Queering 20th Century East Central Europe. Archives-Emotions-Histories
The international conference „Queering 20th-Century East Central Europe: Archives – Emotions – Histories“ (Prague, May 26–28, 2026) provides a major scientific forum for current research on queer histories in East Central Europe. Building on a preparatory workshop held in Marburg, it brings together established and early-career scholars to move beyond national historiographies and linear narratives of modernity.
The program is structured around three interconnected analytical dimensions: archives, emotions, and historical processes. It addresses silences and absences in the archive, the affective dimensions of memory and identity, and the shifting regulation of sexuality and gender across twentieth-century political regimes. Panels engage with questions of knowledge and power, medicine and sexuality, wartime experiences, and the cultural and everyday practices of queer life.
The keynote lecture will be delivered by Prof. Ann Cvetkovich (University of Texas at Austin, USA), one of the most influential figures in contemporary queer studies. Her concept of the “archive of feelings” has fundamentally reshaped how scholars understand the relationship between emotion, memory, and history. In her talk, „Feeling My Way through the Archives: A Journey in Queer Method“, she will offer a methodological framework that reconceives the archive as an affective space and opens new avenues for historical inquiry.
The conference fosters interdisciplinary exchange and aims to generate publication outputs that will further establish queer historiography of the region within a global scholarly context.
Prague, May 26–28, 2026
Venues: Charles University, Faculty of Humanities, Pátkova 2137/5, Praha 8
Laichter House, Chopinova 4, Praha 2