A 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.
A lecture by Daniel Johnson in partnership with FSV UK (IMS, IPS, IKSŽ) and CEFRES.
Daniel Johnson is a British historian and conservative journalist, co-founder in 2008 and editor of an influential cultural and political monthly Standpoint.
Where: Conference room, Narodni 18 (7th floor), Prague 1
Language: English
More information on the website of Standpoint.
A session led by Lara Bonneau
It is possible to conceive transdisciplinarity as sharing of objects or methods by several disciplines. Besides objects and methods, it can also be – and this might be its first form – the sharing of a common lexicon. The tendency of certain human sciences – philosophy in particular – to use concepts elaborated by other disciplines in other contexts was sharply criticized by Alan Sokal in 1994, in what remains known as the Sokal Affair. The physicist tried to discredit the way certain philosophers were using concepts that belonged to the natural sciences, showing their ignorance about the real meaning of these concepts in their original field and thereby reducing their work to vain language games. Indeed, the use of analogy and metaphor in the human sciences can be put into question. During this session, I will try to show that, if it is not without danger, the use of analogy and metaphor is inherent to the scientific activity, which can moreover be both legitimate and fruitful. I will start with a concrete example: the way the art historian Aby Warburg uses analogy and metaphors from the natural sciences. I will then rely on a more reflexive text about the legitimacy of this method entitled Théorie de l’acte analogique in Simondon’s L’individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d’information.
Readings:
- Gilbert Simondon. L’individu et sa genèse physico-biologique. Paris: PUF, 1964, pp. 264-268.
- Alan Sokal. ‘A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies.’ Lingua Franca May/June 1996, available at: http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9605/sokal.html
- Aby Warburg. Miroirs de faille, A Rome avec Giordano Bruno et Edouard Manet. Paris: Presses du réel/L’écarquillé, 2011, pp. 62, 64.
Where: FF UK, nám. Jana Palacha 2, room 201
Organizers: FF UK & CEFRES
Investigating legendary figures who became famous for their tribulations with the devil, these two lectures aim at reflecting upon the part played by alterity in the construction of the subject. They present an opposition between one who endeavors to tear the soul from Satan’s grip, and one who enjoys playing with one’s demon in the hope of knowing fear. Notwithstanding a few escapes in post-medieval rewritings, the various cultural heritages which such legends carry shall be reappraised so to explore the evolution of the beliefs to which they pertain: from a terroristic devil to a powerless demon.
Robert the Devil or Turning Down Diabolical Heredity
After a brief account on the historical, mythical and literary influences at the background of this 13th century narrative, the presentation will focus on the access conditions to sainthood through this story of a child born from the devil. Special emphasis will be devoted to its intertextual traces with other contemporary narratives of conversion.
Richard the Fearless or Playing with the Devil
Persecuted by a demon that drags him in its nightlife adventures, this 15th century hero and the alleged son of Robert the Devil’s main feature is a boldness akin to indifference to the metaphysical stakes of his supernatural encounter. What is the meaning of such fearlessness at the end of the Middle Ages as shown by the literary parody as well as by the moral exemplum?
A former fellow of École normale supérieure (Paris), Pr. Élisabeth Gaucher-Rémond teached French medieval language and literature at the Nantes University. After completing her PhD on knightly biographies from the 13th to the 15th century (Champion, 1994), she kept on exploring the interferences between reality and imagination in historical-legendary narratives (Robert le Diable, Richard sans Peur) and the representation of the individual (within the interdisciplinary research program MEDIEVARS). She’s currently writing an essai on Autobiographical Forms in Medieval Literature and a new edition of Richard sans Peur.
Latest Publications
- La Biographie chevaleresque. Typologie d’un genre (XIIIe-XVe s.), Paris, Champion, 1994 (Nouvelle Bibliothèque du Moyen Âge, 29).
- Robert le Diable. Histoire d’une légende, Paris, Champion, 2003 (Essais sur le Moyen Âge, 29).
- Robert le Diable, édition bilingue. Publication, traduction, présentation et notes, Paris, Champion, 2006 (Champion Classiques / Moyen Âge, 17).
- Richard sans Peur, duc de Normandie : entre histoire et légende. Actes du colloque organisé au Havre par Laurence Mathey-Maille et Élisabeth Gaucher-Rémond, 29-30 March 2012. Annales de Normandie, no. 1, Jan.-Jun. 2014.
- « Saint Julien l’Hospitalier et Robert le Diable », Hagiographie, Imaginaire, Littérature(Mélanges offerts à Jean-Pierre Perrot), Université de Savoie, coll. « Écriture et représentation », n°28, 2015, p.127-143.
- « Tentation de la chair, séduction de l’esprit : Richard sans Peur et le modèle érémitique », Chaire, chair et bonne Chère (Hommage à Paul Bretel), Perpignan, Presses Universitaires de Perpignan, 2014, pp. 21-34.
- « Robert le diable ou le ‘criminel repentant’ : la légende au miroir des récits de conversion », La légende de Robert le Diable du Moyen Âge au XXe siècle, L.Mathey-Maille and H. Legros (eds.), Orléans, Paradigme, 2010, pp. 27-41.
- « Les semblances du diable dans Richard sans Peur », Revue des langues romanes, CXIV, no. 2 (Le déguisement dans la littérature française du Moyen Âge, textes réunis par J. Dufournet et C.Lachet), 2010, pp. 391-413.
- « Les recettes du diable : le pouvoir et l’argent dans Richard sans Peur», Le prince, l’argent, les hommes au Moyen Âge (Mélanges offerts à Jean Kerhervé), Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2008, pp. 323-330.
- « Tentations et mariage sataniques dans Richard sans Peur : le détournement des modèles allégoriques et féeriques », Cahiers de Recherches Médiévales, no. 15 (La Tentation du parodique dans la littérature médiévale, études réunies par E. Gaucher), 2008, pp. 73-85.
A 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.
In the frame of IMS and CEFRES’s common seminar “Between Areas and Disciplines”, Mátyás Erdélyi (CEU, Budapest & CEFRES) will present a chapter of his PhD work on The Making of a Productivist Middle Class in the Habsburg Monarchy. His presentation will be discussed by CNRS researcher Wolf Feuerhahn, co-director of the Alexandre Koyré Center and chief-editor of the Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines.
Where: CEFRES library, Na Florenci 3.
Language: English.
A 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.