The expert seminar is organized by the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Prague, the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Prague, and the French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences (CEFRES), in cooperation with the Embassy of the French Republic in Prague.
Date: June 10, 2025
Location: Embassy of the Republic of Poland, Valdštejnská 8, Prague 1
Language : English
PROGRAM
Continue reading Europe at the Crossroads: Energy Security Challenges
Date: June 6, 2025
Location: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1
Speaker: Alexandre Gefen (CNRS SHS / UMR Thalim)
Chair: Chiara Mengozzi (CEFRES / Faculty of Arts, Charles University) Continue reading Conference | Thinking About Art in the Age of AI with Alexandre Gefen
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: Françoise MAYER
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 | CANCELLED
When: 21–23 May 2025
Where: Vila Lanna, Institute of Czech Literature, CEFRES
CEFRES is hosting the closing round table on the 23rd of June at 5 PM.
Convenors: Tina MAGAZZINI and Martin FOTTA (Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences)
The conference is open to the public, but registration is required due to limited capacity.
📝 Register here: https://forms.office.com/e/HGQ7SNK2Rq
📄 The full programme is available for download as a PDF here. Continue reading Conference | Transnationalism, Activism and Solidarity
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: Barbora Kvasničková (Research fellow at AMO – Association for International Affairs)
Abstract Continue reading Energy and its Renewed Cartography
To mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, the Centre universitaire francophone of the University of Szeged, in partnership with the Regional Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Department of Modern History and Mediterranean Studies of the University of Szeged, is organising a conference entitled ‘Central Europe and Francophone Africa in the aftermath of the Second World War: crossroads’.
This event has been created in partnership with the French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences – Prague (CEFRES) and the French Institute in Hungary.
When: May 19 and 20, 2025
Where: Regional Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szeged
Argumentary
This conference aims to interrogate post-history in two distinct regions that, at first glance, appear to share little in common, maintaining only distant relationships. However, when the fighting ended, both regions—considered peripherical—and their respective nations and populations experienced, simultaneously, an ambiguous and debatable liberation. With this paradox in mind, the conference seeks to highlight the inherent issues present in both regions within the broader perspective of the post–World War recomposition of the world, from which neither the European nor the African continent was exempt. The year 1945 marked the end of the dominance of traditional European powers and laid the foundations of the bipolar world order. These transformations had numerous repercussions for these regions, situated at the center of the superpowers’ geopolitical chessboard.
Taking a comparative approach, this conference positions itself as an open window into exploring the inherent or shared dynamics between Central Europe and Francophone Africa from the very end of hostilities onward. It also aims to describe the profound transformations, without losing sight of the fact that, although the year 1946 marked a rupture and a new beginning, it also belonged to the continuity of the old world.
Hence, the conference seeks to offer a space for reflection and dialogue between specialists of both regions—PhD students, early-career researchers, lecturers, and established scholars alike—to better understand the impact of the end of the Second World War on the contemporary history of Francophone Africa and Central Europe. The key perspectives proposed for discussion include:
