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The conference will focus on the role of manuscript culture in exile communities of diverse religious backgrounds during the early modern period, with a particular emphasis on the 1620s and 1630s. Specifically, it will examine how the written word was used to sustain, transmit, and reshape collective and individual identities amid the pressures of displacement and religious conflict. The discussion will cover the various forms of manuscript production, such as personal notebooks and records, collections of sermons, prophetic and chiliastic writings, polemical tracts and historical compilations, all situated within institutional frameworks and domestic contexts. Particular attention will be given to the act of copying, which will be considered not only as a practical means for the transmission of texts in environments with limited access to print, but also as a practice with symbolic significance and economic value. Copies could serve as a reaffirmation of tradition, a means and strategy for coping with the loss of home and faith. Furthermore, commissioning copies could function as a form of social support, providing employment and sustenance for those in exile who had lost their livelihoods. By examining these practices, the conference aims to shed light on the specific textual corpora of exile and broader issues of communication, such as memory, authorship and textual identity in forced migration situations.

Please submit paper proposals together with a brief CV by 30 October 2025 to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

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About the Conference

Since this August, Dr. Maximilian Schuh from Freie Universität Berlin has been a recipient of the Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Over the next three years, he will spend a total of 18 months as part of the Triptic-EU research group (Department for the Study of Ancient and Medieval Thought), where he will focus on the work of the English scholar William Merle. The main aim of his project is to prepare a critical edition of the hitherto almost unknown writings of this Oxford professor on weather forecasting and to draw attention to a so far overlooked chapter in the history of 14th-century science.

About the Researcher

Dr. Maximilian Schuh studied History and German Literature at the Universities of Munich and Edinburgh. He received his PhD in Medieval History from the University of Münster in 2013 with a dissertation on the University of Ingolstadt in the 15th century, conducted within the framework of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics in Premodern and Modern Societies.” Since 2011, he has held academic appointments at the Universities of Munich, Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Duisburg-Essen. In 2019, he joined Freie Universität Berlin as Lecturer in the Department of the History of the High and Later Middle Ages. From October 2023 to September 2024, he was a Consolidator Fellow at the Historisches Kolleg – Institute for Advanced Study in Munich. His research focuses primarily on the history of universities in the 15th-century Holy Roman Empire and on perceptions of the natural environment in 14th-century England. He also has a strong interest in promoting interdisciplinary collaboration between the humanities and the natural sciences.

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About the Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship

The eighteen-month fellowship, named after the biochemist and Nobel laureate Feodor Lynen, is awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation—funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research—to experienced German researchers with outstanding achievements, enabling them to carry out research abroad in collaboration with international scholars of their choice. In the case of Dr. Schuh, the academic host is Dr. Ota Pavlíček.

We invite proposals for the second edition of the conference on the philosophy of art, subtitled Resisting Divides: Contemporary Philosophy of Art. The event aims to create “in-between spaces” that enable resistance to divisions in contemporary approaches to art. It will address both the divide between analytic and continental philosophy, and divide between artworld practitioners and academic philosophers. The deadline for submissions is September 15, 2025. 

Resisting the Divide: Part II (Betweonum in Prague)

Second conference of Betweonum: Brooklyn–Prague Forum for Philosophy of Art

Host: Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
Venue: Dominikanska 8, cultural space in Old Prague Town
Dates: November 21-22, 2025

To submit anonymized abstract of 300-400 words BY September 15, 2025: please use https://forms.gle/8E2DZ6PE1NjPvmvS8 or email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Notification of acceptance by September 30, 2025.

This conference, to be held in Prague, Czechia, is Part II of Resisting Divides: Contemporary Philosophy of Art that was held at Brooklyn College, NY, in October 2024 and co-organized by Dena Shottenkirk and Martin Nitsche. Here we established Betweonum: Brooklyn–Prague Forum for Philosophy of Art – a group of philosophers and other scholars, curators, and artists who seek to establish in-between spaces that enable resistance to the divides in contemporary approaches to art.

Since then, there has been an increasing movement by various philosophers toward eradicating the western world’s divide between continental and analytic philosophy as seen in the creation of reading groups, published work, and general trends. To be specific regarding the latter, the philosophy of art in the analytic tradition has continued to undergo a revolution by aligning more closely with perception and thus including in its parameters historical, phenomenological, and embodied psychological concerns. Continental philosophers of art have begun to reference science while still focused on the phenomenology of first-person experience. It shouldn’t be a surprise that it is in the philosophy of art where this revolution is occurring because it is this discipline that dovetails with other disciplines such as epistemology, philosophy of mind, politics, and ethics. Thus, it is in the philosophy of art that this divide between the two philosophical traditions can best be resolved.

There is also a second divide that this conference will address, and that is the glaring division between academic philosophers and “on the ground” practitioners in the artworld e.g., curators, art writers, and artists themselves. This, too, is a difficulty, as the ongoing frustrations of a stalemated postmodernism cannot be solved without a consensus between these two groups, thus calling for a need to think of art outside the confines of modernism’s stylistic revolutions and formalist issues, as well as outside the traditional analyses provided by the two camps of philosophers. This cannot be done without an open and critical exchange of viewpoints, and it is this that the conference will provide.

Thus, this conference will address both of those divides: The analytic/continental divide and divide between artworld practitioners and academic philosophers.

We welcome submissions on these possible questions:

1. How does the increase in time-based art (e.g., performance, video) increase an analysis that draws on phenomenology?
2. Does AI have a useful role in artmaking? And can it replace artists altogether?
3. How is the “snapshot” representational theory inadequate to an analysis of art, and why might saliency maps or Gibson’s notion of affordances be more useful?
4. What is the epistemological function of art?
5. How does the monetary role in art affect both the artist and the perceiver of art?
6. How do the mechanics of seeing (e.g., gist perception, peripheral vision, etc.) affect how we experience art?
7. How does the practice of making art relate to the first-person experience?
8. What role does empathy play in art, and how do affordances explain that?
9. Are there specific non-western traditions that provide a better explanatory solution for the role of art than have the competing paradigms of continental and analytic
10.  In what way does philosophy play a role in art itself?

We welcome your participation and look forward to your contributions. Papers should not extend over 30 minutes. Additional Q & A are 15 minutes.

Food will be served. There is no conference fee. Alas, organizers cannot assist with accommodations and travel.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA.CZ) “fellowship” projects contribute to developing the international character and quality of the research environment in the Czech Republic, including the professional growth of individual scholars. Thanks to this program, philosopher and architectural theorist Jana Ndiaye Beránková, Ph.D. will begin her work in the Czech Republic in July. Conversely, Martin Pjecha, M.A., Ph.D., a Comenius scholar, will depart from the Institute of Philosophy for a research stay in Vienna....

Mgr. Jana Ndiaye Beránková, Ph.D. is an architectural theorist, philosopher, writer, and publisher. In 2024–2025, she was a fellow at the Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris, affiliated with Columbia University. She defended her doctoral dissertation, “Productive Misunderstanding? Architectural Theory and French Philosophy from 1965 to 1990,” in 2023 at Columbia University in New York (GSAPP). Prior to that, she studied at the École Normale Supérieure, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, the Free University of Berlin, and Masaryk University in Brno.

She runs the nonprofit publishing house Suture Press, which focuses on carefully designed books on continental philosophy, contemporary art, and architectural theory. She is the editor of several collections, including Revolutions for the Future: May ’68 and the Prague Spring (with Nick Nesbitt and Michael Hauser, 2020), and Thinking the Infinite (with Jelica Šumič Riha and David Rabouin, 2021). In 2025, she published a book-length interview with Alain Badiou titled L’Éclat de l’absolu, which explores the intersections between Badiou’s philosophical system and the thought of Plato, Hegel, Sartre, Althusser, Lacan, and Deleuze.

At the Institute of Philosophy, her project ArchConcepts will explore the relationship between architectural theory and continental philosophy (especially structuralism, semiotics, post-structuralism, and logical positivism) between 1960 and 1980. She will focus on a critical analysis of architectural writings by authors such as Aldo Rossi, Giorgio Grassi, Manfredo Tafuri, George Baird and Charles Jencks, Alan Colquhoun, Diana Agrest and Mario Gandelsonas, Françoise Choay, Hubert Damisch, Bernard Tschumi, and Peter Eisenman.

The project will run until 2027 and is coordinated by Assoc. Prof. Martin Nitsche, Ph.D.

Martin Pjecha, M.A., Ph.D. is a historian. He studied at Central European University (Budapest, Hungary – Vienna, Austria). In 2022, he defended his dissertation, “Theo-politics of the Hussite Movement: from Reform to Revolution,” earning his Ph.D. in Comparative History. Previously, he worked at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, and until 2024 at the Center for Medieval Studies (Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences) within the Czech Science Foundation project “From Performativity to Institutionalization: Conflict Resolution in the Late Middle Ages (Strategies, Actors, Communication).” He currently works in the Department for Comeniology and Intellectual History of the Early Modern Period.

His research focuses on the international religious-political thought of dissent in the premodern West, particularly how this thought intersects with the historical conditions of Central Europe. He published his first book on the revolutionary ideas of the Hussite movement in 15th-century Bohemia, emphasizing the role of much older discourses (Christian Platonism, apocalypticism) in their new vision of society and religiosity. He is currently shifting his focus toward the early modern period.

In Vienna, he will work on the project Politics in the Holistic Thought of John Amos Comenius, focusing on Comenius’s underexplored political philosophy. This research perspective contrasts with the dominant image of Comenius as a religious reformer and educator. Drawing on neglected sources and interdisciplinary methods, the project aims to highlight the political relevance of Comenius’s philosophy, theology, and scientific endeavors.

The project will run until 2027 and is coordinated by PhDr. Vladimír Urbánek, Ph.D.

MSCA.CZ mobility projects are supported by the Jan Amos Comenius Operational Programme under the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and are co-financed by the European Union.

More about the MSCA.CZ call

The Institute of Philosophy of the CAS regularly applies for CAS fellowships supporting postdoctoral researchers in the Programme to Support Prospective Human Resources – post PhD candidates. The competition is open to all institutes of the Academy of Sciences and takes place twice a year – in spring and autumn. At IP, the next deadline for submission of proposals in the 26th round of the competition is set for 30 August 2025.

The programme is intended for holders of PhD or its equivalent until up to two years since receiving the degree (i. e. degree received 31 August 2023 or later; time spent on maternity/parental leave is not included in the two-year period; in case of a long-term research stay in other than the candidate's country of residence the two-year period is extended up to four years). Successful applicants receive a two-year fellowship to work on a project whose topic is directly related to the focus of the relevant CAS institute and they become members of one of its scientific teams.

Potential candidates may contact the head of one of the scientific departments at IP to consult the research topic of their interest (proposals for internal competition at IP are submitted by the Head of Department).

For more information about the programme contact Julie Černá, Scientific Secretary of the Institute of Philosophy (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

The international conference After Industry: Cities and Regions in Transformation will focus on the transformations of cities and regions in the post-industrial era. It will take place on 14–15 May 2026 in Prague as part of the project Urbanity: Inequality, Adaptation, and Urban Public Space in Historical Perspective. The deadline for paper submissions is 30 June 2025. More information

The Czech-German Research Platform for the Humanities and Social Sciences (Leibniz GWZO Prague) is seeking four researchers for its newly established Prague-based Department of Knowledge and Participation (headed by Dr. Michal Frankl), with the positions starting on 1 September 2025. The call is for two doctoral and two postdoctoral fixed-term positions.The application deadline is 9 May 2025. More details

Overview of current deadlines and detailed information for submitting contributions to upcoming workshops and conferences:

23.–24. 06. 2025 | Conference Asixoxe – Let’s Talk! Conference on African Philosophy 2025 | Understanding Decolonisation and the Return of African Cultural Heritage. CfP Deadline: 31 May 2025

04. 09. 2025 - 06. 09. 2025 | 2nd year of Doctoral Philosophical Conference Perspectives of Thinking. CfP Deadline: 30 April 2025. 

08.–10. 10. 2025 | Conference | Cohabitability Ecologies and Technologies of Living on Earth. CfP Deadline: 30 April 2025. Podrobně o akci

The Scientific Board of the platform The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice (BRRP) invites proposals to organize the next biennial BRRP symposium, a long-standing forum for scholars specializing in the Bohemian Reformation and related topics. The upcoming symposium is scheduled to take place in June 2026. We encourage colleagues from the broad international community of researchers to submit their proposals, including a preliminary thematic focus, by 30 May 2025 via the online submission form. For detailed information please see the Practical Matters and the Letter from the Scientific Board.