Samson Seminar: Nature(s) & Norms #3 – Eugenics

The third session of the seminar “Nature(s) & Norms” (NANO), carried out within the framework of the research program SAMSON (Sciences, Arts, Medicine and Social Norms), developed by Sorbonne University (Paris), the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University (Prague), Warsaw University and CEFRES welcomes two participants: Vojtěch Pojar (CEFRES / CEU) and Alicja Urbanik-Kopeć (IHN PAN)

When: Friday 16. December 2022, 17:00–19:00
Where: CEFRES Library and online
Language: English
Contact: cefres[@]cefres.cz

Part 1
Eugenics in Austria-Hungary: Social Functions and Imperial Circulation of an Ambiguous Body of Knowledge, 1900–1914

Vojtěch Pojar (CEU / CEFRES)

The notion of the circulation of knowledge poses new questions to the scholarship on eugenics in the Habsburg Empire. Focusing on imperial networks and the cognitive management of imperial diversity, my presentation will analyze four cases of imperial circulation of eugenic knowledge. It will show that the actors, institutions, and geographies of such circulation varied substantially, depending on the practices out of which the particular type of eugenic knowledge grew and on the social function it was envisaged to serve.

Part 2
Eugenics and social health
Alicja Urbanik-Kopeć (IHN PAN)

The role of criminal antropometry and early eugenics movement on the organization of state control of sex workers in the Kingdom of Poland, 1890-1915. In my presentation, I will show the influence of criminal anthropology on the organization of state run Medical Police Committees, set up by the Russian state officials to find, track, control nad. punish real and assumed sex workers in the cities.The official reasons for the tightening control on the disenfranchised urban population (mostly single, poor women) were care for public health and combating the pandemic of sexually transmitted diseases. However, they were used as a pretext to attempt an administrative control of life, health and reproduction of socially vulnerable women.

More on the whole seminar here.

Image: https://archive.org/details/ldpd_11497246_000/page/n25/mode/2up

CEFRES Review of books – December 2022

The next edition of CEFRES Review of Books will take place on Friday, December 16th, at 2:30 pm, on site and online, (ID on Zoom platform 896 9016 5381).

This informal meeting gathers CEFRES team, the library readers, and professionals from libraries and publishing. The aim of our Review of Books is to make better known the publishing landscape in humanities and social sciences. Each book is presented in French and in no more than 10 minutes, so to stress its originality and stakes.

So far, the following presentations are announced:

  • Emmanuel Alcaraz : Histoire de l’Algérie et de ses mémoires (Karthala 2021) by Clément Steuer
  • Anna Colin Lebedev : Jamais frères ? : Ukraine et Russie : une tragédie postsoviétique (Seuil 2022) by Ronan Hervouet
  • Magali Della-Suda : Les nouvelles femmes de droite (Hors d’atteinte 2022) by Adrien Beauduin
  • Virginie Despentes : King-Kong théorie (Livre de poche, 2007) by Michaela Rumpíková
  • Charles Stepanoff : L’Animal et la mort (La Découverte 2021) by Hana Fořtová