Media and Announcements

The seminar Identity Politics and Democratic Backsliding in Southeast Asia and Beyond, held at the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) on 16 October, brought together scholars working on contemporary political developments in Southeast Asia and beyond. ...

We invite you to join the online seminar Making the Private Public: Private Archives and Their Public Lives, which will explore how personal archives, family photographs, diaries, cookbooks, and other forms of private creative expression become part of our shared cultural heritage. ...

A new article by our colleague Ahmad Azizy examines the career of Mūsā Gul, a Jewish merchant from Herat, to understand how Afghanistan’s economic modernisation in the first half of the twentieth century transformed the commercial position of Jewish merchants. ...

The Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, with the support of the Strategie AV21 programme, cordially invites you to a seminar exploring the role of identity politics, religious and ethnic mobilisation, and nationalist rhetoric in contemporary Southeast Asia. ...

The ancient geographical names Pontos Axeinos and Pontos Euxeinos – conventionally rendered as the “Inhospitable” and the “Hospitable Sea” – capture a tension that has remained central to the history of the Black Sea region. ...

We are delighted that our colleague Bronislav Ostřanský has won the award in the category Translation of Scholarly and Popular Science Works as part of the 18th edition of the Academia Publishing House Awards. ...

Kevin L. Schwartz & Ameem Lutfi (LUMS) write about the long shadow of 9/11 and the Global War on Terror in Pakistan 25 years later in an article for HUM News. https://humenglish.com/latest/25-years-on-the-long-term-legacy-of-9-11-and-the-war-on-terror-for-pakistan/

The Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences invites you to the workshop Histories of Political Violence in Modern South Asia, bringing together scholars working on histories, practices, and legacies of political violence in modern South Asia. ...

One-day academic workshop hosted by CEFRES (French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences, Prague) and co-organised by Dilnur Reyhan, Shaivya Mishra, and Zbyněk Mucha (Oriental Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences). ...

Don’t miss the upcoming international workshop, taking place in Prague on 27–28 August 2026! The event brings together scholars exploring the Black Sea region as a dynamic space of local agency, mobility, and cross-cultural interaction, with discussions focusing on transcultural contact zones, ...