From popular imagery to contemporary realities: US and Canadian Native people in historical perspectives

Lecture

When: Monday 25 April 2022 at 6 p.m
Where: Moravian regional library, Brno www.mzk.cz
Language: English
Host: Emmanuel Désveaux (EHESS)

Since the end of XIXth century, the Indians of North America have occupied a special place in the imaginary of Europeans : they were alltogether fierce and cruel, autonomous and rebellious, half-nude and covered with feathers or beaded dresses, war-like and friendly, etc. All these clichés derive from the Plains Indians and their specific way of living based on bison hunting and horse riding. First, it must be acknowledged that this representation is far too restrictive of the various cultures of the Northern part of America. The role of anthropology, specially that of Franz Boas and his followers, was instrumental to document life styles, social organisations and languages that extend from the Atlantic  to the Pacific Ocean and from the Arctic See to the Gulf of Mexico. In the second part of the talk, il will be discussed how Native people in the US and the Canada have been struggling  — and are still struggling — to adjust to a continuous process of colonialization that, if it did not always killed them systematically, impoverished them dramatically and tried to deprive them of their culture and religion. The conference can be understood as a tribute to their enduring resistance.”

Home beyond species. More-than-human dwelling in the age of crises

Launch of the 2022–2024 Tandem project, supported by CEFRES, CNRS and the Czech Academy of Sciences

When: Tuesday 19 April 2022, 1–3 pm
Where: CEFRES and online (ask for the link at claire(@)cefres.cz)
Language: English
Convenors: The 2022–2024 Tandem team
Petr Gibas (CEFRES / Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences) and
Chloé Mondémé (CEFRES / Triangle, CNRS)

With a key-note lecture delivered by :
Birgit Müller (EHESS)

Toxic Worlds and the Power of Denial

Abstract
Bureaucrats and politicians have long turned a blind eye to the accumulation of small toxic doses in soils, groundwater, oceans and in bodies. Toxic waste from industrial processes have been tolerated as a price to pay for living “progress” and “growth”. Anthropologists are interested in the capacity of humans to render invisible and deny the toxic evidence, and in the stubborn refusal to observe and understand the real material consequences of our economic and technical system. Denial makes the invisible traces and effects of the catastrophe disappear. A powerful weapon, it allows to normalize a situation in a way that reproduces rational logic while producing a deep abandonment to the evil of non-reflection. To speak of pollution is to recognize its immense power to render a hitherto familiar space uninhabitable. Continue reading Tandem Kick-off: Home beyond species →

Lecture by Daniel Baric

Venue: Institute of Art History (Husova 4, Prague 1)
Date: 22nd May 2019 at 4.30 pm
Organizers: CEFRES, ÚDU AV ČR

Daniel Baric

Daniel Baric studied History and completed German, Slavic and Hungarian studies in Paris, Berlin and Budapest. A former associate professor at the Department of German studies of Tours University, he is currently working at the Department of Slavic studies of Sorbonne University.
His researches focus on cultural transfers and interculturality in Central Europe, especially within the Habsburg Empire.

Abstract

To reflect upon the elaboration of patrimony policies and their endorsement by local actors means necessarily to take into account a wider context. The relationship of central imperial power with its Oriental circumferences is one of its major dimensions even more significant for the Austrian Empire.

There is a double aspect in Daniel Baric’s ongoing researches. They can be especially observed located among its geographical and historical boundaries. On the one hand, we can find a focus point on imperial Viennese institutions as they are considered to be an instrumental in the genesis of modern patrimony policies. On the other hand, there is a specific study revolving around the most peripheral provinces of Austria-Hungarian, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Adriatic coast under Austria-Hungarian administration (1878–1918)

Our considerations will be concerned by the tremendous consequences due to the evanescence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the domains of embellishment policy and cataloging process.

Archeologists had indeed to find new ways of protecting patrimony through the implementation of new museums and university chairs (i.e. Carl Patsch in Sarajevo and then Vienna, Anton Gnirs in Pula and then at Loket). This process had been achieved by overcoming imperial structures that had collapsed in 1918.

Both of them were scholars born in Bohemia and trained in Prague. In accordance with their acknowledged expertise, they were sent to the Slavonic speaking provinces in the South of Austria-Hungary. They also both finished their researches once they went back to Bohemia and Austria.

The mainstream archeological researches were modified due to political changes and their own departure from their first fields of excavation. De facto, studies on romanization and imperial latinity that were so strongly developed in the Austria-Hungarian period were no more dominant. A new interest emerged for all things medieval and national, giving way to a new paradigm in archaeology.

The tight ties between biography and topography shall be addressed, in regard with current researches based on (mainly autobiographical) manuscripts due to be published.

Daniel Baric’s bibliography

Publications
1. Langue allemande, identité croate. Au fondement d’un particularisme culturel, Paris, Armand Colin, 2013. (Croatian translation : Zagreb, Leykam, 2015)

As an editor
2. Identités juives en Europe centrale, des Lumières à l’entre-deux-guerres, with Tristan Coignard and Gaëlle Vassogne, Tours, Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2014.

3. Archéologies méditerranéennes, Revue germanique internationale, 2012.

4. Mémoire et histoire en Europe centrale et orientale, with Jacques Le Rider and Drago Roksandić, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2010.