This project is carried out within the TANDEM CNRS-SAV program developed by the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV), the CNRS Humanities & Social Sciences (CNRS SHS), and CEFRES.
Project principal investigators:
Silvester TRNOVEC (Institute of Oriental Studies, SAV / CEFRES)
Romain TIQUET (Institut des mondes africains, CNRS / CEFRES)
Research area 1: Displacements, “Dépaysements” and Discrepancies: People, Knowledge and Practices
Marija Martinovic is a PhD student in philosophy and Slavic studies at the École doctorale 20 at Sorbonne University, affiliated with the Eur’Orbem research unit (UMR 8224, CNRS/Sorbonne University). A member of the “Passage” junior research laboratory within Eur’Orbem, she is writing a thesis under the supervision of Philippe Gelez and Daniel Baric entitled Unification and disunity: philosophy of the socialist crisis in Yugoslavia (1945–1990).
From a philosophical, political, and historical perspective, this project interrogates the ideological, moral, and symbolic conditions of the fall of Yugoslav socialism. Drawing on the distinction between unification and inclusion, she proposes a conceptual rethinking of the Yugoslav crisis based on its internal contradictions: the concealment of diversity in the name of proclaimed diversity, and the resulting disillusionment within a regime which based itself on an ideology of national cohesion. This study therefore seeks to clarify the philosophical mechanisms of disunity, in dialogue with the works of Slavoj Žižek, Milovan Djilas, and Balkan critical traditions.
By orienting this thesis around a comparative approach between political philosophy, sociology and history of ideas, it interrogates the specificity of Yugoslav ways of thinking which are often founded on an empirical logic to social observation and philosophical conceptualisation distinct from Western models. She clarifies the passage from Yugoslav socialism to the post-Socialist era, understood as a process of transition and a redefinition of collective, moral, and religious identities.
Her recent works include a critical report on the work of Sacha Markovic, La Yougoslavie que racontent les humanistes marxistes (to appear in the review Balkanologie, 2025), as well as a presentation from the international conference “Ivan Illich, a century of critical thinking” (Cres, Croatia, 2025) entitled The Influence of Ivan Illich: the Case of Slavoj Žižek”, which will soon be published.
Marija Martinovic teaches modern and classical literature whilst undertaking her research into the philosophical forms of crisis, secularisation, and national identity in the post-Yugoslav space. She is a visiting fellow at CEFRES as part of a research trip devoted to the comparative study of ideological crises in Central Europe and the Balkans.
CV
Education
2023-present: Doctoral candidate (ED20, Lettres Sorbonne Université) under the supervision of Philippe Gelez (Paris 4) and Daniel Baric (Paris 4). Doctoral research under the title “« Unification et désunion : philosophie de la crise socialiste en Yougoslavie (1945-1990)”
2021-2022: Master’s degree (year 2), research in philosophy and society, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University (mention bien)
Thesis under the supervision of Philippe Buttgen (Paris 1): “Élucidation de l’échec du socialisme yougoslave, à travers l’Idée communiste inclusive de Slavoj Žižek.”
2021-2022: Erasmus (courses and oral/written exams conducted in English), Sapienza University in Rome, Italy (mention très bien)
2020-2021: Master’s degree (year 1), research in philosophy and society, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University (mention assez bien)
Thesis under the supervision of Magali Bessonne (Paris 1): La religion comme nécessité morale au bien chez Rousseau
2019-2020: International programme (courses and oral/written exams conducted in Serbian (cyrillic)), University of Belgrade, Serbia (mention très bien)
2017-2020: Undergraduate degree, philosophy and humanities, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University (mention bien)
2016-2017: Baccalauréat in literature, Louise de Marillac private lycée, Paris (mention bien)
EFB – École Française de Belgrade, Belgrade
Professional Experience
2025-present: Research fellowship (six months) to assist doctoral research, CEFRES
2024-present: Teacher of modern and classical literatures (second degré), Académie de Créteil (Paris and Versailles)
2022: Culture journalist and assistant editor, FNAC-DARTY, Ivry sur Seine (https://www.fnac.com/Le-blog-de-Marija/cc914/w-4)
2019: Project manager for books – philosophy category, VULKAN, Belgrade.
Affiliations
2025-present: Visiting fellow, CEFRES, Czech Republic
2023-present: Research unit UMR 8224 Eur’Orbem (East-Central Europe and the Balkans), Sorbonne University/CNRS
Laboratoire junior at UMR 8224 Eur’Orbem under the title of “Passage”
Publications
October 2025: « Compte rendu de : Sacha Markovic, La Yougoslavie que racontent les humanistes marxistes : aux origines intellectuelles et culturelles des transitions yougoslaves, entre socialisme et nationalisme, des années 1920 aux années 1970 », Balkanologie (to be published)
Conferences
September 2025: Conference at Cres, Croatia: Ivan Illich, a century of critical thinking, on ways of addressing global crises. Presentation: “The influence of Ivan Illich: the case of Slavoj Žižek”, with Sorbonne University (collaborative work to be published)
⇒ In German below ⇐
Workshop is organised by Petra James, Hubert Roland, Quintus Immisch di Padua and Martina Mecco, MODERNITAS (MSH – Université Libre de Bruxelles) – UCLouvain and CEFRES – French Research Centre in Humanities and Social Sciences in collaboration with Department of Czech and Comparative Literature, Charles University, Institute of Czech Literature, CAS, Institut of Slovak Literature, SAV.
Deadline for submissions: December 30, 2025
Date: April 15 – 17, 2026
Location: CEFRES, Prague
Languages: English, French, Czech, German
Send an abstract of 300 words to: martina.mecco@ulb.be
(See German below)
The conference is organised as part of the FNRS (Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique, Belgium) project entitled “Belgium ‘Read’ in German and Czech” (2024-2027), directed by Petra James (Université libre de Bruxelles) and Hubert Roland (UCLouvain). Continue reading CFP | Gender and Mediation
CEFRES Research Area 1: Displacements, “Dépaysements” and Discrepancies: People, Knowledge and Practices
is a PhD candidate in Film Studies at the Cerilac research center (Université Paris Cité), where she is preparing a doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Frédérique Berthet. Her research focuses on the conditions that enabled the emergence of a New Wave within the nationalized film industry of 1960s Czechoslovakia. Often regarded as a derivative of the French New Wave that emerged a few years earlier, the specific material, economic, and aesthetic features of the Czechoslovak New Wave remain largely unknown, as do its influences and the dialogues it fostered with the broader landscape of “New Cinemas” that appeared across the world during the same period.
This doctoral project offers an economic, technical, and aesthetic model of this cinematic movement, with a particular focus on its two main hubs: the Barrandov Studios in Prague and the Koliba Studios in Bratislava. Building upon the work of contemporary Czech film historians, the dissertation seeks to demonstrate that this body of inventive films—often seen as visually and even ideologically breaking with the productions of the previous decade—should not be viewed as anomalies in Czechoslovakia’s film history. On the contrary, they are embedded within a consciously adopted national cultural policy. This research adopts a cultural history approach, combining social and political history, production and reception studies, the history of styles and artistic movements, and elements of New Cinema History. It places strong emphasis on archival sources—both institutional and private—that help shed light on these films from the perspective of their creators. Ultimately, the project questions the historical regime of this artistic movement by rethinking and problematizing its periodization.
Cinématérialisms: New materialistic approaches of cinema and audiovisual, Editions Mimesis, 2025, (co-edited with Fanny Cardin, C. E. Harris, Charlie Hewison, Anastasia Rostan and Barnabé Sauvage).
Axes de recherche 1 : Déplacements, dépaysements et décalages : hommes, savoirs et pratiques & 2 : Normes et transgressions
I am a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at Central European University and a DOC-Fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. My research focuses on international election observers in the post-Cold War era. Specifically, I examine practices of contestation facing observation missions sent out by regional organizations. As a key pillar of democracy promotion and liberal international ordering, election observation provides an entry point for understanding contemporary endogenous and exogenous challenges to liberal international ordering.
My project is embedded in the subfield of international political sociology. To collect data, I combine interviews with election observation practitioners and intergovernmental organization staff with archival research, particularly at the OSCE archives in Prague. In line with a Bourdieu-inspired research methodology, my project emphasizes participant observation. I have worked as a OSCE and EU election observer in Bolivia, the United States, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Serbia. I am also a research associate at the NGO Election-Watch.EU.
Currently I work on a research project investigating OSCE election observer careers and the recruitment practices of OSCE missions. Previously, I conducted research on parallel election observation missions and published an article on the election observation missions of the Commonwealth of Independent States in the OSCE region.
Education
Selected Publications
Teaching experience
2025-2026: Lecturer at the University of Vienna for the course “Politics of Democratization and Autocratization”
2025: Teaching Assistant at Central European University for the courses “International Intervention and Statebuilding” and “Introduction to International Relations”, Vienna
Conferences and Public Presentations
Contact: aksnowicz_adam@phd.ceu.edu
Research Area 1 – Displacements, “Dépaysements,” and Descrepancies: People, Knowledge, and Practices
Adam M. Aksnowicz is a doctoral candidate at the Department of History, Central European University in Vienna, Austria. His dissertation, Towards What Homeland? (Trans)National Armies in Exile and Renegotiations of Polish and Czechoslovak National Narratives, 1938-48, under the supervision of Constantine Iordachi and Charles Shaw, is being developed in cooperation with CEFRES Research Area 1.
My dissertation reassesses the historical phenomenon of national armed forces in exile during the Second World War by analyzing military nation-building projects of Polish armies in exile and the Czechoslovak resistance abroad from transnational, comparative, and global perspectives. Building from my previous MA thesis entitled, “Without Lwów and Wilno There is No Poland” The Cause of Kresy in Exiled Polish Army Press and Propaganda in Italy, 1944-1946, my current project explores conceptual-historical complexities and persistent legacies of national-military exile(s) in renegotiations of nation, state, and homeland between the downfall of the young post-Versailles republics and the radical post-war reconstruction of East Central Europe. By contextualizing Polish and Czechoslovak military exile within transnational, global, and imperial-colonial entanglements of Europe’s early twentieth-century’ “age of catastrophe” (Doumanis 2016), I aim to move beyond dominant national-patriotic approaches and binary Cold War frameworks to contribute to new critical scholarship of exiled state apparatuses during WWII and engage with interdisciplinary discussions surrounding topics like exile, civil-military relations, transnationalities of nation-building, and collective narrative (re)construction.
As a researcher with a background in both sociology and history, my research to date has primarily focused on historical and collective memory studies of interwar, wartime, and early Cold War Poland/Polish diaspora in global contexts. However, during my time in Prague with CEFRES, I look forward to further developing the comparative Czechoslovak dimension of my dissertation by visiting the Czech state archives as well as discussing other analogous cases of exile/displacement with like-minded colleagues to strengthen the project’s overall conceptual framework.
Education
Teaching Experience
Conferences & Summer Schools
Publications and Projects
