Angelika Zanki

Call for Submissions – EASA 2026 Conference, panel P053: Entangled Ruins: Polarised Temporalities and the Afterlives of Decay

We warmly invite scholars and researchers to submit proposals for Panel P053, convened by our PI, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska and Václav Sixta from the Charles University, at the EASA 2026 Conference.

The panel explores ruins as powerful materialisations of tension between decay and renewal, loss and endurance. Ruins reveal collisions between past and future and expose polarised temporalities shaping contemporary worlds, while also opening spaces for care, reflection, and re-imagined relations.

Focusing on the social, political, and material afterlives of decay, the panel will examine ruination as a dynamic and relational process: one that highlights contested values and unequal power, yet also gestures toward new possibilities beyond binary thinking.

Aligned with the conference theme “Anthropology: Possibilities in a Polarised World,” organizers welcome anthropological, ethnographic, geographical, theoretical, and creative contributions engaging with ruins, memory, heritage, materiality, and temporal entanglements.

Suggested keywords:
Ruins and Ruination · Temporalities · Memory and Heritage · Materiality and Decay · Anthropocene · Entanglement · Afterlives of Ruins

More information and submission details you can find here.

The popular conviction, popularized by Bram Stoker’s Dracula, is that vampires live primarily in Transylvania. However, as Josef Váchal, a Czech writer, visual artist, and book printer, sought to demonstrate, the main headquarters of these creatures lies elsewhere: in Slovakia.

Karolina discovered this book during one of her archival searches at the Museum of Czech Literature in Prague. She proposed discussing it among our team, particularly because the narrative is set not only in Slovakia in general but also in Hauerland, a region studied by both Michal and Karina.

Over the course of the seminar, the reading gradually shifted from a search for ghosts and supernatural beings to a critical conversation about Czech colonialism in Slovakia during the interwar period. How does a Czech visitor behave in Slovakia—as a tourist and as a keen observer of social life? And how did such encounters unfold during the First Czechoslovak Republic? Can we read Váchal’s text as an ethnographic source? These were the guiding questions of our discussion.

Although the text was not an easy read, we welcomed its depictions of the region and the opportunity to approach our case studies from yet another angle. This time, the discussion opened up perspectives drawn from tourism studies and postcolonial theory.

In his commentary, Michal analyzes the return of the Beneš Decrees to contemporary Slovak politics and law through the lens of hauntology. He argues that today the decrees function less as valid legal norms and more as a “specter” of the past that reappears in property disputes and political crises of identity. Although they are largely exhausted in legal terms, the Beneš Decrees remain symbolically powerful and are politically instrumentalized, particularly by the government, which presents them as an untouchable foundation of statehood. Michal also points to the difference between the Czech and Slovak contexts: while in the Czech Republic the decrees functioned mainly as a one-off political symbol, in Slovakia they return systematically and have tangible practical consequences. In conclusion, Michal emphasizes that instead of becoming a taboo, the “specter must be listened to” – that is, the historical and moral problematic nature of the decrees must be openly acknowledged and their legacy translated into the language of a twenty-first-century constitutional state, so that the past ceases to automatically determine the present.

Link to the text you can find here.

On January 5, Karolina was again a guest on Anna Dudzińska’s broadcast Klub Trójki. This time, the discussion was sparked by the radio documentary Węzełek [A Bundle] by Magda Skawińska. The documentary is built around particular objects, such as a small bundle and a set of keys carried by people forced to leave their homes. Referring to historical practices of packing essential belongings during displacement, the bundle evokes both loss and survival, while the key symbolizes the home left behind. By weaving personal testimonies of expulsion with broader reflections on memory and identity, the documentary connects historical displacement with contemporary experiences of migration and conflict, showing how people continue to carry their bundles, both literally and symbolically.

At the end of the broadcast, Karolina reflected on migration as a recurring feature of Central European history. She discussed the specific character of postwar migration in western Poland, the long-term effects of settlement policies in the so-called Recovered Territories, and how these histories shape present-day social realities locally and beyond. The discussion also touched on who the postwar settlers were, whether they can be considered refugees, and how the history of postwar settlement is—and is not—present in mainstream discourse in Poland.

You can hear documentary and braodcast here.

In the last seminar of 2025, we read and discussed a text by Elizabeth Benjamin from Coventry University, introducing the distinct category of nonuments. Drawing on her research in France, Benjamin constructs a typology of nonuments, that is, contested monuments that vary in the degree to which they are preserved.

We devoted a substantial amount of time to engaging with Benjamin’s proposal and to considering how her typology addresses questions of recycling, which are also central to our own research. This discussion formed part of our broader effort to refine a working definition of recycling.

During the seminar, we also reflected on the kinds of nonuments that might be found within our own fieldwork. Each of us selected and presented an example of a nonument encountered in their research, which we would now like to share with you.

The workshop “Popularizing Research Online” was held by Angelika Zanki, our manager and facilitator, who promotes the team’s activities and has completed numerous trainings in this field.

The workshop is a part of the NAWA’s STER Next Generation PhDs – Innovations program for doctoral students at the Anthropos Doctoral School. It provided participants with an opportunity to engage with key principles of effectively presenting and promoting academic work in digital spaces. In today’s digital age, communicating research clearly and professionally is increasingly important, and the session emphasized the growing significance of science communication for researchers.

Participants were introduced to the basics of science communication and explored how researchers can present themselves and their projects in ways that are accessible, accurate, and engaging. The workshop highlighted examples of good practice as well as common mistakes to avoid, stressing the importance of maintaining a professional online presence. It also covered strategies for managing websites and social media profiles related to research projects, including European-funded grants, and practical methods for promoting them effectively online.

The workshop was highly practical: participants actively contributed to discussions and prepared draft social media posts, applying the knowledge gained during the session.

Angelika’s experience helped create a well-structured and supportive environment, allowing participants to recognize the importance of science communication and to develop confidence in sharing their research with wider audiences.

The Anthropos Doctoral School, where the workshop was held, is located in the heart of Warsaw’s Old Town. On the day of the workshop, the area was especially magical, as the streets were beautifully illuminated and holiday decorations were lit up, creating a unique and festive atmosphere around the school.

We are excited to share that an essay by Karina Hoření has been published on the blog of the American Ethnological Society. It is part of their new collection, Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart, edited by Salwa Tareen. The collection features essays by researchers from around the world, exploring the emotional side of anthropological practice and how fieldwork can deeply affect those who undertake it.

In this essay, Karina reflects on the emotional complexities of ethnographic research in post-war Liberec (formerly Reichenberg). Focusing on the experiences of Czech settlers who moved into houses formerly inhabited by Germans, she explores how archives and family memories reveal “ghosts” of the past. A key moment occurs during a follow-up interview with a participant, Josef, when she shares archival evidence of a German resident’s suicide in his family’s house. The encounter unexpectedly intersects with Josef’s own recent family tragedy, highlighting how personal and collective histories intertwine. Karina uses these experiences to discuss the ethical and emotional challenges of ethnography, the persistence of haunting legacies, and the limits of reconstructing the past.

At the beginning of December, our researcher, Karina Hoření, gave a presentation on her research as an invited speaker at a seminar titled “Ruins and Relics: Rhythms, Temporalities, and Trajectories of Change.” In her talk Fixation on Ruins-Fixation of Ruins Karina presented her thesis about ruins as the central space of the dominant Czech narrative about expulsion. The seminar took place at the Ethnological Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. It was organised by the team behind the Zdivočelá země/Land gone wild project, implemented by a consortium of Czech research institutes. Both our projects are interested in post-war changes in the Czech borderlands and the enduring legacies of expulsion in the landscape, and this shared interest leads to long and passionate debates. Hopefully, it was not a last chance for our teams to meet and share our findings. 

This was not our first encounter with Slovak cinema in our seminars. Some time last year, we discussed Mŕtvi nespievajú, a film by Andrej Lettrich depicting the realities of Slovak troops on the Eastern Front vis-à-vis their families at home. This time, we decided to delve into a solid classic: the first Czechoslovak Oscar-winning film, Obchod na korze [The Shop on Main Street] (1965).

The story, based on a book by Jiří Grossmann and directed by the iconic duo Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, depicts the entangled lives of the inhabitants of a small Slovak town. The film also has a Polish accent, as the Jewish shop owner is played by Ida Kamińska, a distinguished Polish-Jewish actress.

We discussed the specific wartime trajectory of Slovakia, a topic we had also touched upon while watching Mŕtvi nespievajú. In particular, we focused on attitudes toward the local fascist regime, the apparent idyll of occupation, and the ways in which various symbols in the film can be interpreted as excuses for collaboration. We also devoted attention to the film’s production context and to the striking absence of Germans on screen—while it is Slovaks who carry out the forced displacement of the town’s Jewish population.

Altogether, this helped us broaden our analytical horizon and reflect on questions such as how post-conflict societies deal with their pasts. After all, the war ended, yet the Slovak inhabitants of the town depicted in the film continued to live on without their Jewish neighbors.

In episode #101 of the Czechostacja podcast, Karolina and Jakub Medek explore interwar politics, Masaryk’s views on the many minorities living in Czechoslovakia, and his belief that it was possible to create not only a new state but eventually a new nation — the Czechoslovaks. The conversation was sparked by the recent opening of an envelope deposed in the National Archive in Prague: allegedly, it contained last words of Masaryk, and its opening became a spectacle unveiling the national myths and conventions. They also delve into the role and influence of Edvard Beneš, as well as the intellectuals with whom Masaryk eagerly debated and who simultaneously formed his intellectual support network.

A significant part of their conversation focuses on the Masaryk family — on what kind of father and husband Masaryk was, and on the crucial role played by his wife, Charlotte, an American with a strong personality.

And naturally — as always in Czechostacja — they wander into plenty of other fascinating topics along the way.