Intimacy, the Body and the Home: The Central European Context
Anton Vydra, Jaroslava Vydrová, Michal Zvarík (eds.)
Prague: Togga 2026
The book addresses the question of intimacy and how it has been approached in thought and culture in Central Europe (especially in the V4 countries). In addition to philosophical texts, it also includes contributions from other disciplines, such as literary studies, film studies, and history. The book is further illustrated with works by Maria Bartuszová.
The eleven chapters are divided into three main parts. The first part explores intimacy as depth and closeness; the second part thematizes questions of sexuality, eroticism, and corporeality; and the third part examines the relationships between the inner and the outer, the personal and the collective.
The book is complemented by English translations of three renowned Czechoslovak authors (published here in English for the first time). These include texts by Jan Patočka (a short text discussing the “dark layers of our being” into which philosophical thinking enters), Petr Rezek (an essay/lecture on the phenomenology of sexuality), and Milan Šimečka (in this case, two texts from The Circular Defense, dealing with large and small histories and the nature of uncertain reality).
The book includes a foreword by the Lithuanian philosopher Saulius Geniusas, who teaches at a university in Hong Kong.
The contributing authors are Jan Frei, Jaroslava Vydrová, Wojciech Starzyński, Robin Pech, Adam Bžoch, Jana Juhásová, Romana Javorčeková, Miloš Ševčík, Michal Zvarík, Anton Vydra, and Peter Kyslan.
