Session led by Mátyás Erdélyi.
The present seminar session investigates how social statistics were created, comprehended, and used for commercial and public purposes in Dualist Hungary. It explores different modes of quantification, the inter- or pre-disciplinary sights of scientific production, and power relations between competing expert and nascent professions. Central to this line of inquiry is the investigation of relations between statisticians and other notables (i.e. every person worth of attention and involved in the debate, be it a politician, businessman, any type of scholar) inclined to claim authority over the creation and political/economic use of social statistics. This session contributes to the overall discussions on the nature of interdisciplinarity by describing primeval workshops on interdisciplinarity and by showing how the search for timeless truths and objectivity can be deviated by political and economic interests amidst disciplinary competition.
Readings:
- Theodore M. Porter. ‘Life Insurance, Medical Testing, and the Management of Mortality.’ In Lorraine Daston (ed). Biographies of Scientific Objects. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, pp. 226-246.
- Alain Desrosières. La Politique des Grands Nombres: Histoire de la Raison Statistique. Paris: La Découverte, 1993.
A session led by Mátyás Erdélyi
The present seminar session investigates how social statistics were created, comprehended, and used for commercial and public purposes in Dualist Hungary. It explores different modes of quantification, the inter- or pre-disciplinary sights of scientific production, and power relations between competing expert and nascent professions. Central to this line of inquiry is the investigation of relations between statisticians and other notables (i.e. every person worth of attention and involved in the debate, be it a politician, businessman, any type of scholar) inclined to claim authority over the creation and political/economic use of social statistics. This session contributes to the overall discussions on the nature of interdisciplinarity by describing primeval workshops on interdisciplinarity and by showing how the search for timeless truths and objectivity can be deviated by political and economic interests amidst disciplinary competition.
Readings:
- Theodore M. Porter. ‘Life Insurance, Medical Testing, and the Management of Mortality.’ In Lorraine Daston (ed). Biographies of Scientific Objects. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, pp. 226-246.
- Alain Desrosières. La Politique des Grands Nombres: Histoire de la Raison Statistique. Paris: La Découverte, 1993.
In the frame of IMS and CEFRES’s common seminar “Between Disciplines and Areas”, Barbora Mencová (FSV UK) will present her work on Czechoslovak-Portuguese relations in 1960-1980.
Where: CEFRES library, Na Florenci 3.
Language: English.
Edita Wolf (FF UK – CEFRES) will give a lecture in the frame of the colloquium series on Antic Philosophy of the Department for the Study of Ancient and Medieval Thought of the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
Where: Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Jilská 1, Prague 1, conference room.
Language: Czech.
Where: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3.
Organizers: FF UK and CEFRES.
Theatre and Political Communication in the Middle Ages
Focusing on theatre in French, this paper investigates the turn of 15th and 16th century, when theater and print developed hand in hand. Is a “political theater” being then shaped? What circumstances, which authors and actors, play genres, and audiences could such a political communication involve, and with which efficiency?
The Author and its Signature in French, from Chrétien de Troyes to the Renaissance
Signature is considered today as a key-element of the “function author” as defined by Michel Foucault. The recurrent anonymity of Medieval literature led to believe in the lack of signature, and therefore of authors. Yes, from the 12th to the 16th centuries, French-writing authors reflected on signature, on its forms and functions. Signature revealed the status of the author—whether gentle or intellectual, whether man or woman. It defined the genres in which it came up, such as the novel, poetry and autobiography. It shaped the relationship between the writer and the reader.
A former fellow of Ecole normale supérieure, Pr. Estelle Doudet teaches medieval language and literatyre at the University of Grenoble Alpes. She is a member of the Institut universitaire de France. Her works focus on the archeology of media and public communication in French, among which on eloquence and performing arts in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Within the research unit Litt&Arts, she is in charge of the research group on “comparative media studies” and heads the research area on Arts, Literatures, Languages, Human, Cognitive and Social Sciences of Grenoble University.
Among her publications:
- Recueil général de moralités d’expression française, vol. 1, E. Doudet (ed.), Paris, Garnier, 2012.
- Chrétien de Troyes, Paris, Tallandier, 2009.
- Un cristal mucié en un coffre. Poétique de George Chastelain, Paris, Champion, « Bibliothèque du XVe siècle », no. 67, 2005.
- Jean Molinet et son temps, E. Lecuppre-Desjardin, J. Devaux and E. Doudet (eds.), Turnhout, Brepols, 2013.
- 58 published articles publiés – check her profile on Academia.edu.
Program
Monday 14 March – Budapest
3-5 PM
Lecture within the frame of the French-Hungarian Workshop of the Faculty of Arts of Lorand Eötvös University.
Topic: Thinking Dwelling and Housing Beyond National Categories.
Wednesday 16 March – Prague
10 AM-4 PM
A young researcher workshop on “Neighbourhoods”, organized by the Institut of World History of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, program Erasmus+ TEMA – European Territories: Identity and Development; http://www.mastertema.eu.
Discussant: Lydia Coudroy de Lille.
Convener: Luďa Klusáková.
Language: English.
Where: at CEFRES, Na Florenci 3.
A complete program is available here.
Thursday 17 March – Prague
5:30-7 PM
Lecture by Lydia Coudroy de Lille – in the frame of the European Habitat United Nations regional conference (see the program here).
Topic: How do we call the urban change? The case of Central and Eastern Europe.
Discussant: Pr. Ludĕk Sykora.
Language: English.
Where: Prague Congress Center, room Club D. 5. Kvetna 65, 140 21 Prague 4.
Registration is compulsory on the conference’s website https://www.habitat3.org/prague. The entrance is free.
