is a Permanent Fellow of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) and Head of the Institute’s Jan Patočka Archive.
Jan Patočka’s underground writing on human rights cemented his involvement in Charter 77. But the Czech philosopher’s resistance against communist oppression, written in secret, needed Krzysztof Michalski and his youthful conviction to surface. Tracking the months before Patočka’s post-interrogation death reveals how individual and collective suffering and compassion marked the movement.
Ágnes Heller transformed a troubled life: ‘I lived through terrible things. But I had to understand them. […] Philosophers do not despair.’ Shalini Randeria and Ludger Hagedorn honour her legacy on her birthday.
Interviewed by Ludger Hagedorn, Czech political scientist Pavel Barša makes the case for a balance between the ideals of liberalism and collective sovereignty. Barša argues that individual freedom and civil solidarity are not possible without collective re-distribution and social solidarity, in his response to Timothy Snyder’s book ‘The Road to Unfreedom’.
