Discover this powerful novel about the fate of the inhabitants of a Parisian house in the 1940s.
When: May 17, 2025, 4 PM
Where: Milan Kunderas’ Hall, Výstaviště Praha Holešovice, Křižíkovy pavilony
Join us at the Book World Prague 2025 for a discussion with writer and director Ruth Zylberman, who will be talking about her novel 209 rue Saint-Maur, Paris Xe: Autobiographie d’un immeuble (Points, 2021), of which the Czech translation was published by Editions Maraton in 2024. Ruth Zylberman’s narrative brings to life the stories of those who disappeared and those who survived, children and adults, collaborators and resistance fighters, young girls in love and women with sulphurous reputations, people of different nationalities whose destinies were brought together by the same Parisian address. The discussion will be followed by a book signing.
Ruth Zylberman, a French director and writer, has made several documentaries and published her first novel, La Direction de l’absent, in 2015. Her work reflects a deep interest in the history of Central Europe: her documentary Dissidents, les artisans de la liberté (2009) is devoted to Václav Havel, among others, while Le Procès – Prague 1952 (2021) traces the fate of three convicts: Rudolf Slánský, Artur London and Rudolf Margolius. In 2018, she directed the documentary Les Enfants du 209 rue Saint-Maur, Paris Xe, which served as the basis for her novel published in 2020. Both the film and the book have been enthusiastically received by audiences and specialists alike.
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 →
Seventh 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 April 25, 2025, from 10 am
Language: French
Speaker: Silvestr TRNOVEC (Institute of Oriental Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences)
Discussant: Jakub ŠTOFÁNIK (Masaryk Institute and Archives, Czech Academy of Sciences)
Abstract Continue reading (Czecho)slovak History and French Colonial Space in Africa →
A European Middle Ages. Circulation of Objects, Practices, and Techniques between Central and Western Europe (1000–1600)
Fourth PhD Students Workshop organized within the cooperation agreement signed by EHESS, CEFRES, Charles University and the Czech Academy of Sciences.
Date: April 24, 2025
Location: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1 (and online, to get the link, register at the address cefres@cefres.cz)
Language of the workshop: English
Convenors:
- Lise Saussus, Center of historical research, UMR 8558, School of Higher Studies in Social Sciences
- Jakub Sawicki, Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
- Tomasz Cymbalak, National Heritage Institute, Prague
- Nicolas Thomas, National Institute of Preventive Archeological Research, Laboratory of Western Medieval Studies, Paris
8th 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, April 15, 2025 at 4:30 pm
Language: English
Jan MUSIL (Faculty of Arts, Charles University / associated at CEFRES)
Chair: Hélène Martinelli (CEFRES / École Normale Supérieure de Lyon)
Text to be read: Gorer, Geoffrey. “The Pornography of Death.” Encounter., vol. 5, no. 4, 1955.
Abstract:
With the christian idea of afterlife gradually fading away, 20th century rediscovered death as a real possibility and ultimate termination of individual life, only to make it into an insufferable, abjected topic and a taboo that is, as Geoffrey Gorer provocatively suggests in 1955, only accessible to the Western culture in hypertrophied genres of literature and film that he calls collectively the pornography of death. Continue reading Thanatographies. Staging Grief and Literary Afterlife →
