Monika Rogowska-Stangret is a theorist and researcher in the fields of philosophy, gender studies and animal studies. She collaborates with the Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw. Monika received scholarships from the Kosciuszko Foundation, ERSTE Stiftung and WUS Austria (in the frames of PATTERNS Lectures programme) and from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. She is a Member of Management Committee of European network: “New Materialism: Networking European Scholarship on ‘How Matter Comes to Matter’”, European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST). She collaborates with “Przegląd Filozoficzno-Literacki,” has translated Naomi Wolf’s “The Beauty Myth” (Czarna Owca 2014) and works by, among others, Judith Butler, Elizabeth Grosz, and Susan Sontag. She is the author of Ciało – poza Innością i Tożsamością. Trzy figury ciała w filozofii współczesnej” (Słowo/Obraz Terytoria, Gdańsk 2016, English title: “The Body – Beyond Otherness and Sameness. Three Figures of the Body in Contemporary Philosophy”).
All posts by Clara Royer
Pierre Huyghe, Human Mask, 2014
Pierre Huyghe, (Untitled) Human Mask (Film still), 2014
Film, colour, stereo, sound, 2:66
Running time: 19 minutes
Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth, London and Anna Lena Films, Paris
This exceptional artwork will be introduced in English by Adam Budak twice during the Night. Meet him in the Moving Image Department of the Trade Fair Palace at 9:30 PM or at 11:45 PM!
Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads by Ai Weiwei
The series of twelve bronze Zodiac Heads was created in 2010 as public sculptures. Ai Weiwei first exhibited them around the Pulitzer Fountain in New York’s Central Park and since then one of the series is touring around the world. The other one was generously lent by the artist to the National Gallery in Prague as the first of Ai’s works to be presented in the Czech Republic. A monumental site-specific installation for the Big Hall of the Trade Fair Palace will follow next year.
When working on the Zodiac Heads, the artist was, according to his own words, trying to produce a witty and natural installation, that would enliven the serious and grey reality of an American city with its playfulness and straightforwardness. At the same time, however, the work has deep historical context. The heads are exact copies of the statues that had once been placed around a fountain in the Old Summer Palace in Beijing. This place was designed by Jesuit missionaries commissioned by the Emperors of the last Qing dynasty (1644-1911) of the imperial China. The park and its architecture were, however, destroyed in 1860 in the looting that ensued after the Second Opium War. Many of the heads were smuggled away from China, ending up in a number of art collections around the world. Continue reading Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads by Ai Weiwei
Distorted History, Stolen Images and Faked Memory (An Excerpt)
Petr Koťátko, Distorted History, Stolen Images and Faked Memory (reading & performance)
Acting:
Vojtěch Vondráček (Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts)
Petr Koťátko (Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences)
N (= Narrator) in an ordinary dress freely walks about the stage; C (= pretend Casanova) is in bed, preferably in pyjamas or a nightdress, embellished with some accessory from a Rococo cavalier’s wardrobe; with the exception of N’s introduction, both read their part aloud from the diary of the pretend Casanova. Continue reading Distorted History, Stolen Images and Faked Memory (An Excerpt)
Étienne Balibar
Distinguished Professor at the Paris Ouest Nanterre University and at the University of California, Irvine, Étienne Balibar is a prominent figure of contemporary philosophy. His works mainly deal with political philosophy (as in Politics and the Other Scene, published in English in 2012, or Equaliberty: Political Essays in 2014 ). A former student of Louis Althusser, he was excluded from French communist party in March 1981 after writing in the press against the party’s racist stance. A member of the French Human Rights League, he has been committed in defending rights for the undocumented migrants and asylum-seekers. Since 2007 he’s headed the France Jan Hus Association founded in 1982 by Jacques Derrida. His latest publications in English include a thorough reflection on the fate of Europe (as in his book translated into English in 2004, We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship; or in his last book in French, Europe : crise et fin ? in 2016).
Anne Gléonec
Anne Gléonec is a doctor and professor agrégée of philosophy. After teaching for five years in France, she continued to pursue research and teaching activities in Prague at the CEFRES, the Faculty of Humanities of Charles University, and at the Institute of philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences. She devoted her Ph.D. dissertation to the analogy between the body and the political body, and wrote a book on Merleau-Ponty’s conceptions of Institution and Passivity, before focusing her philosophical research on the most contemporary links and transferences between natural and social sciences, specifically in the fields of bio-politics and bio-ethics.
Ondřej Švec
Ondřej Švec spent almost eight years of his youth in France, where he became passionate about philosophy, its application to everyday problems and its critical presence in public debates. From 2009 to 2015, he directed the Center for the Study of Language, Mind and Society at the University of Hradec Králové. His publications include a book about phenomenology of emotions and various articles about the problem of objectivity, the scientific explanation of reality and its link to the Lifeworld. He is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.
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Tomáš Winter
As an art historian and a curator, Tomáš Winter looks into modern art in the 20th century, with special focus on caricatures on the one hand, and on primitivism and non-European art on the other hand, as in his 2013 book investigating the relationship between Czech fine art and non-European cultures in the last century (Palmy na Vltavě. Primitivismus, mimoevropské kultury a české výtvarné umění 1850-1950). He investigates the relationship between art, politics and communication, and is leading a research on Folk art between visual culture and politics in Bohemia and Moravia (1840–1960). He is currently preparing an exhibition and book on sport and fine art. A researcher at the Institute of Art history of the Czech Academy of sciences, he lectures at the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice.
Ádám Takács
Trained at the Loránd Eötvös University in Budapest and at the EHESS in Paris, Ádám Takács seeks to understand the relationship between history and ideologies in European—and Hungarian— 20th century (as in “Totalitarianism as an Atmosphere. Morality and Mentality in Hungary under the Kádár regime”, Divinatio, 2013). A specialist of Foucault and Husserl, to whom he dedicated a book (Le fondement selon Husserl. Une idée de la phénoménalité, 2014), Ádám Takács is also a translator of French philosophy (Foucault, Ricoeur, Deleuze). He currently teaches at the Loránd Eötvös University in Budapest.
Monika Rogowska- Stangret
Monika Rogowska-Stangret is a theorist and researcher in the fields of philosophy, gender studies and animal studies. She collaborates with the Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw. Monika received scholarships from the Kosciuszko Foundation, ERSTE Stiftung and WUS Austria (in the frames of PATTERNS Lectures programme) and from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. She is a Member of Management Committee of European network: “New Materialism: Networking European Scholarship on ‘How Matter Comes to Matter’”, European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST). She collaborates with “Przegląd Filozoficzno-Literacki,” has translated Naomi Wolf’s “The Beauty Myth” (2014) and works by, among others, Judith Butler, Elizabeth Grosz, and Susan Sontag. She is the author of “Ciało – poza Innością i Tożsamością. Trzy figury ciała w filozofii współczesnej” (2016), English title: “The Body – Beyond Otherness and Sameness. Three Figures of the Body in Contemporary Philosophy”).
Csaba Olay
A specialist of 20th century European philosophy, on which he edited a volume with T. Ullman (Kontinentális filozófia a XX. században, 2011), and the author of a book on Arendt’s political existentialism (Hannah Arendt politikai egzisztencializmusa, 2008), Csaba Olay investigates the relationships between freedom, mass culture and aesthetics (such as in his 2014 A művészettől a tömegkultúráig, with J. Weiss). He coedited in French and English with Jean-Claude Gens a collective volume on Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor (Interpretation, Modernity and Identity, 2014). He teaches contemporary philosophy at the Loránd Eötvös University in Budapest.
Michał Łuczewski
Polish sociologist Michał Szymon Łuczewski has been focusing on the relationship between Polish identity and catholicism, on which he published his 2012 book Odwieczny naród. Polak i katolik w Żmiącej. A member of the “apocalyptical” magazine 44 / Czterdzieści i Cztery, he is a regular contributor to various Polish magazines, such as Wprost and Arcana. A member since 2015 of the Polish National Development Council, he currently works at the Institute of sociology of the Warsaw University.
Jan Sowa
Trained in literature, philosophy and sociology in Warsaw and Paris, Jan Sowa focuses his work on (Western) modernity, with special emphasis on the relationship between European and other cultures. He published many articles and books on current issues related to colonialism (as in his 2007 book Ciesz się, późny wnuku! Kolonializm, globalizacja i demokracja radykalna), migration and globalization. A regular contributor to several journals, such as Krytyka Polityczna, Praesens, or Ha!art., whose foundation he presides, he recently coedited a collection of essays entitled A Joy Forever: Political Economy of Social Creativity, including articles by Luc Boltanski, Massimiliano Tomba, Isabelle Graw and Gigi Roggero (MayFly Books, 2015). Jan Sowa currently teaches at the Jagellon University in Cracow.
Petr Koťátko
Petr Koťátko works at the Department of Analytic Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences and teaches at the Department of Logics at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. His research interests include theory of meaning, reference, speech acts, analytical metaphysics and theory of fictional discourse. His recent work combines philosophy of language and literary theory.
Étienne Tassin
Is the political sphere condemned to failure? This was the core question French philosopher Étienne Tamsin explored in one of his last books ( Le maléfice de la vie à plusieurs – La politique est-elle vouée à l’échec? 2012). A specialist of Hannah Arendt to whom he dedicated several books (among which Le trésor perdu. Hannah Arendt et l’intelligence de l’action politique, 1999 ), Étienne Tassin writes mainly on political action, interrogating today’s forms of cosmopolitism and experiences of migration (see Un monde commun. Pour une cosmopolitique des conflits, 2003). A member of the Institute of Humanities in Paris, he currently teaches at Paris Diderot University.
Listen to Étienne Tassin on France Culture.