Publication details
Promýšlet Evropu dvacátého století : Kontinent (ne)svobody
| Title in English | Rethinking 20th Century Europe : The Continent of (Un)Freedom |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Conference |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | The 8th annual Rethinking 20th Century Europe conference, held on November 8th - 9th, 2021, was dedicated to the topic of freedom. During our two-day meeting, we tried to capture the likeness of freedom from different points of view and searched for answer many questions: What was the idea of freedom in different people, groups, movements or states? How did people lose their freedom? How did they fight for it and what were they willing to sacrifice? Did the achieved freedom stand up to the expectations or was it discovered to be an illusion or a halfway-step? What were the limits of freedom and the responsibilities it implied? The range of topics was very wide, spanning from analyses of manifestations of (un)freedom of movement, thought, speech, consciousness, gathering, education, choice of occupation, religion, expression or enterprise all the way down to outlining the understanding of personal, ethnic, cultural, sexual or gender (un)freedom, internal or external. All the manifestations of (un)freedom could be understood as means of conflict between the established norm and abnormality or as means of conflict in general; also as a gift, challenge or a condition of a life well lived. Various approaches and theoretical concepts could be used to approach the above stated matters - we certainly did not shy away from interdisciplinarity. We expected the contributing articles to focus on wider ideas, as well as to particular topics and events. However, the desired outcome was to point out the international significance of the topic or wider context and comparison, rather than a narrowed-down study of specific or regional phenomena. We emphasised to the general context, aiming to interpret the causes, purposes and the consequent effect of the studied events. The time span of our focus was between the early 20th century and the fall of the Eastern Bloc. |
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