Department of Modern Intellectual History and Philosophy in East-Central Europe

Chair: Jan Mervart

Deputy chair: Lara Bonneau

The department’s research program encompasses intellectual history and the history of philosophy from the early nineteenth through the late twentieth century, with particular emphasis on intellectual developments in the Czech lands within the broader context of East-Central Europe. The interdisciplinary team, combining philosophical, historical, aesthetic, and anthropological approaches, investigates modern intellectual history and philosophy across several key and interconnected thematic areas: (1) the history of Marxism; (2) the history of dissident thought; (3) the history of philosophical and social thought; and (4) philosophy and politics after 1989. This research covers a broad range of topics, including modern aesthetic thought; nationalism and internationalism; the intellectual dimensions of socialist modernity; alternative visions of society; the economic thought of the post-socialist transformation; and conceptualizations of citizenship.

These topics are examined both from a philosophical perspective and a genealogical or historical perspective, situated within the context of East-Central Europe (e.g. the transnational phenomenon of Marxist humanism), Europe (e.g. such philosophical movements as phenomenology and existentialism), and the globe (with reference, for example, to conceptions of modernity). The department’s research activities encompass both basic research and the dissemination to wider audiences of intellectual production from the Czech lands and more broadly from throughout East-Central Europe. Long-term editorial projects include the Collected Works of Karel Kosík (in Czech) and the journal Contradictions (in English and Czech).