Third International Workshop:
Central European Masculinities in a Comparative Perspective
The international conference is organized by the Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, within the framework of the Central European Masculinities research project.
Date: September 29 – October 1, 2025
Location: University Library of Bratislava, Lecture Hall, Ventúrska 11, Bratislava
Language: English
Download the program in PDF here.
Program
Continue reading ‘Central European Masculinities’ #3 →
To Live in a Library of Five Dimensions
As part of the ‘Grands entretiens’ series, this event is organised by CEFRES and its Platform partner, Charles University, in collaboration with the French Institute in Prague.
Date: June 11, 2025, 18 h
Location: French Institute in Prague, Štěpánská 35, Praha 1
Language: in French with simultaneous translation into Czech
Moderation: Záviš Šuman, Faculty of Arts, Charles University
Where does the hostility towards literature come from, and what are the roots of its growing devaluation? How can we enrich our readings by taking a decentralised look at the texts? To what extent can a perspective from afar shed new light on our understanding of the Greek tragedies? And with what far-reaching arguments has Pope Francis put an end to a long history of scathing indictments of literary texts?
Continue reading Grand Entretien with William Marx →
When: 27-29 March 2025
Where: ENS de Lyon, Site Descartes
Language: French, English
Organising Committee:
- Raphaëlle Brin (ENS de Lyon)
- Zoé Carle (Université Paris 8)
- Adrien Chassain (Université Paris 8)
- Sylvia Chassaing (Inalco)
- Hélène Martinelli (CEFRES, Prague)
- Giedrė Šabasevičiūtė (Académie tchèque des sciences, Prague)
Intellectuals and the Crisis of Politics in the Interwar Period and Beyond: A Transnational History
Balázs Trencsényi — Professor, Department of Historical Studies, CEU, Director of the CEU Institute for Advanced Studies Budapest
A debate organised on the occasion of the publication of Intellectuals and the Crisis of Politics in the Interwar Period and Beyond. A transnational history (Oxford University Press, 2025) by the ERC ‘Memory and Populism from Below’ (MEMPOP) #101076092 with the participation of CEFRES (MEAE / CNRS).
When: March 11, 2025 at 15:00
Where: CEFRES Library, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1 and online (to get the link, please mail us to cefres@cefres.cz)
Language: English
Intellectuals and the Crisis of Politics in the Interwar Period and Beyond maps the range of meanings the term ‘crisis’ has borne and the roles it has performed across disciplines and countries, de-centering the dominant narrative that takes Western European positions and developments as normative.
It especially focuses on the historical roots of two key contemporary contesters of liberal democracy: neoliberalism and populism and presents an innovative analysis of the roots of contemporary illiberalism in Europe. Bringing these ideas into the present day, Balázs Trencsényi offers ideas on how a reflective and self-critical liberal democratic political position could be defined and defended in our current predicament, which is increasingly compared to the interwar period and is often described as a “polycrisis”.
8th session of CEFRES in-house seminar
Through the presentation of works in progress, CEFRES’s Seminar aims at raising and discussing issues about methods, approaches or concepts, in a multidisciplinary spirit, allowing everyone to confront her or his own perspectives with the research presented.
Location: CEFRES Library and online (to get the link, write to cefres[@]cefres.cz)
Date: Tuesday, April 15, 2025 at 4:30 pm
Language: English
Jan MUSIL (Faculty of Arts, Charles University / associated at CEFRES)
Chair: Hélène Martinelli (CEFRES / École Normale Supérieure de Lyon)
Text to be read: Gorer, Geoffrey. “The Pornography of Death.” Encounter., vol. 5, no. 4, 1955.
Abstract:
With the christian idea of afterlife gradually fading away, 20th century rediscovered death as a real possibility and ultimate termination of individual life, only to make it into an insufferable, abjected topic and a taboo that is, as Geoffrey Gorer provocatively suggests in 1955, only accessible to the Western culture in hypertrophied genres of literature and film that he calls collectively the pornography of death. Continue reading Thanatographies. Staging Grief and Literary Afterlife →
Blurring Boundaries: Literature as a Tool for
Understanding History and Society.
Meaningful work during normalized Czechoslovakia
7th session of CEFRES in-house seminar
Through the presentation of works in progress, CEFRES’s Seminar aims at raising and discussing issues about methods, approaches or concepts, in a multidisciplinary spirit, allowing everyone to confront her or his own perspectives with the research presented.
Location: CEFRES Library and online (to get the link, write to cefres[@]cefres.cz)
Date: Tuesday, March 18, 2025 at 4:30 pm
Language: English
Valentin Auger (Faculty of Arts, Charles University, associated at CEFRES)
Chair: Jan Váňa (Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences)
Abstract Continue reading Literature as a Tool for Understanding History and Society →
