Doctoral seminar 2025-2026 IDEM: Identities, memories and creations: minorities (ethnic, religious, gendered, sexual) in the Eurasian space

Doctoral seminar 2025-2026 IDEM: Identities, memories and creations: minorities (ethnic, confessional, gendered, sexual) in the Eurasian space, coordinated by Dominique Samson and Olga Blinova.

Seminar description

Our societies are still largely heirs to norms and values produced by a dominant order, notably religious or political, claiming universality. History, literature and the arts, and gender have often been the work of the "civilizer" anxious to perpetuate a world that resembles it, to the exclusion of all others, which must be denounced, hidden or eradicated. For several decades now, the emergence of "minorities" in the public arena - and therefore of new fields of study - has challenged societal models and assigned roles. As a result, these groups or communities are proving to be a challenge for governments and public opinion alike. In addition to the difficulty of defining a minority, whose recognition may also imply specific rights, do the members of these minorities themselves identify themselves as such?

At a time when many powers are retreating to what they call "traditional values" in the face of shifting identities in society and art alike, diversity is once again emerging as a threat to political stability and social cohesion. At this transdisciplinary doctoral seminar, the challenge is to analyze how "minoritized" and marginalized human groups (from colonization through repression to erasure) construct and evolve.

Seminar program

- Wednesday, October 15, 2025 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm by videoconference (Zoom link coming soon).

• Abel Delattre (doctoral student in art history, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), "Les artistes polonaises au Musée national d'art moderne (1947-1974)",
• Le/la discutant(e) : reste à définir

- Wednesday November 19, 2025 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm in Room 6.05 at the Pôle des Langues et Civilisations, 65 rue des Grands Moulins Paris 13^ème and by videoconference (Zoom link to come).

• Alia Catherine Satterfield (PhD student, CREE, Inalco), "La révolution de l'écrit chez les Khanty de Sibérie (1920-1950)",
• Discussant: to be defined.

- Wednesday, January 21, 2026 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm in Room 6.05 at the Pôle des Langues et Civilisations, 65 rue des Grands Moulins Paris 13^ème and by videoconference (Zoom link coming soon).

• Mélanie Sadozaï (post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Interdisciplinary and Multiscalar Areal Studies (DIMAS) at the University of Regensburg, Germany), "Les Ismaéliens du Pamir : une minorité au croisement de frontières internationales ",
• The discussant: Sophie Hohmann (maîtresse de conférences, CREE, Inalco).

- Wednesday, February 25, 2026 from 5pm to 7pm in Room 6.05 at the Pôle des Langues et Civilisations, 65 rue des Grands Moulins Paris 13^ème and by videoconference (Zoom link coming soon).

• Eric Le Bourhis (lecturer in Latvian language, literature and culture, CREE, Inalco) & Antoine Chalvin (university professor in Estonian and Finnish languages and literatures, CREE, Inalco), "Estonian-Latvian literary exchanges before 1940: translations and translators between two "peripheral" literatures".

- Wednesday, March 25, 2026 by videoconference (Zoom link to come).

• Anastasia Kozyreva (PhD, CREE, Inalco), topic to be defined,
• Discussant: remains to be defined.

- Wednesday May 20, 2026 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm in room 6.05 at the Pôle des Langues et Civilisations, 65 rue des Grands Moulins Paris 13^ème and by videoconference (Zoom link coming soon).

• Blandine Guyot (independent researcher, Inalco) & Michel Kefeli (IEP Paris graduate), "Les Karaïms de Crimée en France : la menace monstrueuse (1939-1945)".