Stories of Resilience

We warmly invite you to the next meeting of the Womenpedie project. As part of the "Women's Work" cycle, we have prepared a salon-style discussion event titled Stories of Resilience for you.

We will be discussing the stories of women who are as fragile, vulnerable, and ordinary as all of us. However, their life journeys can serve as support and inspiration, as they are just as extraordinary as ours.

At the meeting with philosopher Alice Koubová and Adriana Světlíková, director of the cultural service organization Nová síť, we will ask a series of questions together:

• What is resilience?
• What new perspectives does it allow us to see?
• Is resilience a question of strength? Are we born with it, or can it be developed?
• Is it an individual trait, or does it always relate to the environment in which we live?
• What is a manifestation of resilience, and what is not? Can resilience be misused and explained against its own purpose?
• How does resilience relate to a network of interconnected relationships? And how does it connect with resilience, for example, in caregiving?

And, of course, we wouldn’t be us if we didn’t ask: where do women stand in all of this? Where and why do they appear in society, and how does that relate to resilience? Where do they feel good, and where do they succeed or not? Can seemingly opposite concepts like radical empathy and effective leadership be connected? And what is the situation for women in the cultural sector?

Alice Koubová is a Czech philosopher working at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences, where she leads the Resilience Systems project within the SYRI Institute. Since 2003, she has also been active at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts, where she served as the vice-dean for science and research from 2021 to 2024. She was also an ethical mediator in connection with the Ne!musíš to vydržet initiative. Her research focuses on performative philosophy, artistic research, and political psychology. She is one of the authors of the documentary publication Odolná společnost, which was nominated for the Best Documentary Book of 2024.

Adriana Světlíková is the director of Nová síť, where she has also worked for fifteen years as a consultant in the field of live arts. She co-initiated several cultural projects, including the Czech Theatre DNA Awards, the Culture Get-Together conference, programs supporting residency stays such as ART-IN-RES, the Czech Dance Showcase in Edinburgh, and many others. She is a member of grant committees and works as an external university lecturer. She graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy at Charles University (Cultural Studies) and led the NABLÍZKO theatre, where she was involved in the creation of the first shadow interpreting into sign language. Her main area of interest is networking and changing social climate through culture. However, her greatest joy is being the mother of two daughters (18 and 16 years old) and relaxing in the countryside with her chickens. She is one of the 15 respondents in the documentary book Odolná společnost.

Get to know the book Odolná společnost, which inspired us to organize this meeting. The book is open access and permanently unlocked.

Admission is free. You are welcome to bring your children, as childcare will be provided.

The debate is part of the Women's Work series within the WOMENPEDIA project and the cultural and artistic program of České Budějovice 2028 - European Capital of Culture.