On June 12–15, 2024, Magdalena Bubík, the PhD candidate working in our project, participated in the international conference “Remembrance, Religion, and Secularity in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond”, organized by the Visegrad Fund, which brings together scholars from Central and Eastern Europe. The event, held in Warsaw, began with a masterclass, i.e. a block devoted to presentations of doctoral projects.
Magdalena, in the panel entitled “Religious Materiality”, presented her research, illustrating it with the example of an altar painting of Jesus from a formerly German Protestant church in Liberec (German Reichenberg) in northern Bohemia. She showed what the picture can tell us about the past and present inhabitants of this post-displacement region, based on the afterlife of this particular object, tracing its fate after the church was blown up in 1976. The presentation was followed by a commentary by a specialist, which in Magdalena’s case was mgr. Barbora Spálová, Ph.D, a Czech ethnologist and social anthropologist, working at the Institute of Sociological Studies at Charles University in Prague, Czechia. Later, the young researchers had the opportunity to reflect together and discuss how they could improve their research.
All doctoral students were also invited to participate in the second part of the event, the conference of the same name. Researchers from different parts of the world came together to discuss topics related to memory, religion, and secularization. Magdalena especially cherished the possibility of comparing the results of the research between the different European countries, as well as taking part in a post-secular memory walk on the streets of Warsaw.
