To Live in a Library of Five Dimensions
Date: June 11, 2025, 18 h
Location: French Institute in Prague, Štěpánská 35, Praha 1
The event will be held in French with simultaneous translation into Czech.
Where does the hostility towards literature come from, and what are the roots of its growing devaluation? How can we enrich our readings by taking a decentralised look at the texts? To what extent can a perspective from afar shed new light on our understanding of the Greek tragedies? And with what far-reaching arguments has Pope Francis put an end to a long history of scathing indictments of literary texts?
As part of the ‘Grands entretiens avec…’ series, this event is organised by CEFRES and its Platform partners in collaboration with the French Institute in Prague. Continue reading Grand Entretien | The World of Wiliam Marx →
10th 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, June 10, 2025 at 4:30 pm
Language: English
Speaker: Honorata Sroka (CEFRES / National Science Centre, Poland)
Chair: Hélène Martinelli (CEFRES / École Normale Supérieure de Lyon)
Text to be read: Peter Bürger (1974). Theory of the Avant-Garde. Translation Michael Shaw. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Abstract:
The presentation will take the form of very preliminary remarks related to my post-doctoral research, which I have been conducting for 7 months at the French Research Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences. My project develops the same line of research as my doctoral thesis, however, approaches the issue in a broader way. Specifically, using selected examples of neo-avant-gardes in Central and Eastern Europe, I hope to show how and why artists decided to create subversive forms of historiography and what kind of experimental strategies can be found in archives. Employing the methodology so-called “cultural history of the avant-gardes”, I will reflect on vanguard institutions and practices oriented towards a self-historiography. What I dare to claim one can essentially call a discussion on Peter Bürger’s pivotal book Theory of the Avant-Garde (1974). He was the one who argued that the avant-gardes stood against institutions. In contrast to his assumption, my research aims to display how neo-avant-gardes in Central and Eastern Europe developed rather than destroyed art institutions, as well as subversive forms of historiography, and why these two were intertwined.
Please find the complete program of 2024–2025 seminar here.
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
Speaker: 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 →
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 →
When: May 15th and 16th, 2025
Where: Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
Language: French, English
Organizers: Katarína Bednárová, Silvia Rybárová, Ján Živčák (Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences)
See the whole CFA
Download the program here.
See the official poster here.
This international conference is organised by The Institute of World Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Faculty of Arts of Comenius University Bratislava and CEFRES.
Photo: Mgr. Lucia Drotárová, PhD. Created with the help of AI.
Program
Continue reading Translation of Humanities and Social Sciences | Conference →
EHESS-UMIFRE Workshop
This doctoral programme will consist of four 2-3 hour workshops over two days, each focusing on a dialogue and joint readings.
Date: May 12-14, 2025
Location: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1
Language of the workshop: English, French
Organizers : EHESS, CEFRES (Prague), CRFJ (Jerusalem), IFA SHS (Frankfurt/Main)
Coordination : Falk Bretschneider (EHESS / IFRA-SHS) & Mateusz Chmurski (Sorbonne Université / CEFRES)
Argumentary:
How do we name the things that happen? If this question is always relevant, it is never as sensitive, divisive, or necessary as it becomes in times of crisis. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, followed by the crisis in the Near East that erupted on October 7, 2023—with their respective share of daily tragedies—give this question a cruel and painful urgency. How do we name what is happening to us? Pogrom. Resistance. Colonisation. Terrorism. Genocide. Segregation. Apartheid. War crimes. How do we choose these words, and who chooses them for us? Are these words precise enough to fairly capture reality, while broad enough not to be reduced to the empirical description of isolated events? If imprecision is a necessary attribute of language, how can we be sure that the intentions behind these words are free from manipulation, harmful visions, or dangerous ideologies? To which frameworks—legal, legislative, expert, academic—do these words belong? What do they permit, and what do they silence? How do they mobilise reason, emotion, moral judgement, or ethical and political positions? In what historical contexts were these words created or imbued with meaning, and how much would it cost to free them from those contexts? Indeed, to question, clarify, and correct the words we use as categories to analyse the world as it is—this is no easy task.
Program
Continue reading The Dimension of Words | Doctoral Workshop →
