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VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//WigeFa//Veranstaltungen//DE
X-WR-CALNAME:Wissenschaft gegen Faschismus
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:event-215@wissenschaft-gegen-faschismus.de
DTSTAMP:20261013T162626Z
DTSTART:20260605T153000Z
DTEND:20260605T170000Z
SUMMARY:Joy\, Fear\, and the Practice of Antifascism in Czech Postsocialism
  (1990–2001)
DESCRIPTION:This talk reconstructs how antifascism in 1990s Czechia was mad
 e actionable through emotions—above all fear and joy\, across streets\, 
 workplaces\, and media. Moving beyond linear ‘transition’ narratives\,
  I treat antifascist organising as a set of unfolding situations rather th
 an static constellations\, tracing how feelings were learned\, policed\, a
 nd contested in real time. Drawing on a multimodal corpus (press and TV\, 
 zines and flyers\, photojournalism\, activist materials\, ego-documents)\,
  I pair discourse analysis with readings of bodies and rituals (marches\, 
 vigils\, concerts\, raves) to map emotional communities formed in response
  to racist attacks\, far-right mobilisation\, and state/municipal response
 s.\n\nThree case clusters structure the analysis: (1) early- to mid-1990s 
 anti-Roma violence and antifascist counter-mobilisation\, highlighting fea
 r as both a governance technology and a community alarm\; (2) labour and u
 rban struggles around austerity and precarity\, where solidarity and every
 day togetherness sustained resilient antifascist milieus\; (3) late-1990s 
 transnational cycles—from anti-NATO and anti-war protests to Prague 2000
  where joy\, relief\, and ecstatic involvement enabled broad coalitions wh
 ile negotiating surveillance and moral panic. Across cases\, I track emoti
 ves (speech acts that do things with feelings)\, the licensing and sanctio
 ning of expression in media and law\, and the embodied repertoires through
  which activists cultivated courage\, care\, and refusal.\n\nThe argument 
 is twofold. First\, antifascism’s durability in postsocialism hinged on 
 the practical management of fear redirecting insecurity toward mutual prot
 ection and on joyful practices that made participation attractive\, sustai
 nable\, and world-making. Second\, reading emotions as historically produc
 ed and institutionally mediated clarifies why antifascist tactics oscillat
 ed between confrontation\, community defence\, cultural production\, and l
 egal advocacy. By centring present-oriented emotions\, the paper reframes 
 the 1990s as a laboratory of antifascist feeling in which agency\, belongi
 ng\, and conflict were negotiated under fast-changing political economy. T
 he contribution is conceptual (bringing histories of emotion into dialogue
  with antifascist studies) and methodological (event-centred\, multimodal 
 reconstructions that recover marginalised actors while avoiding dichotomie
 s).
LOCATION:Charles University\, Faculty of Arts\, Department of History\, roo
 m 209\, Náměstí Jana Palacha 1/2\, 116 36 Praha-Staré Město\, Prag
URL:https://wissenschaft-gegen-faschismus.de/veranstaltungen/joy-fear-and-t
 he-practice-of-antifascism-in-czech-postsocialism-1990-2001
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