What were the intertextual relationships between the African American poet Langston Hughes and the Czech poet Ivan Blatný? How did Blatný employ English in his poetry, how did Hughes use references to Czechoslovakia? How do poets and poems move across languages and power blocs and what were other literary relationships between the Czech lands and the African American cultural community? And what roles does translation play here? These are some of the questions we will be discussing with Julie Hansen, Charles Sabatos, and Justin Quinn. The discussion, co-organized by the Institute of Czech Literature and CEFRES, will take place in English (or rather, it will move between English and Czech) and will be moderated by Františka Schormová. Continue reading Ivan Blatný, Langston Hughes: Translation, Transnationality, and the Blues →

Date and location: April 28th, 4:30pm at CEFRES and online  (contact cefres[@]cefres.cz for the Zoom link)
Organizers:  CEFRES and Courrier d’Europe centrale
Language: French

Continue reading “Belarus: The Suspended Revolution” →

On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Bourdieu’s death, CEFRES in collaboration with the Department of Czech and Comparative Literature of the Charles University in Prague organizes a round table on the development of the Bourdieu’s central concepts during last two decades. 

Bourdieu’s Legacy in Literary Studies: Expanding Territories, Changing Concepts

When: Friday, December 2, 2022, 4.30-6.30pm
Where: CEFRES library, Prague and online:
To register, please contact cefres[@]cefres.cz
Language: English
Organizers: CEFRES & Department of Czech and Comparative Literature, Faculty of Arts, Charles University
Participants:
Anna SCHUBERTOVÁ (Department of Czech and Comparative Literature, Faculty of Arts, Charles University)
Csaba SZALÓ (Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University)
Jan VÁŇA (Institute of Czech literature, Czech Academy of Sciences)
Eva VOLDŘICHOVÁ-BERÁNKOVÁ (Department of Romance Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University)
Moderated by: Josef ŠEBEK (Department of Czech and Comparative Literature, Faculty of Arts, Charles University)

As in many other branches of research, Bourdieu’s contribution in literary studies is unquestionable. The theory of the literary field, which had been in the making since the end of the 1960s and found its most comprehensive and developed shape in The Rules of Art (1992), has a lasting impact both in literary theory and literary history. Other Bourdieu’s works inspire literary research as well, from the early article “Intellectual Field and Creative Project” (1966) to Pascalian Meditations (1997). His lectures at Collège de France whose transcripts are still being published also offer an abundance of impulses for literary scholarship. Yet equally substantial is the production of his collaborators and successors that maintain this living body of work, transpose it to different theoretical and methodological contexts and provide its operationalization and critical analysis. In the framework of the series of events PIERRE BOURDIEU 2022 we want to address some of the nodal points of these developments in the past two decades, focusing on the expanded territory of research – intellectual field, translation studies, study of literature and politics, world literature, ethnography of authors, the study of self-presentation of authors in current media environment, etc. – and concepts ranging from new perspectives on the literary field to ethos and author’s posture. We want to trace these developments and assess Bourdieu’s magisterial contribution in the context of current research.

A round-table discussing conceptual and practical issues related to the establishment of a “Post-anthropocentric” reading group as part of the Tandem project. The X in the title refers to the various themes and topics that shall be explored within the reading group through post-anthropocentric lens.

• 3 November 2022, 14:00 CET
• CEFRES library & online
• in English
• a round-table discussion organized by the CEFRES Tandem Team Petr Gibas (Czech Academy of sciences) and Chloé Mondémé (CNRS) within the research project “Home beyond species: More-than-human dwelling in the age of crises”.

The reading group is to discuss theoretical and conceptual, onto-epistemological and possibly also methodological issues in relation to what we preliminarily term “post-anthropocentric dwelling”, i.e., the entanglement of humans in a web of more-than-human relations as part of widely conceived dwelling as well as human homes. In recognition that humans share their home(s) with non-humans, living as well as inanimate, we would like to probe questions such as:

• How does acknowledging of the more-than-human entanglements challenge the established notions of dwelling and related concepts of home and landscape?
• How can we as scientists devoted to the study of humans (and their dwelling) reflect in novel ways on encountering non-humans at and around home?
• What new conceptual terrains can be opened up by inviting non-humans into our thinking about human dwelling(s)?

How can social science become sensitized, epistemologically and methodologically, in order to better engage with and approach the more-than-human complexities of dwellings?

The roundtable is a closed event. In case you are interested in the theme and would like to become part of the reading group or want to learn more, do not hesitate to contact the Tandem team: Petr Gibas (petr.gibas(at)soc.cas.cz) and Chloé Mondémé (chloe.mondeme(at)cnrs.fr).