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Visegrad Forum: Ioana Popa, between Prague and Bratislava

Program

POPA_ISPMonday 11 April – Prague

6-8 PM
Lecture and debate organized by CEFRES in partnership with the French Institute in Prague.
Topic: Cold War Translations: Actors and Practices of Book Circulations Beyond the Iron Curtain and their Reception in France.
Discussant : Jovanka Šotolová, Department of Translation of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, and a translator of French literature.
Language: French with Czech translation.
Where: Conference room of the French Institute, Štěpánská 35, 5th floor.

Tuesday 12 April – Bratislava

6-8 PM
Lecture co-organized by the Institute of World Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the French Institute in Bratislava.
Topic: Translating Under Duress. A Sociological Approach to the Transfers of Central European Literatures in France during the Cold War.
Language: French.
Where: French Institute in Bratislava.

Wednesday 13 April – Bratislava

10:30-12:30 AM
Monthly seminar of the Institute of World Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
Topic: The Institutionalization and International Construction of Area Studies in France during the Cold War. Insights from the Russian and Eastern European Program of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes 6th Section.
Language: English.
Where: Institute of World Literature.

Thursday 14 and Friday 15 April – Prague

10:00 AM
International conference on “Translation Between Languages, Cultures and History” organized by the Department of South Slavonic and Balkan Studies of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, the Institute of World Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the Romanian Cultural Institute in Prague.
Keynote speech: Translation Routes: a Sociology of Literary Transfers between East and West during the Cold War.
Organizers: Libuša Vajdová (ISL SAV) and Libuše Valentová (FF UK).
Where: Hybernská 3, Prague 1 (Faculty od Arts).
The full program will be online soon!

“The Spirit of the Laws”. Presentation of the Czech translation

Hana Fořtová presents her Czech translation of Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the laws at the CEFRES library, on the occasion of the publication of the last volume by Oikoymenh publisher.

The first scientific edition of this major text of the European thought gives way for the Czech audience to Montesquieu’s notes and to a contemporary critical commentary .

Montesquieu, O duchu zákonů II., Obrana Ducha zákonů ; přeložila a poznámkami opatřila Hana Fořtová, Praha, OIKOYMENH, 2015, 584 s. Continue reading “The Spirit of the Laws”. Presentation of the Czech translation →

Ritual Change in South Asia: Circulations, Transfers, Transgressions

Where: CEFRES, Národní 18, conference room, 7th floor.

Organizers: Cécile Guillaume-Pey (CEFRES & FMSH) and Martin Hříbek (FF UK).

Language: English

A workshop organized by CEFRES and the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, with the participation of researchers from the Heidelberg University (Germany), of University College Cork (Ireland), of Wageningen (Netherlands) and of Charles University.

Program

Panel 1 – Discussant: Barbora Spalová (Assistant Professor, Charles University, Prague)

9:45 AM – Max Stille (Ph.D. student, University of Heidelberg) : Bengali Islamic sermons between ritual and non-ritual frames of interpretation

10:20 AM – Alexis Avdeeff (Maître de Conférences, Université de Poitiers) : Chanting destiny: the commercialization of a traditional “divinatory art”

10:55 AM – Break

11:25 AM – Martin Hříbek (Assistant Professor, Charles University): Animating images of Durga: Art, ritual and technologies of enchantment on the streets of Calcutta

Break

Panel 2 – Discussant: Luděk Brož (Institute of Ethnology, The Czech Academy of Sciences)

2 PM – Lidia Guzy (Assistant Professor, University College Cork): From ritual music to stage, museums and politics. Ritual transfers in Western Odisha, India

2:35 PM – Rhadika Borde (Ph.D. Student, Wageningen University): Politicized rituals of worship: Activist involvement in the Dongaria Kondhs’ worship of the Niyamgiri Mountain in Odisha, India

3:10 PM – Break

3:30 PM – Soňa Bendíková (Assistant Professor, Charles University) : The Kota funeral: change of rituals in time

4:05 PM – Cécile Guillaume-Pey (Postdoctoral research fellow, IIAC, Paris): Drinking letters or talking with spirits? Ritual change in a Sora religious movement

Outline

Rituals are not atemporal, infallible devices that always “work” regardless of the performers’ motivations and social contexts in which they are embedded. Rituals are social and historical constructs sometimes considered to be unsatisfying or useless by the participants. They might even “fail” and are then recast, abandoned or replaced. Highlighting the flexibility and polysemy of rituals, recent studies have emphasized the relevance of a diachronic approach that considers the experience of the actors engaged in the performance, how they criticize and reinvent it, and the ways in which they appropriate alternative ritual models.

This workshop aims to investigate the processes of transformation, circulation and transfer of rituals in South Asia. Whether adjusting a “traditional” ritual form in a new social, political or religious context, or integrating new media – writing, audio or video – to diffuse a religious message, the papers will highlight the different ways in which actors reshape their ritual practices and invent new liturgical forms.

 

Historical Semantics in a Transnational and Transdisciplinary Perspective: the Case of ‘Milieu’

Wolf FeuerhahnA lecture by CNRS researcher Wolf Feuerhahn, co-director of the Alexandre Koyré Center and the editor-in-chief of Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines, in the frame of the CEFRES Platform Lectures.

Language: English.

Venue : CEFRES, Národní 18, Prague 1, conference room, 7th floor.

Transnational History is nowadays a flourishing field of research. In the last ten years, history of concepts has been impacted by this historiographical turn. It lays much more focus than before on problems of transnational and transcultural resemantization of concepts. The emergence and success of new expressions like « traveling concepts » (Mieke Bal), « nomadic concepts » (Olivier Christin) are a good indicator of this situation

In my presentation, I suggest to go a step further in this direction. My methodological proposition will be based on the transnational history of the term milieu. Traveling from France to Germany, from history of literature to biology and sociology, the word milieu came to be identified as a French theory. It was seen as an expression of determinism, of the connection between the rise of the natural sciences and the rise of socialism. The vast majority of German academics rejected it ; they coined the term Umwelt  in strict opposition to the French word. But Umwelt was precisely retranslated into French as « milieu », becoming the flag of an antideterminist and postmodern philosophy (Deleuze). Through this case study, I would like to promote what I would term “transnational historical semantics” as opposed to the Koselleckian history of concepts and its a priori distinctions between words and concepts, and to reflect on how words are semantically affected by their transnational and crossdisciplinary destiny.

 

 

 

Can Elites Be Delinquent?

LascoumesA lecture by French sociologist and CNRS professor Pierre Lascoumes, in the frame of the lectures of the CEFRES Platform.  His presentation will be discussed by Pavol Frič (ISS FSV UK), who dedicates part of his research to the analysis of corruption in the relationships between elites and public sphere in the Czech republic.

Language: in French, with simultaneous Czech translation.

Where: Národní 18, Prague 1, conference room, 7th floor.

Trained as a jurist and a sociologist, Pierre Lascoumes (CNRS and Centre d’Etudes européennes of Sciences-Po Paris) has led major works on the perceptions of corruption and economic and financial crimes. He’s also a lead in the field of the history and the implementation of environmental policies and risk management.

His latest work, cowritten with Prof. Carla Nagels, a specialist in criminology, deals with recent cases (such as Bettencourt, or HSBC), which despite their strong médiatisation, have benefited from a form of social acceptation in France (Sociologie des élites délinquantes: de la criminalité en col blanc à la corruption politique).  A man of theater, Pierre Lascoumes has also created a play in 2015 around a text written by Mazarin, which gave some insight on the Cahuzac case.

Violence and Democracy

Lecture by Michel Wieviorka within the frame of the cycle “Socio-Historical Confrontations” of the Department of Historical Sociology (Faculty of Humanities, Charles University).

Topic: Violence and Democracy.
Language: English.
Where: U Kříže 8, Praha 5 – Jinonice, auditorium 1034.

See the invitation in Czech.