14 March 2024
Religion is widely recognized as the principal driver of volunteering for social solidarity and voluntary associations linked to religious institutions have been an important actor in the social services field in all Europe, regardless of the welfare regime. Now, recent research trends show that religious voluntary associations are under pressure: traditional life-long membership-based participation declines, intermediary corps are losing appeal, religious participation has plummeted. Counter-intuitively, Ksenija claims that religious volunteering can rely on an important resource to re-invent itself in the future. Starting from the results of her doctoral studies, published in a book (2023), Ksenija will explore the potential for furthering this line of research in comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives and share her experience of international practitioner and PhD candidate at the WWU - University of Münster in Germany.
19 March 2024
This multi-layered project is centered on the person of "Amazon Gutta", a woman from the Yoruba people, performing with a group of "Amazons of Dahomey", which in September 1892, arrived in Prague. Gutta contracted typhoid fever here, and died after a few days. Her solemn funeral was a big spectacle, which took place on September 21, 1892 and was widely reported by press around the world. She was buried then in the Olšany cemetery. Two years later, her remains were excavated by Jindřich Matiegka and placed in the university collection, from where they found their way to the Hrdlicka Museum of Man, where they remain to this day.
25 March 2024
The Iron Curtain is best known as a metaphor for the geopolitical separation between the Soviet Union and 'the West'. It is less well known as a technology of human displacement and ecological damage, for which forests were cut down or wetlands drained - even less so since the European Green Belt Initiative claimed the collateral ecological value of the former militarised border area. In the transboundary protected area of the Bavarian Forest (Germany) and Šumava (Czechia), a recent ecological project aims to restore wetlands, as these ecosystems have gained high ecological value for climate change mitigation, but also as drivers of biodiversity. Through material semiotic analysis, this case discusses what kind of wetland one can 'return to' in post-Iron Curtain landscapes. Emphasising the co-dependence of matter and meaning, the analysis highlights that the work of ecological remediation is actively engaged in processes of 'sign production' and 'sign destruction', here introduced as material signwork. The act of returning carries with it not only meanings of bodily movement, but also the 're-mediation' of the delicate histories of exclusion, dispossession and ecological damage.
12 April 2024 – 13 April 2024
This presentation will introduce the research project “Decolonizing Ethnographic Museums in Central Europe”, a two-year project funded by the FOND Junior Programme at Charles University and at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology. The project focuses on the decolonization strategies of three museums in Central Europe, including the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague, Czech Republic, the Weltmuseum in Vienna, Austria, and the Néprajzi Múzeum (Museum of Ethnography) in Budapest, Hungary. These museums differ in the size of their collections, their exhibition spaces, and the regional and global claims they make for their collections.
22 April 2024
The lecture will present how green infrastrucures and in general a multifunctionalised public and private green space in cities, can provide useful ecosystem services, generate savings and revenues, ensure mechanisms for dealing with the expleted planetary bounderies. We therefore will focus on wastewater reuse an recycling, urban and agricultural runoff management, rainwater harvesting, nutirents recovery from human and animal excreta, all managed by constructed wetlands, greenwalls, green facades, green roofs, bioretention trenches, bioswales, and other alternative ecological means.
23 April 2024
Let yourself be drawn into the soundscape on 23th April, and then let the rhythm set the pace. We invite you to a unique evening full of sounds and music, prepared especially for the Faculty of Humanities by the Berg Orchestra.
24 April 2024
The presentation outlines a research that focuses on the aesthetic-psychological relationship between Late Baroque churches and the natural elements of the place. The very idea of such a relationship is based on philosophical and Baroque theoretical arguments. It is the approach of architectural phenomenology that enables one to research this theme. Theoretical and practical ways have been opened up by Christian Norberg-Schulz, who, however, has not provided a precise practical tool. As a result, a combined contextuality method is being developed, incorporating several methods from architectural phenomenology. A pilot research of 11 churches, together with their natural environment in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in Trakai Voivodeship, has been carried out. This research has highlighted common specific features suggesting the landscape as an important factor shaping the expression of Late Baroque architecture.
25 April 2024 – 27 April 2024
Hrabal is a synonym for idyll, at least for most of society, which perceives Bohumil Hrabal's works mainly through film adaptations. But his work has a more hidden and surprisingly far more abundant aspect: non-idyllicity. Why this feature of Hrabal's texts appeals more to foreign readers will be discussed by experts or translators of his books from France, Japan, Germany, or Poland, where he is still one of the most-read authors. They will be joined by leading experts on Hrabal's work from Czechia.
25 April 2024
What is discourse analysis and what are its most important assumptions? What is critical discourse analysis? How can discourse analysis be used in studies on music and society? These are the most important questions around which the lecture will be focused.
Barbara Jabłońska is an associate professor at the Institute of Sociology of the Jagiellonian University. Her research interests focus, among others, on issues related to the theory of culture and art, communication theories, and methods of qualitative research. She deals in particular with the issues of the sociology of music, media communication, and the public sphere, as well as discourse analysis.
7 May 2024
We invite you to a brunch for expat women scientists working in Czech research institutions. The guest speaker at the event will be Zsófia Csajbók, who works at the Faculty of Humanities as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology and Life Sciences. The Brunch is organised by the NKC - Gender and Science and all women researchers across disciplines are invited. Registration is required for the event.
23 May 2024
FHS cordially invites you to a public event Mary Maggic: Artist Talk. Alien Knowledging, in the FHS UK Jan Sokol Auditorium on 23 May 2024 at 6:00 pm. This talk will provide a glimpse into the artistic practice of one of the key contemporary posthumanist feminist manifestos, Xenofeminism, which advocates the exploration of the potential of technology to achieve gender liberation. Exploring the alienation found in our bodies, environments, and molecules, the event will delve into artistic practice of Mary Maggic, who often uses biohacking as a Xenofeminist practice of care that serves to demystify the invisible lines of molecular biopower. The event will begin with a welcome by Dr. Denisa Tomková (FHS), an introduction to the project by Zai Xu (SVĚTOVA 1), and will be followed by Mary Maggic’s artist talk.
3 June 2024 – 4 June 2024
The workshop aims to bring together scholars focusing on theoretical, methodological, and practical aspects of biographical research (mainly) set in Central and Eastern European countries and to initiate their discussion with key figures in the biographical network: Professor Hans Renders and Doctor David Veltman, both from the Biography Institute at the Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen, Netherlands. The goal is to discuss general topics as well as (potential) regional specifics.
3 June 2024
At its meeting on 24 May, the Academic Senate of Charles University supported the upcoming protest action System Collapse!, which aims to draw attention to the imminent instability of Czech higher education due to possible budget cuts for the education sector. The demonstration will take place before the Chamber of Deputies debates on the state budget for 2025. The rally will take place on Monday, 3 June, on Jan Palach Square at 16:00, where opening speeches will be given. It will then pass by the Office of the Government, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.
10 June 2024
The lecture reconstructs and explores how the construction of armed conflict as a legitimate practice of state violence was severed from genocide during the codification of genocide in law in the late 1940s and since. This distinction was entrenched in the postcolonial conflicts in Africa and Asia in the 1960s and 1970s, and has sedimented in the international law being applied in the Israel-Palestine war today, as the ICJ proceedings reveal. The distinction allows any state to justify its action as in terms of military necessity despite its seemingly genocidal consequences. Taking the approach of the history of concepts, this paper reveals the instability of this distinction and the purposes it serves.
A. Dirk Moses is the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of International Relations at the City College of New York. He is the author of the books German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past (2007) and The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression (2021).
The lecture is organised by Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts, CU and Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, CU.
13 June 2024 – 15 June 2024
How is history ideologised and the creation of myths of the exceptionality of individual states and nations such as the USA, Israel, the Soviet Union or North Korea? And what role does political interest and propaganda play in such processes? How is historical memory related to national, religious or gender identity? And how does it relate to migration? The international interdisciplinary doctoral conference entitled Rewriting the History: Changing the Reading of the Past will seek answers to these and other interesting questions. The event is organized by the Department of Historical Studies of the Faculty of Humanities of Charles University, at the faculty headquarters and online on the 13th-15th. June 2024. The main expert guarantor of the conference is Dr. Alena Marková.
21 June 2024
We invite you to the final conference of the international project PERHOUSE Enhancing Personal and Household Services in Europe: Lessons from Central and Eastern European Countries, which will take place online on Friday, June 21, 2024, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
24 June 2024 – 25 June 2024
What was the influence of Immanuel Kant's thought on later philosophy of art and aesthetics and the perception of beauty in general? On the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Enlightenment philosopher from Königsberg, the Faculty of Humanities will host an international conference entitled After Kant: What do art and literature owe to Kant? Ian Alexander Moore of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and James Reid of Metropolitan State University of Denver will deliver keynotes at the conference. Associate Professor Aleš Novák from the Department of Philosophy is organizing the event on behalf of our faculty.
Charles University
Faculty of Humanities
Pátkova 2137/5
182 00 Praha 8 - Libeň
Czech Republic
