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(In)Capacity, Health, Disability and Handicap in Humanities and Social Sciences

Interdisciplinary Workshop

Organizers: Kateřina Kolářová (Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague – FHS UK), Martina Winkler (Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel), Filip Herza (FHS UK), Kamila Šimandlová (FHS UK)
When: 17. 2. 2018
Where: Akademické Centrum, Husova 4a, Prague 1
Language: Czech/English

Workshop is organized within the project “(Post)Socialist Modernity and social and cultural politics of disability” jointly funded by the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR) and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), held by the Faculty of Humanities Charles University. The event is co-hosted by CEFRES and the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

Programme

9–9:30 am Welcome

9:30–10 am : Opening of the symposium, Kateřina Kolářová.

10–11:45 am Panel I

  • Martina Winkler: Disability and Childhood in Czechoslovak Media, 1960s-1989 (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel) (in English)
  • Marek Fapšo, Jan Randák: To What Extent Was the So-Called  “Special” Socialist Teaching Really Socialist? (Institute of Czech History, Faculty of Literature UK)
  • Šimon Charvát: “Mental Disability Is a Time Bomb.” The Discursive Approach to “Mental Disability” in the Czech Lands During the Second Half of the XIXth Century (Chair of General Anthropology, FHS UK)
  • Maria-Lena Fassig: First Thoughts on Definition of Disability in the Historical Context of Socialist Czechoslovakia (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel) (in English)

11:45 – 12:45 Lunch

12:45 – 2:30 pm Panel II

  • Radek Carboch, Dana Hradcová, Dita Jahodová, Michal Synek: Between Silence and Translation. Ethnography of Cognitive Disability (Research center for longevity and long-terme care, FHS UK; Chair of Sociology, FSV MUNI Brno).
  • Daniela Komanická: Reconceptualizing Labor and Care Through the Active Participation of the User of Self-Determined Personal Assistance in the Service (Chair of Anthropology, FHS UK).
  • Ľubica Kobová: Vulnerability as an Ontological Condition and its Critical Reception (Chair of Gender Studies, FHS UK).
  • Hana Porkertová: Disability as an Amalgam at the Crossroads Between Rhetorics and Materiality (Chair of Sociology, FSS MU).

2: 30 – 3:00 pm Coffee break

3:00 – 4:30 pm Panel III

  • Petra Honová, Lucie Kondrátová, Dino Numerato: The Experience of the Patients and their Family Scrutinised by the Expertise of a Knowledge Society. The Case of the Psychiatric Care Reform (Chair of sociology, FSV UK; National Institute of Mental Health).
  • Martin Fafejta: The Czech Community on Pedophilia (ČEPEK) and its Emancipatory Rhetorics (Chair of Sociology, Anthropology and Adult Learning, FF UP).
  •  Jiří Mertl: “I Never Tried That Before” … Psychological Assistance, Individual Responsibility and People Dismissed from Work (Research center for New Technologies, ZČU).

4:30 – 5 pm Conclusion of the symposium by Filip Herza

You can download the program of the conference  here
and the abstracts of each contribution  here.

See th argument of the conference.

For any question, please contact Kamila Šimandlová, simandlova[at]outlook.com

Consequences of Ethnography: Knowing Violence via the Self and Its Aftermath

Organizers: Michal Šípoš and Luděk Brož (Institute of Ethnology, The Czech Academy of Sciences)
with the support of  Strategy AV21, programme: Global Con icts and Local Interactions: Cultural and Social Challenges
Venue: Villa Lana, Prague
Click here to register to the workshop!
See the pdf of the event Consequences of Ethnography_colloquium.

Outline

As Sherry Ortner famously argued, ethnography in its minimal de nition is “the attempt to understand another life world using the self—as much of it as possible—as the instrument of knowing.” It is hardly surprising that conducting ethnographic research among/with survivors of violence—be it military, community, domestic, sexual, self-in icted or another form of violence— has a strong impact on the researcher. That impact, given the nature of ethnography, then directly translates into issues that are simultaneously personal and epistemological. Implications for the ethnographically knowing subject stretch well beyond feelings of empathy with research participants, as well as beyond the space-time of the eldwork. In this colloquium, we want to address methodological questions connected to knowing violence ethnographically, such as—but not limited to—the following:

  • When conducting ethnographic eldwork, researchers are often confronted with survivors’ silence or with an urgent need to tell what survivors witnessed and endured. Does that translate into an equally polarised reaction on the side of the researcher?
    In other words, can we see increased academic productivity in some cases among ethnographers, but inhibition of speaking-writing in other cases?
  • How can we speak of trauma of research without inappropriately shifting attention from research subjects to the researcher him- or herself?
  • The needs of research subjects may significantly shape a researcher’s own trajectory in the eld. Should the researcher let research subjects take control over the project?
  • Some ethnographers who publicly voice their research agendas are targeted by various actors, including authorities, hate groups or even the perpetrators behind the violence sufered by their research subjects. How can we methodologically conceptualise such encounters as part of ethnographic endeavour? What is the epistemic role of fear in such cases?

Program

9:20 Registration

9:50 Welcome address

10:00-11:00—Keynote speech no. 1
Veena Das (Johns Hopkins University): The Character of the Possible: Modality and Mood in the Genre of Ethnography

11:00-12:00—Keynote speech no. 2
David Mosse (SOAS, University of London): Trauma and Ethical Self-Making after Suicide: The Existential Imperative to Respond

12:00-13:00 Lunch break

13:00-14:00—Keynote speech no. 3
Jonathan Stillo (Wayne State University): “No One Leaves This Place Except the Dead”: Tuberculosis as a Socially Incurable Disease

14:00-14:15 Coffee break

14:15-16:15—Roundtable discussion
with: Petra Ezzeddine (Charles University), Jaroslav Klepal, Michal Šípoš and Václav Walach (The Czech Academy of Sciences)

Fake News: Human and Social Sciences in the Post-Fact Era

A session of the École normale supérieure European seminar Critical News (see below), in partnership with CEFRES and Charles University, with the support of Paris French Institute.

Venue: French Institute of Prague, 5th floor
Time: 5:30-7:30 PM
Organizers: Clara Royer, Ondřej Švec (FF UK) and Frédéric Worms (ENS Ulm)
Language: English
Open to public—in duplex with ENS Ulm

A debate on humanities in the post-fact era

In duplex with the ENS seminar: the presentations will be followed by debates between Paris and Prague 

Speakers
  • Jakub Jirsa, current director of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies of FF UK, and a specialist in political philosophy, the editor of the collective volume Idea university (Prague, 2015). See the thesis of his contribution.
  • Václav Štětka, sociologist from FSV UK and Loughborough University, director of the research group on political communication (PolCoRe), and the author of “The Rise of Oligarchs as Media Owners”, in Media and Politics in New Democracies. Europe in a Comparative Perspective (Oxford 2015); “The Powers That Tweet: Social Media as News Sources in the Czech Republic” (with R. Hladík, Journalism Studies, 2015). See the thesis of his contribution.
  • Ondřej Švec, philosopher from FF UK, author of the research project on Rationality and Argumentation Practices in Public Space and the editor, with J. Čapek, of the monography Pragmatic Perspectives in Phenomenology (Routledge, 2017). See the thesis of his contribution.
  • Frédéric Worms, philosopher from École Normale Supérieure (Paris) where he acts as vice-director, the current director of the International Study Center of Contemporary Philosophy, is among many other books the author of 100 mots de la République (“The Republic in 100 Words”, PUF, 2017) See here the thesis of his contribution.
Argument

At a time when a large part of the population has replaced traditional media such as TV, radio and newspapers with internet forums and social networks as their first channel of information, public debates are increasingly plagued with conflicting exchanges, all the more as many political representatives now use immoderate and “excluding” speeches which do not aim at consensus but at humiliating so-called adversaries or foes. Increasing verbal and physical violences, abstention and citizens’ widespread suspicion toward political representation bear witness to the subsequent deterioration of public debates.

Such trend poses a significant challenge to the academic world as it reflects upon both new discursive analytical tools and new forms of intervention within the public space to tackle information falsehoods. The debate will focus as much on the available means to better scrutinize and understand the specific dangers of the so-called alternative truth and of simplistic arguments as on the responsibility weighing on researchers in social and human sciences as they are confronted to the dissemination of such nexus of fake news. What is the part sociologists, political scientists, historians and philosophers should play in the so-called post-fact era?

To launch the discussion, see on this topic:

What’s the Critical News Seminar?

Who can deny that news have become critical and should be criticized? However, critical news  raise dangerous, if not lethal issues: crisis manipulation, perverted criticism, permanent state of emergency, constant suspicion, concurrent enforcement of “breaking news” and “fake news”. This is why we need to defend a new Critique and adress the fact of critical news today:

  • A critique that distinguishes what is critical, and what is not;
  • A critique that articulates facts to their interpretation by appealing to historical, interdisciplinary and/or transnational points of view.

Critique can suffer from a national bias, but no issue can ever be analyzed as an universal, abstract situation. This is why it is not only possible, but necessary to promote an European and interdisciplinary approach to critical news.
The European Critical News Project (Actualité critique européenne) originates from the seminar “Actualité critique” seminar of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris: it gathers students and researchers and focuses on various critical topics, from politics to science to economy, society and art. The European project aims this seminar to an European level, with a special emphasis on European issues.

The European Critical News Project is supported by the Institut Francais network. It will be launched in 2018 and will be hosted in Prague, Warsaw and Rome successively, in duplex with the ENS seminar in Paris. During this first semester the “University” will not only provide a critical frame, but also act as a critical question, in more than one way: academic freedom, academic fees, student status in Europe, European university…

The Ecole normale supérieure and the Institut Francais welcome European Universities to join this network and address together, and today, the vital challenge of critical news.

Illustration:

“I’m sorry, Jeannie, your answer was correct, but Kevin shouted his incorrect answer over yours, so he gets the points.”

New Yorker, November 22, 2016
Source: https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a20602 

Introduction to CEFRES research projects

An intern seminar of CEFRES as the center welcomes its new members, post-doctoral researchers Aníbal Arregui, Thomas Mercier (CEFRES & Charles University) and Marianna Szczygielska (Czech Academy of Sciences)
Venue: conference room, Na Florenci, building A, 3rd floor
Language: English

2:15-3:30 Archives and Interculturality
  • Benedetta Zaccarello (CEFRES/CNRS), PI: an introduction of the research project and a footnote on a mission in an Indian philosopher’s archives
  • Thomas Mercier (CEFRES-UK): Studying the philosophical text from the standpoint of its archive: Derrida’s readings of Marxist texts in unpublished materials
  • Discussion
3:45-5:15 Bewildering Boar Project
  • Ludĕk Brož (Institute of Ethnology AV ČR & CEFRES) and Virginie Vaté (CNRS), PIs: an introduction of the TANDEM research project
  • Aníbal Arregui: Animating the Wild Pig: Bows and Arrows in European Ecopolitics
  • Marianna Szczygielska: Wild Pigs and Proud Elephants: Engendering Wildlife in Central Eastern Europe
  • Discussion

CEFRES Review of Books – December 2017

The new edition of CEFRES Review of Books will take place on Thursday 14 December at 5 pm at CEFRES library.
Join us for a discussion around the latest publications in humanities and social sciences from France.

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 no more than 10 minutes, so to stress its originality and stakes.

So far, the following presentations are announced:

– Luc BOLTANSKI, Arnaud ESQUERRE : Enrichissement. une critique de la marchandise (Gallimard), by Mihai-Dan Cîrjan
– Christophe CHARLE, Laurent JEANPIERRE : La vie intellectuelle en France (Seuil), by Tomáš Nakladal
– Christian INGRAO : La promesse de l’Est (Seuil), by David Emler
– Sarah MAZOUZ : La république et ses autres (ENS Editions), by Florence Vychytil-Baudoux
– Michel OFFERLÉ : La profession politique (Belin), by Michel Perottino
– Jean-Claude SCHMITT : Les rythmes au Moyen Age, by Paul-Antoine Méteier
– Catherine SERVANT (dir.) : Les héritages culturels du XIXe siècle sous les régimes communistes. (Publications des Langues O éd.), by Petr Kyloušek

You can peruse and download the list of the library’s latest acquisitions and book a book at the following address: claire@cefres.cz.

Where: CEFRES Library, Na Florenci 3
Language: French

On the Use and Abuse of the concept of World Literature

Fifth session of the common epistemological seminar of CEFRES and IMS FSV UK led by

Chiara Mengozzi (CEFRES – FF UK)
On the Use and Abuse of the concept of World Literature

Where: CEFRES library – Na Florenci 3, 110 00 Prague 1
When: Thursday 14.12.2017 from 3:30 pm to 5 pm
Language: English
Text :

  • Franco Moretti: “Conjecture on World Literature”, New Left Review, Jan. 2000, p. 54-68.

Read more about the seminar!