by Markéta Křížová, Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Arts, Centre for Ibero-American Studies

Ethnographic shows/human zoos were quasi-ethnographic enterprises popular in the second half of the 19th and in the first decades of the 20th century, involving the presentation of living members of non-European cultures to European audiences. Deeply problematic from present day perspective, they left important legacies in the public spaces, in the museum collections, and in the way racial science was developed in European academia. The lecture will present these shows in the broader context of European modernity and overseas expansion, but also will indicate the specificities for the region of Central Europe, where the absence of direct colonial entanglement provoked an increased interest in alternative ways of coloniality.

Markéta Křížová studied history and anthropology at Charles University, and has been teaching there ever since receiving her Ph.D. in Ibero-American Studies in 2002. Her main interests are: Early Modern intellectual history, European overseas expansion, colonial history of America, migrations and cultural encounters and competitions. Her doctoral dissertation Ideal city in the wilderness: missionary projects of the Society of Jesus and Moravian Church in colonial America, focused on the mission as art of the „utopian“ stream of European thinking of this period, was published in Prague in 2004; her habilitation The strength and sinews of this western world…: African slavery, American colonies and the effort for reform of European society in the Early Modern Era, Prague 2008, studied the problem of slavery in various American colonies and especially its connection with the notion of “freedom” in the European intellectual discourse of 17th and 18th centuries. She is currently working on a project exploring the beginnings of Central European scientific interest in history and culture of America (end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century) within the broader context of nationalist competitions in the region.

Friday 13th November 2026, 2pm-4pm

Salle de réception
Bâtiment DE1 - Niveau 3 - Salle R.3.105
Avenue Antoine Depage 1
1050 Ixelles, Bruxelles

Free entrance

Contact : petra.james@ulb.be