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Reading X through post-anthropocentric lens

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.

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).

SAMSON Seminar: Nature(s) & Norms #1

This session will bring together two presentations:

Astrid Greve KRISTENSEN (PhD candidate Sorbonne University – CEFRES)
E(co)schatological Entrypoints: The Abject and the Anthropocene in Bianca Bellová’s novel Jezero [The Lake]

Matylda SZEWCZYK (University of Warsaw)
On Darkness and Light: Images of Nuclear Power and Reproduction

Location: CEFRES Library and online
Dates: Friday 21 October 2022, 16:30–18:30
Language: English
Contact: cefres[@]cefres.cz

Abstracts

Part 1: E(co)schatological Entrypoints: The Abject and the Anthropocene in Bianca Bellová’s novel Jezero [The Lake] – Astrid Greve KRISTENSEN

The 2016 Czech coming-of-age novel Jezero [The Lake] by Bianca Bellová conjoins the drying up of a life-giving lake with an obscene amount of bodily fluids bursting from its teenage protagonist. Together, this ecocritical subject combined and a rather literal interpretation of the abject, form a basis for my interpretation of this orphan narrative.

Part 2: On Darkness and Light: Images of Nuclear Power and Reproduction – Matylda SZEWCZYK

The seemingly counterintuitive juxtaposition of nuclear energy images – power plants, atomic tests, nuclear apocalypses – with visions of reproduction (biological fertilization, parenthood, symbolical figures of parents and children) returns in the history of culture with puzzling frequency. It brings along the questions about the social attitude towards technology, science and the fundamental “facts of life” and has already been a subject of academic discussions, from the feminist analysis of Evelyn Fox Keller to historical reconstructions of Spencer R. Weart. The contemporary and historical functioning of these motives in visual culture will create the background for my presentation, concentrating on the images of nuclear apocalypse and parenthood/reproduction in the novels Sakhalin Island by Eduard Verkin (2018) and Brightness by Maja Wolny (2019).

See the complete program of the SAMSON Nature(s) & Norms Seminar 

Featured image : P. Christopher Staecker.

A Golden Rhinoceros. Africa in the Middle Ages

On the occasion of the publication, in Czech, of the Golden Rhinoceros, and his invitation by the French Institute in Prague and Charles University in partnership with CEFRES, François-Xavier FAUVELLE presents his book at the French Institute in Prague.

Where: French Institute in Prague, Štěpánská 35, Prague 1
Date: Wednesday 12 October 2022, at 6 pm
Language: in French with simultaneous translation into Czech
Organizers: CEFRES, French Institute in Prague, Charles University

The discussion will be moderated by Irena Jirků, journalist.

Presentation
The description of a city with twelve mosques in an Arabic story about the Sahel regions; a letter from a Jewish merchant about a caravan from the “Land of the Blacks”; the discovery, in the middle of the Sahara, of shells from the Indian Ocean; the effigy of a Malian king on a Catalan map; the ruins of cities built of salt and coral blocks. And gold: a gold shield in a tomb in Senegal; gold coins found in a Christian monastery in Ethiopia; a golden rhinoceros looted and found in South Africa. All these documents testify to the diversity and richness of Africa in the Middle Ages. In his book Le Rhinocéros d’or, François-Xavier Fauvelle reconstructs, with the help of these fragments, a “stained glass window” that reveals forgotten kingdoms, from the savannah empires of West Africa to the coastal principalities of Kenya and Tanzania. An Africa that participates in the great trade with the Islamic world, India and China, reexamining the places and actors of a global Middle Ages.

François-Xavier Fauvelle is professor at Collège de France in Paris, first holder of the chair entitled History and archeology of African worlds. He has taught at Princeton University, led international research programs in South Africa, Ethiopia and Morocco. Among more than twenty books translated into a dozen of languages, he is the author of A Golden Rhinoceros. Histories of African Middle Ages that has been published in Czech in 2021: Zlatý nosorožec: příběhy o africkém středověku (Karolinum, 2021, transl. Alena Lhotová, Helena Beguivinová).

CEFRES Seminar #2

When: Friday, October 7th, 16:30
Where: CEFRES Library, Na Florenci 3, Prague and online (please contact cefres[@]cefres.cz
Language: English

The second session of CEFRES seminar will be hosted by two researchers:

Ronan Hervouet (Professor of sociology, CEFRES / University of Bordeaux):
Belarusian exiles in Central and Eastern Europe after the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Research project presentation

Abstract
The research project, called BIELEXIL, aims to understand the consequences of the outbreak of war in Ukraine on Belarusian exiles, who fled their country after 2020 and found refuge in Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic. It focuses on circulations, experiences and forms of politicization. Funded by the Institut Convergences Migrations (ICM), it is hosted by the CEFRES and is coordinated by Michèle Baussant and Ronan Hervouet. This talk will retrace the different steps that led from conceiving the project to submitting a proposal, discuss the aims of the project, and question possible developments of the research beyond the funding period (2022-2023).

Emina Zoletić (PhD candidate CEFRES / University of Warsaw) :
Intergenerational transmission of the family memory of the war: Displacement and the Bosnian diaspora in Europe 

Abstract
The study of wartime memory transmission has great social and political significance. The past does not simply disappear; lived experience eventually becomes a narrative curated among one generation and passed on to another. Moreover, even when a story appears to die, it may only lie dormant, ready to emerge generations or even centuries, later.

The proposed discussion focuses on the specific case of the intergenerational transmission of memory among families of those who lived through the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and among Bosnian families living abroad in the EU. The proposed discussion offers an interdisciplinary approach (sociology combined with social psychology and memory studies ) in a multidisciplinary context, with a methodological focus.  It will also focus on how the past is played out in a wider social, political, and cultural context.

“The Trial. Prague, 1952”. Open debate with Ruth Zylberman

On the occasion of Ruth Zylberman’s The Trial. Prague, 1952 documentary devoted to the Slanský trial premiere, at the French Institute in Prague, CEFRES proposes an open debate on history and memory, testimony and transmission, bringing together the film director, historians and sociologists Muriel Blaive, Kateřina Čapková and Françoise Mayer, and the public.

Where: CEFRES library
When : Friday, September 27, 2022, at 10:00 am
Language: English

The discussion will be driven by
Muriel Blaive, film’s historical advisor,
Kateřina Čapková, Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences and
Françoise Mayer, Paul Valéry University, Montpellier

Ruth Zylberman is a filmmaker and author.
Among her latest films:
– Le dernier été (France Télévisions, Zadig Productions, 2019, 60’)
– Les Enfants du 209 rue Saint-Maur, Paris Xe (2017, Arte-Zadig Productions, 110’)
– Maurice Nadeau, Le chemin de la vie (2011, Arte-Zadig Productions, 52’)
– Dissidents, les Artisans de la Liberté (2009, Arte-Zadig Productions, 100’)

She is also the author of La direction de l’Absent, (Christian Bourgois, 2015) and the narrative 209 rue Saint-Maur, Paris Xe, Autobiography d’un immeuble (Le Seuil/Arte Editions, 2020).

The Matrix of Photomechanical Reproductions of Art

The Matrix of Photomechanical Reproductions of Art. Research Project Presentation

CEFRES Seminar #1

Fedora Parkmann (post-doctoral researcher, CEFRES)
Hana Buddeus (Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Sciences)

Location: CEFRES Library and online
Dates: Friday 23 September 2022, 16:30–18:30
Language: English
Contact: cefres[@]cefres.cz

Abstract

Funded by the Czech Academy of Sciences, the project The Matrix of Photomechanical Reproductions: Histories of Remote Access to Art examines the rise and spread of photo-reproductions in Czech, French, German and Russian art journals from 1900 to 1950. Combining digital humanities with archival research, the goal is to expand our historical knowledge, from local to transnational, and from empirical to big data, thereby opening new insights into the use of remote access to art in the digital age. This talk will retrace the different steps that led from conceiving the project to submitting a proposal and discuss the methodology and aims of the project.

See the complete program of CEFRES Seminar 2022–2033 here.

Image : Advertisement for the journal Hollar, published in Umění, n°9-10, 1936.