💬 We invite you to a discussion with Alice Koubova and Bogdan Popa, where you will have the opportunity to reflect on how ideas of resilience, performativity, and ethical culture can reshape our understanding of progress and the conditions for a livable life.

🌍 In a time when the pursuit of progress and productivity often overshadows the question of what makes life genuinely livable, Alice Koubova invites us to rethink the very foundations of modern existence. A philosopher and interdisciplinary researcher, based at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences and lecturer at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Koubova bridges theory and artistic practice to explore how concepts such as resilience, ethical culture, and performativity can shape both individual and collective life. Her lecture, From Fetish of Progress to Livable Life, traces the modern paradox whereby the promise of “doing better” and “having more” has led to exhaustion and loss—psychologically, socially, and politically. Drawing from psychology, ecology, and political theory, Koubova proposes a reorientation from the ideology of progress toward forms of resilience that foster care, connection, and the conditions for a truly livable life.

🌀 This autumn, Alice Koubova will take part in a series of public discussions in Brașov, Bucharest, and Iași, engaging with Romanian scholars and audiences in conversations about the cultural, political, and ethical implications of resilience in our time.

🎓 In Brașov, Alice will discuss with Bogdan Popa, Associate Professor teaching in the American Studies program at the Faculty of Letters, Transilvania University of Brașov. He has also taught and conducted research at Oberlin College (Ohio), the University of Cambridge (UK), and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is the author of, among others, Shame: A Genealogy of Queer Practices in the Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh University Press, 2017) and De-centering Queer Theory: Communist Sexuality in the Flow During and After the Cold War (Manchester University Press, 2021).

🤝 The event is organized by the Czech Centre Bucharest and the Faculty of Letters, Transilvania University of Brașov, with the support of the Embassy of the Czech Republic. Participation is free, and the discussion will be held in English.

📍 Location: Facultatea de Litere a Universității Transilvania din Brașov, sala TP8 (Bd. Eroilor 25, Brașov).

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