The French Research Centre in the Humanities and Social Sciences (CEFRES) in Prague welcomes Myriam Catusse, director of the Institute of Research on Contemporary Maghreb (IRMC, Tunis), previously director of the French Institute of Middle East (IFPO, 2021-2024) to an open, not-too-formal conversation on common, or divergent, stakes Social Sciences and Humanities face in recent times.
Date: April 2, 2026, 10:00
Location: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1
Language: English
Summary
In 2022, IFPO celebrated the centenary of the institution from which it originated, the Institute of Islamic Archaeology and Art founded at the Azem Palace in Damascus. Now established in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, its multidisciplinary teams—whose research spans periods from prehistory to the most contemporary times—have, over the course of this century, experienced numerous episodes of war and major political violence. Drawing on recent collective research conducted within the Institute, as well as on the experience of its direction between 2021 and 2024—a period marked by an intensification of conflicts across the region—Myriam Catusse will examine the lasting and structuring effects of violence on the social sciences and humanities. She aims to highlight not only the development of research aimed at documenting and analysing conflicts, but also, from a sociology of knowledge perspective, the transformations that such contexts produce in the methods, practices, and ethics of our professions.
Given that in the recent years many other French Research Institutes Abroad have been evacuated (Kabul, Moscow, Khartoum…) or have engaged in multiple form of support to scientific communities amidst war (e.g. CEFRES and its partners offering 70 fellowships of different type to Ukrainian researchers since 2023), we would like to take this opportunity to share our experiences, discuss theoretical & conceptual stakes in Humanities & Social Sciences in times of (multiple) conflicts with colleagues present in Prague and working on numerous fragile social and cultural regions.
Program
10:00-10:20 Mateusz CHMURSKI (CEFRES / Sorbonne University) Dislocated Landscape: CEFRES Platform Actions in Support of Ukrainian Research (Opening Remarks)
10:20-10:40 Myriam CATUSSE (IRMC / CNRS)
An Observatory of the Social Sciences and Humanities in Times of War: Reflections on the Experience at the French Institute of Middle East (Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine and Syria, 2021-2024)
10:40-11:00 Discussion & coffee break
11:00-11:20 May TAMIMOVA (Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences)
Living a Deterritorialized War: Migrant Identities Amid Ongoing Conflict in Lebanon
11:20–11:40 Zora HESOVÁ (Université Charles)
A Religious War? Social Sciences Confronted with Orientalist and Civilisationist Stereotypes (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1991-2001)
11:40 –12:20 Discussion
Preliminary discussion participants:
Ali Al-Moussaoui, CEFRES / Charles University
Yasar Abu Ghosh, Charles University
Jakub Jajcay, Charles University
Louisa Martin Chevalier, Sorbonne University / CEFRES
Hélène Martinelli, ENS de Lyon / CEFRES
Michel Perrotino, Charles University
Giedrė Šabasevičiūtė, Czech Academy of Sciences / CEFRES
Clément Steuer, Institute of International Relations
May Tamimova, Czech Academy of Sciences
Jakub Zahora, Charles University
Jan Zouplná, Czech Academy of Sciences