Tag Archives: Philosophy

CEFRES Team, Non classé

Marija Martinovic – Research & CV

Unification and disunity: philosophy of the socialist crisis in Yugoslavia (1945–1990)

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)

  • Monitoring cultural news, steering the editorial line of L’Eclaireur (https://leclaireur.fnac.com)
  • Conception and editing of articles
  • Proficiency in WordPress, SEO and HTML

2019: Project manager for books – philosophy category, VULKAN, Belgrade.

  • Market research on philosophy books, selection of titles to be published and translated

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)

CEFRES Team

Sophie Raehme – Research & CV

“Visualizing Resistance: The Traveling Graffiti “Las Cuchas Tienen la Razón” and the Ghostly Presence of Forcibly Disappeared Colombians in Europe”

Research Area 3 – Objects, Traces, Mapping: Everyday Experience of Spaces

My research broadly examines how state and non-state actors, as well as victim-survivors themselves, negotiate concepts of collective reparation for gendered, intersectional, and relational harm. I focus in particular on the possibilities and limitations of collective reparations within official processes of victim subject recognition. Using a relational ontological lens, I explore how frameworks of collective victimization are constructed and contested within transitional justice discourses and beyond and in particularly in relation to territorial memory, art, and resistance in the context of Colombia’s urban territorial peace. My work is grounded in critical, decolonial, queer, and feminist approaches to transitional justice, reparations, gender, and human rights. Between 2022 and 2024, I collaborated closely on participatory documentary projects with a women’s searcher collective and an LGBT group in Medellín. One of these projects is currently being re-edited and is planned for submission to a human rights film festival.

During my fellowship at CEFRES, I will explore the transnational dimensions of memory activism through the traveling graffiti “Las cuchas tienen la razón”, originally created by youth graffiti artists and women searchers in Medellín, Colombia. The project investigates how this visual intervention, symbolizing territorial resistance and youth and women-led struggles for truth, justice, and reparations, has been reinterpreted within the Latin American diaspora in European cities such as Vienna, Berlin and London. To study these translocated territorial memories in traveling graffiti, I adopt an exploratory methodology using the metaphor of ghosts. “Ghost ethnography” offers a conceptual framework to examine how trauma and absence are inscribed on bodies and urban spaces, particularly through muralism and graffiti. These forms of street art function as living archives of resistance, often overlooked in mainstream historiography and ethnography, yet central to grassroots memory practices. I will complement this with semi-structured interviews conducted with graffiti artists and women searchers.

At CEFRES, I aim to contribute primarily to Research Area 3, “Objects, Traces, Mapping: Everyday Experience of Spaces.” During my stay, I will present findings from my PhD research and screen the upcoming participatory documentary “Women Walking for Truth – Transforming Voices and Territorial Resistance” (2025).

CV

I hold a Master’s in Philosophy (2019) from Goethe University (Frankfurt) and a Master’s in International Studies / Peace and Conflict Research (2020) from the Technical University of Darmstadt. In 2024, I taught courses on feminist theory, climate repair, and art-based methodologies as a Global Teaching Fellow at the Department of Political Science and Global Studies at Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá). In 2025, I was a visiting PhD researcher at the Department of Gender Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science and at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute (Florence).

Calls for Papers, Non classé

CFP | Foucault at 100: Echoes and Encounters in Central and Eastern Europe

Deadline for submission: November 15, 2025
on the address: foucault100ece@flu.cas.cz
Date and Location:
Prague (June 1–2, 2026) and Warsaw (June 4–5, 2026)

Host Institutions
The Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Centre français de recherche en sciences sociales en Prague (CEFRES)
Centre de civilisation française et d’études francophones en Pologne (CCFEF)

Organizing Committee: Mateusz Chmurski, Isabel Jacobs, Jiří Růžička, Radosław Szymański, Laurent Tatarenko

Contact Email: foucault100ece@flu.cas.cz

Continue reading CFP | Foucault at 100: Echoes and Encounters in Central and Eastern Europe →

CEFRES Team

Dominik Kulcsár – Research & CV

“The Philosophical Concept of Revolt”

Contact: dominik.kulcsar[@]cefres.cz

Research area 2: Norms and Transgressions

Dominik Kulcsár is a Research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. He has completed his PhD dissertation “Albert Camus and the Spirit of Anarchy: The Philosophical Concept of Revolt” and presently continues his research into the concept of revolt, which contributes to CEFRES research area 2.

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CEFRES Team

Josefína Formanová – Research & CV

“Philosophy of Failure: Negativity and Error in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit”

contact: josefina.formanova@cefres.cz

Research Area 2 – Norms & Transgressions

My dissertation project draws on the observation that the current global society revolves around the highly valued ideal of success. In addition, we can witness the declining ability to resign into passivity or doubt on the one hand, as well as the increasing tendency to lethargy where action proves vital on the other. In the broader scope of my research, I explore the notion of passivity in action, and claim it to be the foundation for living in meaningful relationships with others and the world. Specifically, I adhere to the idea of reinventing the understanding of activity according to its inherent uncontrollability, which appears to be present in each human act or relation. My research embarks from the most common situation, in which controllability is open for observations: from human failure.  Continue reading Josefína Formanová – Research & CV →

Research Projects

Archives and Interculturality

The team working on “Archives and Interculturality” aims at understanding contemporary philosophy through the study of its manuscripts and archives. What is the part played by writing in the conceptual creative process? Such approach allows to grasp the existential and historical anchoring of the wide set of thought practices understood as “philosophy,” and thus to better comprehend its texts and ideas, along with its embeddedness in the cultural backgrounds that shaped it.

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