Lanna, Prague
Language: English

The conference is a joint event bringing together two recent academic initiatives focusing on the research on the history of the Roma and supporting new approaches in the field: the Prague Forum for Romani Histories and the Research network on ‘Legacies of the Roma Genocide in Europe since 1945’, which is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC, United Kingdom). Both initiatives aim at fostering a debate on the history of Roma as part of European history and contemporary European society.

Find the program of the conference here!

See the flyer and the program here.

More on the Prague Forum for Romani Histories

Conference: New Approaches to the History of the Jews under Communism

European Association of Jewish Studies Conference, Prague

Date & Place: from 23 to 25 May 2017, Villa Lanna, Prague
Language: English
Organizers: Kateřina Čapková (Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences), Kamil Kijek (Department of Jewish Studies, University of Wrocław), Stephan Stach (Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences)

Program

23 May 2017 

20.00 –20.30 Oleg Zhidkov (Jerusalem): The Jewish Movement in the USSR: New Sources and Perspectives (Video Testimonies)

24 May 2017 

9.00 Welcome

9.15–11.00 Panel I – Jewish Life, Religious Practise and Folklore under Soviet Communism (I)

Chair: Ilana Miller (Chicago/Prague)

  • Valery Dymshits (St Petersburg), The Boundaries of Illegal: Religious Practices and Shadow Economy in Soviet Jewish Life
  • Victoria Gerasimova (Omsk), The Jewish Community of Omsk under the Soviets, from 1940 to the 1960s: Between Tradition and Survival
  • Diana Dumitru (Chişinău), ‘It is Better to Live in Romania Than in the Soviet Union’: How Bessarabian Jews Tried and Frequently Failed to Become Soviet Citizens during Late Stalinism

11.00–11.15 Coffee break

11.15–13.00 Panel II – Literature and Jewish Identity

Chair: Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov (Warsaw)

  • Daria Vakhrushova (Düsseldorf), The Utopia of Yiddish Literature after the Revolution
  • Magdalena Ruta (Krakow), Nusekh Poyln and the ‘New Jewish Man’: The Image of the Jewish Communist in Yiddish Literature of Post-war Poland
  • Gennady Estraikh (New York), Soviet Yiddish Cultural Diplomacy, from the 1950s to 1991

13.00–14.00 Lunch

14.00–15.45 Panel III – Paths of Integration/Disintegration into the Communist Political System and Society

Chair: Michal Kopeček (Prague)

  • Galina Zelenina (Moscow), ‘Po Kurskoi, Kazanskoi zheleznoi doroge’: Jewish Private Life in the Moscow Oblast between Leisure, Underground Religion, and National Revival
  • Agata Maksimowska (Warsaw), Being Jewish in Soviet Birobidzhan
  • Kateřina Čapková (Prague), Centre and Periphery: Jewish Experience in Communist Czechoslovakia

15.45–16.15 Coffee break

16.15–18.00 Round table: The Diversity of Jewish Experiences under Communism

Chair: Marcos Silber (Haifa)

  • Zvi Gitelman (Ann Arbor)
  • Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov (Warsaw)
  • Bożena Szaynok (Wrocław)
  • Andrea Pető (Budapest)
25 May 2017 

9.00–10.45 Panel IV – Jewish Identities and Ways of Life under Communism

Chair: Stephan Stach (Prague)

  • Anna Shternshis (Toronto), ‘I was not like everyone else’: Soviet Jewish Doctors Remember the Doctors’ Plot of 1953
  • Anna Koch (Southampton), ‘After Auschwitz you must take your origin seriously’: Perceptions of Jewishness among Communists of Jewish Origin in the Emerging German Democratic Republic
  • Kata Bohus (Frankfurt am Main), The Opposition of the Opposition: New Jewish Identities in the Samizdat of Late Communist Hungary

10.45–11.15 Coffee break

11.15–13.00 Panel V – Jewish Religious Life and Folklore under Soviet Communism II

Chair: Raphael Utz (Jena)

  • Ella Stiniguță (Cluj-Napoca), Mountain Jews and the Challenges of Ritual Life in the Soviet Caucasus
  • Mikhail Mitsel (New York), Jewish Religious Communities in Ukraine, 1945–81
  • Karīna Barkane (Riga), Beyond Assimilation: Jewish Religious Communities in the Latvian SSR

13.00–14.30 Lunch

14.30–15.45 Panel VI Jewish Transnational Encounters

Chair: Katrin Steffen (Hamburg)

  • David Shneer (Boulder), East Germany’s Jews, Their Transnational Networks, and East German Anti-Fascism
  • Eliyana R. Adler (State College/Warsaw), Strange Bedfellows: The Soviet Red Cross, Polish Jewish Refugees, and the American Joint Distribution Committee

15.45–16.15 Coffee break

16.15–17.45 Concluding Round Table

Chair: Kamil Kijek (Wrocław/Prague)

  • Audrey Kichelewski (Strasbourg)
  • Elissa Bemporad (New York)
  • Arkadi Zeltser (Jerusalem)

The experience of the Jews under the Communist régimes of east-central and eastern Europe has been a hotly debated topic of historiography since the 1950s. Until the 1980s, Cold War propaganda exerted a powerful influence on most interpretations presented in articles and books published on both sides of the ‘Iron Curtain’. Moreover, most works focused both on the relationship between the régime and the Jews living under it and on the role of the Jews in the Communist/Socialist movements and the political events connected with the rise of antisemitism and emigration.

Continue reading Conference: New Approaches to the History of the Jews under Communism →

The Holocaust and its Aftermath from the Family Perspective

Where: Villa Lanna, V sadech 1, Prague 1
Organizers: Eliyana Adler (The Pennsylvania State University), Kateřina Čapková (ÚSD AV ČR) and Ruth Leiserowitz (German Historical Institute, Warsaw)

Check the program and details on the organizers’ website here

Program

Wednesday 15 March

9:00 – Welcome

9:15 – 11:00 Family and Genocide
Chair: Eliyana Adler (Pennsylvania State University)

Dalia Ofer (Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Narrating Families’ Daily Life in East European Ghettos: Concepts and Dilemmas

Michal Unger (Ashkelon Academic College, Israel): Separation and Divorce in the East European Ghettos

Volha Bartash (Hugo Valentin Centre, University of Uppsala): Romani Family in the Holocaust: Ethnographic Field Notes from the Belarusian-Lithuanian Borderland

11:00-11:15  Coffee break

11:15 -12:30 Family Correspondence
Chair:  Kateřina Králová (Charles University, Prague)

Joachim Schlör (University in Southampton): „I could never forget what they had done to my father“: The Absence and Presence of Holocaust Memory in a Family’s Letter Collection

Rony Alfandary (Bar Ilan University): Family Letters from Thessaloniki – Real and Imaginary Consequences

12:30 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:45 Family and Choice
Chair: Ruth Leiserowicz (German Historical Institute, Warsaw)

Kiril Feferman (Ariel University): Changing Roles: Flight Decision-Making in the Mixed Families in the Soviet Union, 1941

Alina Bothe (Free University, Berlin): “This was the last time I saw my mother” – Families Responding to the First Mass Deportation in October 1938

Atina Grossmann (Cooper Union, New York City): Negotiating Gender, Family, and Survival Behind the Lines: Perspectives from the Margins of Holocaust History

15:45-16:00 Coffee break

16:00-17:45 Children’s Perspectives
Chair: Clara Royer (CEFRES, Prague)

Boaz Cohen (Western Galilee College, Akko): Family Survival Strategies as Seen by Survivor Children in their Early Testimonies

Sarah Rosen (Yad Vashem, Jerusalem): The Survival of Deported Families in Transnistrian Ghettos as Reflected in Diaries of the Youth

Joanna Beata Michlic (Bristol University): Grayer Shades of Jewish Identity: Atypical Histories of Child Survivors from Mixed Polish-Jewish Families in the Aftermath of the Holocaust

Thursday 16 March

9:00 – 10:45 Imagined Families
Chair: István Pál Ádám (CEFRES, Prague)

Natalia Aleksiun (Touro College, New York City): Uneasy Bonds: On Jews in Hiding and the Making of Surrogate Families

Rita Horvath (Yad Vashem): Hasidic Families under Pressure: An In-Depth Analysis of the Holocaust Testimonies Collected by Yaffa Eliach

Viktória Bányai (Institute for Minority Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences): The Impact of the Joint’s Assistance Strategy on the Lives of Jewish Families in Hungary, 1945-49

10:45 – 11:00 Coffee break

11:00 – 12: 45 Postwar Dilemmas
Chair: Stephan Stach (Institute of Contemporary History, Prague)

Laura Hobson Faure (Sorbonne Nouvelle University): Siblings in the Holocaust and its Aftermath: Rethinking the “Holocaust Orphan” in France and the United States

Marcos Silber (University of Haifa): Migrations, Gender and Family: Bottom-Up Perspectives on Migrations and Nation Building in 1950s’ Poland and Israel

Kamil Kijek (Wrocław University): Jewish Family Confronting the Holocaust Aftermath and Demise of Modernism: The Case of Polish Lower Silesia, 1945-1957

12:45-14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 15:45 Rebuilding the Family
Chair: Kateřina Čapková (Institute of Contemporary History, Prague)

Robin Judd (Ohio State University): “Experiencing Family and Home”: Jewish Military Brides, Allied Soldier Husbands, and the Centrality of Kinship, 1944-1950

Anja Reuss, Independent Historian: “Return to Normality”—The Relevance of Motherhood and Family for Sinti and Roma Survivors in the Aftermath of World War II

Sarah Wobick-Segev, University of Western Ontario: Looking for a Nice Jewish Girl . . .: Personal Ads and the Creation of Jewish Families in Germany during and after the Shoah, 1938-1953

15:45-16:15 Coffee break

16:15 – 17:45 Concluding discussion

The Human-Animal Line Interdisciplinary Approaches

This international conference will bring together in Prague researchers from different European countries. One of its main purposes is to create a Central European network of scholars dealing with the topic of the human-animal relations across disciplines.
Organizers: Dr. Chiara Mengozzi (CEFRES & FF UK) & Dr. Anna Barcz (University of Bielsko-Biala in Poland)
Language: English

Program

7 February 2017 – French Institute in Prague

French Institute in Prague, Štĕpánská 35, 5th floor

5:00-5:30 Welcome speech by the organizers, Chiara Mengozzi (CEFRES & Charles University) and Anna Barcz (University of Bielsko-Biala) 5:30-7:00
Lecture by Anne Simon (CNRS/EHESS): Literature and Animal Expressiveness: of the Cognitive and Ethic Aspects of Zoopoetics

8 February 2017 – CEFRES

Na Florenci 3, 3rd floor, conference room

Panel I Animals’ Biography, History and Microhistory

Chair: Lucie Storchová (Charles University)

9:00-9:20 Maria Gindhart (Georgia State University): Animals and Humans in Belle Époque Postcards from the Jardin des Plantes Menagerie

9:20-9:40 Violette Pouillard (Wiener-Anspach Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of Oxford): Nonhuman Animals as Objects or Individuals? A History of Primates at the London Zoo from 1828 to the Present Time

9:40-10:00 Discussion

10:00-10:20 Coffee Break

Panel II Literary Lines I

Chair: Alice Flemrová

10:40-11:00 Chiara Mengozzi (CEFRES-Charles University, Prague): The Blind Spot of the Plot: Thinking Beyond Human with Karel Capek 

11:00-11:20 Matilde Accurso Liotta (University of Pisa): The Renegotiation of the Human-Animal Line in Anna Maria Ortese’s L’iguana

11:20-11:40 Discussion

Lecture

11:40-12:50 Lecture by Kari Weil (Wesleyan University): Animal Magnetism and Moral Dressage: Horses and Their Humans in 19th Century France

12:50-2:00 Lunch

Panel III Philosophical and sociological narratives

Chair: Ondřej Švec (Charles University)

2:00-2:20 Kári Driscoll (Utrecht University): ‘Une langue ou une musique inouïe, assez inhumaine…’: Narrative Voice and the Question of the Animal

2:20-2:40 Michał Krzykawski (University of Silesia): Animal, Number

2:40-3:00 Tereza Vandrovcová (University of New York in Prague): Moral Evolution Toward the Earthlings: A Sociological Approach

3:00-3:20 Discussion

3:20-3:40 Coffee Break

Panel IV Visual Line I

Chair : Anna Barcz (University of Bielsko-Biala)

3:40-4:00 Olivier Vayron (Paris-Sorbonne University): From Frémiet to Kipling: the Orangutan on the Fringe of Mankind 

4:00-4:20 Fae Brauer (University of East London): Becoming Simian: Creative Evolution and Interspecies Modernism

4:20-4:40 Discussion

9 February 2017 – French Institute in Prague

French Institute in Prague, Štĕpánská 35, 5th floor

Panel V Human-Animal History

Chair: Kari Weil

9:00-9:20 Quentin Montagne (University of Rennes 2): Seeing Eye to Eye, Through a Glass Clearly ? The Blurring of the Boundary Between Humans and Animals

9:20-9:40 Anna Barcz (University of Bielsko-Biala): Visualising Human-Animal Bond during the Flood 1997/2010 in Poland

9:40-10:00 Discussion

10:00-10:20 Coffee Break

Panel VI Visual Lines II

Chair: Clara Royer (CEFRES)

10:20-10:40 Concepción Cortés Zulueta (Autonomous University of Madrid): Cameras that Pose as Animals: Imagining Non-human Animals through the POV Shot

10:40-11:00 Discussion

Lecture

11:20-12:30 Lecture by Éric Baratay (Jean Moulin Lyon III University): Writing Biographies on Animals (in French, with simultaneous translation)

12:30-1:30 Lunch

Panel VII Literary Lines II

Chair: Richard Müller (Czech Academy of Sciences)

1:30-1:50 Anita Jarzyna (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań): Laika’s Lullaby

1:50-2:10 Nicolas Picard (University of Paris III): Hunt Practices: In Quest of Animal Existences

2:10-2:30 Eva Beránková (Charles University, Prague): Animals As Victims and Monsters at the Age of Decadence

2:30-2:50 Discussion

2:50-3:10 Coffee Break

Panel VIII Animals in Pop Culture

Chair: Anne Simon (CNRS / EHESS)

3:10-3:30 Lenka Svobodová, Ondřej Krajtl (Masaryk University): Animal Monster as a Representation of Contemporary Culture

3:30-3:50 Catherine du Toit (University of Stellenbosch): It is not for the Pig to Call the Sheep Pen Dirty. Identity and Animality in Multiethnic Crime Fiction

3:50-4:10 Discussion

Session IX Literary Lines III

Chair: Jan Matonoha (Czech Academy of Sciences)

4:10-5:30 Jana Gridneva (Charles University, Prague): Liminal Creatures: Representing Animals in Ulysses

4:30-4:50 Jonathan Pollock (University of Perpignan): From Becoming-Animal to Being a Beast. Literary Experiments in Crossing the Species Divide

4:50-5:10 Enrico Riccardo Orlando (Ca’ Foscari University, Venice): Between Silence and Effusiveness: Garnett’s Fox and Bacchelli’s Tuna

5:10-5:30 Discussion

Closing

Scientific committee

Éric Baratay (Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University), Anna Barcz (University of Bielsko-Biala), Jakub Čapek (Charles University), Chiara Mengozzi (CEFRES – Charles University), Anne Simon (CNRS/EHESS), Petr Urban (Czech Academy of Sciences)

See the call for papers here

Ethnology in the 3rd Millenium: Topics, Methods, Challenges

International Conference organised on the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Institute of Ethnology SAS under the auspices of the European Commission Representation to the Slovak Republic.

Where: SAS Congress Centre, Smolenice Castle, Slovakia

Organizers: T. Podolinská, G. Kiliánová, M. Vrzgulová, K. Popelková (Bratislava, Slovakia), Z. Uherek (Prague, Czech Republic), G. Bárna (Szeged, Hungary), T. Smolińska (Opole, Poland), C. Royer (CEFRES, Prague, Czech Republic)

See the complete program on the SAS Institute of Ethnology website

Panels:

  1. Thematic and methodological challenges in current ethnology and anthropology
  2. Applied anthropology – How to cope with current social and societal challenges? (migrants, poverty, unemployment, the ageing of Europe, marginalised communities, intercultural communication)
  3. Ritual as a social practice in present-day society (private and public celebrating as a form of establishing personal or group/nation/state identity
  4. Communication and memory: inter-generational transfer (focus on shifting sets of values and behaviours – generation-based focus)
  5. Rumours and their functions in relationships between groups
  6. Cultural heritage
  7. Young Scientist Forum (PhD students´ poster presentation)
  8. V4-Networking Panel (presentation of the recent research of all partners and creating a new platform for further cooperation and networking)

Form and energetics in Aby Warburg’s work

Lara BONNEAU  (CEFRES & Université Paris I)
will hold a conference in the frame of the Seminary Collegium historiae artium of the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of sciences

Where: Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Husova 4, Prague 1, room 117
Language: English

The work of the Art historian Aby Warburg (1866-1929) was elaborated within a philosophical and theoretical corpus that tends to be neglected. His esthetics was part of a more general project : elaborating a Psychology based on the relationships of the different symbolic forms forged by human beings. His method thus oscillates between an extreme attention to the details of the works of Art, and the general ambition to build a « Science of Culture ». We will focus on the notion of « energy » and relate it to the use Warburg makes of the concept of « polarity ». This way, we will try to understand the role philosophical influences played in the developpement of his work.