Transatlantic Crossings

Polish Communities in France and in the United States after WW2 and their Political Practices

9th session of CEFRES in-house seminar
Through the presentation of works in progress, CEFRES’s Seminar aims at raising and discussing issues about methods, approaches or concepts, in a multidisciplinary spirit, allowing everyone to confront her or his own perspectives with the research presented.

Location: CEFRES Library and online (to get the link, write to cefres[@]cefres.cz)
Date: 
Tuesday, May 27, 2025 at 4:30 pm
Language: 
English

Florence Vychytil-Baudoux (EHESS / CEFRES)
Chair: tba

Text to be read: Michael Werner & Bénédicte Zimmermann, « Beyond Comparison: Histoire Croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity », History and Theory, 2006, vol. 45, no 1, p. 30‑50.

Abstract:

Between the 1880s and the 1930s, over 12 million people left Polish territories “za chlebem” (for bread). While before WW1 the United States attracted most Polish peasants looking for a better future, it was France that became the main destination for Polish migrants in the interwar period. Continue reading Transatlantic Crossings

Energy and its Renewed Cartography

Eighth session of the 2024-2025 CEFRES Francophone
Interdisciplinary Seminar The Map and the Border
In 2023 we started questionning the very act of bordering and representing (a territory, a period, a trajectory). In short, thanks to the interdisciplinarity of our respective disciplines, we began inquiring into the question of the map and the border.

Location: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1
Date: Friday May 23, 2025, from 10 am
Language: French

Speaker: Gilles LEPESANT (CEFRES / CNRS)
Discussant: tba

Abstract Continue reading Energy and its Renewed Cartography

(Czecho)slovak History and French Colonial Space in Africa

Seventh session of the 2024-2025 CEFRES Francophone
Interdisciplinary Seminar The Map and the Border
In 2023 we  started questionning the very act of bordering and representing (a territory, a period, a trajectory). In short, thanks to the interdisciplinarity of our respective disciplines, we began inquiring into the question of the map and the border.

Location: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1
Date: Friday April 25, 2025, from 10 am
Language: French

Speaker: Silvestr TRNOVEC (Institute of Oriental Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences)
Discussant: Jakub ŠTOFÁNIK (Masaryk Institute and Archives,  Czech Academy of Sciences)

Abstract Continue reading (Czecho)slovak History and French Colonial Space in Africa

Thanatographies. Staging Grief and Literary Afterlife

8th session of CEFRES in-house seminar
Through the presentation of works in progress, CEFRES’s Seminar aims at raising and discussing issues about methods, approaches or concepts, in a multidisciplinary spirit, allowing everyone to confront her or his own perspectives with the research presented.

Location: CEFRES Library and online (to get the link, write to cefres[@]cefres.cz)
Date: 
Tuesday, April 15, 2025 at 4:30 pm
Language: 
English

Jan MUSIL  (Faculty of Arts, Charles University / associated at CEFRES)
Chair: Hélène Martinelli (CEFRES / École Normale Supérieure de Lyon)

Text to be read: Gorer, Geoffrey. “The Pornography of Death.” Encounter., vol. 5, no. 4, 1955.

Abstract:

With the christian idea of afterlife gradually fading away, 20th century rediscovered death as a real possibility and ultimate termination of individual life, only to make it into an insufferable, abjected topic and a taboo that is, as Geoffrey Gorer provocatively suggests in 1955, only accessible to the Western culture in hypertrophied genres of literature and film that he calls collectively the pornography of death. Continue reading Thanatographies. Staging Grief and Literary Afterlife

Armenian Chronicles from Ukraine

Between Poland and the Ottoman Empire: Armenian Chronicles from Ukraine during the Thirty Years’ War

Fifth session of the 2024-2025 CEFRES Francophone
Interdisciplinary Seminar The Map and the Border
Already in 2023, we  started questionning the very act of bordering and representing (a territory, a period, a trajectory). In short, thanks to the interdisciplinarity of our respective disciplines, we began inquiring into the question of the map and the border.

Location: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1
Date: March 28, 2025, from 10am to 12pm
Language: French

Speaker: Petra Košťálová (Institute of Ethnology , Czech Academy of Sciences)
Discussant: Radu Paun (CERCEC/CNRS) & Laurent Tatarenko (CCFEF, Warsaw)

Abstract Continue reading Armenian Chronicles from Ukraine

Literature as a Tool for Understanding History and Society

Blurring Boundaries: Literature as a Tool for
Understanding History and Society.
Meaningful work during normalized Czechoslovakia

7th session of CEFRES in-house seminar
Through the presentation of works in progress, CEFRES’s Seminar aims at raising and discussing issues about methods, approaches or concepts, in a multidisciplinary spirit, allowing everyone to confront her or his own perspectives with the research presented.

Location: CEFRES Library and online (to get the link, write to cefres[@]cefres.cz)
Date: 
Tuesday, March 18, 2025 at 4:30 pm
Language: 
English

Valentin Auger (Faculty of Arts, Charles University, associated at CEFRES)

Chair: Jan Váňa (Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences)

Abstract Continue reading Literature as a Tool for Understanding History and Society