Visual Representations, Memorials and Commemorations of WWII

Launch of the TANDEM incubator program CNRS-Slovak Academy of Sciences

Where: French Institute in Slovakia, Bratislava
When: June 26th, 4–6 pm

PROGRAM

4 pm – Opening Keynote

 Jacques JOUSLIN DE NORAY, First Counselor of the French Embassy in Slovakia
Pavol ŠAJGALÍK, President of the Slovak Academy of Sciences
William BERTHOMIÈRE, Deputy Scientific Director Europe and International, CNRS SHS

 4:20 pm – Signature of the convention for Tandem CNRS-Charles University 2024–2029 program

For MEAE: Mr. Pascal Le DEUNFF, Ambassador of France to Slovakia or his representative
For the Slovak Academy of Sciences: Mr. Pavol ŠAJGALÍK, President
For CNRS: Mme Isabelle LONGIN, Regiona Delegate Paris-Normandie, represented by Mr William BERTHOMIÈRE

 4:30 pm – Presentation of the first selected project by Tandem CNRS-Charles University program

« VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS, MEMORIALS AND COMMEMORATIONS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN CENTRAL EUROPE »

Laureates of the first Tandem CNRS-Slovak Academy of Science program, Petra HUDEK et Thomas CHOPARD will present their project which focus on historical narratives, memorials and commemorations in Slovakia, Czechia and Poland. Their research aims to analyze evolutions and re-elaboration of museums and monuments since the fall of communist regime until nowadays, to different scales : from great national museums from the Second World War to the local emblematic museums, and also museums dealing with the Shoah memory. The project aims to take into account the specific context of Central and Eastern Europe, and to analyze the impact of the war in Ukraine on the development of national movements in museums, monuments and during commemorations. Starting in 2024 and covering the intense phase of 2025 commemorations, this project will analyze visual static elements in exhibitions, catalogs and public history discourses, as well as more dynamic elements connected to the memorial schedule.

Petra HUDEK  is a historian at the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Department of Contemporary History. In 2022-2023, she carried out her research project “Iconoclasm in the Czechoslovak public space after 1989. The heritage of socialism in historical perspective” as a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. She is currently preparing a monograph on Soviet war memorials in the Czechoslovak public space after 1989. Her research focuses on the politics of memory, museums, and the processes of museification of public space, as well as the instrumentalization of history.

Thomas CHOPARD is a historian and assistant professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, at the Centre of Historical Research (EHESS/CRH). His research focuses on the history of anti-Jewish persecution and Jewish migration in Central and Eastern Europe. His early work focused on the pogroms and anti-Jewish violence in Ukraine during the revolutionary period, before contributing to the ERC project Lubartworld retracing the trajectories of the Jews of the Polish town of Lubartów. His current research is at the intersection of the study of forced displacement suffered by Jews during the Second World War and the history of Stalinist repression.

5:30 pm – Questions from the public                                                           

6 pm – Toast to friendship

CEFRES Review of books – June 2023

The next edition of CEFRES Review of Books will take place on Friday, June 21st, at 3:00 pm at CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1

This informal meeting gathers CEFRES team, the library readers, and professionals from libraries and publishing. The aim of our Review of Books is to make better known the publishing landscape in humanities and social sciences. Each book is presented in French and in no more than 10 minutes, so to stress its originality and stakes.

So far, the following presentations are announced:

  • Luz Ascarate : Imaginer selon Paul Ricoeur. La phénoménologie à la rencontre de l’ontologie sociale (Paris : Hermann, 2022) by Petr Horák
  • Lise Foisneau : Kumpania. Vivre et résister en pays gadjo (Marseille : Wildproject, 2023) by Yasar Abu Ghosh
  • Baptiste Morizot : L’inexploré (Marseilles : Wildproject, 2023) by Hana Fořtová
  • Hyacinthe Ravet : Musiciennes. Enquête sur les femmes et la musique (Paris : Autrement, 2011) by Louisa Martin-Chevalier
  • Christelle Taraud (dir.) : Feminicides. Une histoire mondiale (Paris : La Découverte, 2022) by Hélène Martinelli

Central-European Masculinities

Central-European Masculinities in a Comparative Perspective: International Symposium

International symposium organized by CEFRES in the frame of the Central European Masculinities research project, with the support of the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research (MESR, PARCECO Program), in collaboration with the University of Silesia in Katowice, the Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences (ÚČL AVČR) & the Department of Czech and Comparative Literature, Charles University (ÚČLK FF UK).

Location: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1
Date: June 19 20th, 2024
Languages: English, French
Organizers: Wojciech Śmieja (IL WNH UŚ), Mateusz Chmurski (CEFRES/Sorbonne), Iwona Kurz (IKP WP UW), Richard Müller (ÚČL AV ČR), Josef Šebek (ÚČLK FF UK), Ivana Taranenková (ÚSL SAV).

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87287534658?pwd=76IKqZc2qhThHlfLedvvxFbpNbe1iM.1 

Meeting ID: 872 8753 4658
Passcode: 451680

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Civil Union, Equal Marriage

Civil union, equal marriage: what prospects for Europe?

On the occasion of the International Pride Month and as part of the Queer 24 cycle, the French Institute in Prague, the Goethe-Institut and CEFRES invite you to the roundtable “Civil union, equal marriage: what prospects for Europe?”

Date: Monday June 17, 2024 at 5 p.m
Location
: Institut Français de Prague, Štěpánská 35,
Languages: In English, translated in Czech

Abstract

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Cartography and art history in dialogue

Cartography and art history in dialogue. Reflections on the functions of maps in Warburgian iconology

Seventh session of the 2023-2024 CEFRES Francophone Interdisciplinary Seminar The map and the border
In 2023, we would like to start by beginning by questionning the very act of bordering and representing (a territory, a period, a trajectory), in short, thanks to the interdisciplinarity of our respective disciplines, to question the map and the border.

Location: CEFRES Library, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1
Dates: Friday, June 14th, 10 – 11.30 am
Language: French

Speaker : Lara BONNEAU, Institute of Philosophy of Czech Academy of Sciences (FLÚ – AV ČR), associate researcher at CEFRES
Discussant : Danièle COHN, Université Paris 1

Has the tendency towards ornamentation in the graphic gesture been an obstacle to the scientific development of cartography? In other words, has cartography had to liberate itself from the artistic dimension, which is too imbued with a sensitive end emotional life, to become a planimetric abstraction? These were central questions for the German art historian Aby Warburg, who saw the cartographic gesture as one of the ways of distancing oneself psychologically from the senses. By giving contours to what is presented as moving, changing, even chaotic in perceptual experience, by assigning it a place within an order (kosmos), and by presenting it in space rather than in time, mapping has a psychological function: it gives the subject points which help him to anchor himself and distance himself from reality. Nevertheless, as the demon-populated astrological natal charts demonstrate, cartography cannot totally abolish the dimensions of fear and desire of our relationship with the world and the universe. Maps have a sensitive “cosmetic” dimension, which is perhaps not directly opposed to the ambition to bring cosmic order. In order to study how these demons moved historically, providing lasting fertile ground for the iconographic tradition as much as for scientific attempts to conquer the space of thought, Aby Warburg was led to draw… maps. Maps of the migratory routes of motifs and styles, of the “formules of pathos” from Athens to Babylon, from Babylon to Southern and the Northern Europe. Drawing in particular on the recent work od Phillipe Despoix (2023), we shall try to present the function of cartography in Warburgian iconology.

“Grand Entretien” with Boris Cyrulnik

“Grand entretien” with Boris Cyrulnik

This “grand entretien” is organized in partnership with the French Institute in Prague and the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

Date: Wednesday, June 12, 2024, at 6:00 PM
Location: French Institute in Prague, Štěpánská 35, Prague 1
Langue: French with simultaneous translation into Czech
Moderator: Alice KOUBOVÁ (Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences)

Abstract

Since the advent of neuroimaging, it has become evident that environmental deficiencies lead to brain dysfunction. When the environment is impoverished, the corresponding brain areas atrophy, causing individuals to perceive the world differently, often as hostile. All mammals can suffer from such disrupted development.

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