reConciliations: war & peace
Our talks.
in collaboration with IHEB & ULB
Coordinated by Dr Marie-Alexis Colin
19 November '26
A talk with Dr Pieter LAGROU & Dr Julien REGIBEAU
The Thirty Years' War Today
6.30 PM - 8.00 PM | chapelle des ursulines, Brussels
This opening dialogue between Pieter Lagrou and Julien Regibeau inaugurates this year's CSBF lecture series—organized in collaboration with ULB and IHEB—weaving deep connections between historical conflicts and our present day.
This conversation finds a natural echo in the festival's opening concert on Sunday, December 22, featuring InAlto and AkroPercu—a captivating encounter where chaos and order, historical music and contemporary sounds seamlessly merge.
Pieter Lagrou is Full Professor of Contemporary History at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and a researcher at the Maison des Sciences Humaines. A specialist in the political and social history of the 20th century, his research focuses on collective memory, World War II, mass violence, democratic transitions, and transitional justice in Europe. After earning his PhD at the European University Institute in Florence (EUI), he held teaching and research positions at prestigious international institutions, including Sciences Po Paris, EHESS, and Yale University. He is the author of numerous seminal publications, including The Legacy of Nazi Occupation: Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1945–1965 (Cambridge University Press).
Julien Régibeau is a historian and professor in the Department of History at the University of Liège (ULiège). His research focuses on the history of international relations and the history of power during the early modern period, with particular emphasis on papal diplomacy, multiconfessional Europe, diplomatic mediation, and the urban history of modern civil wars.
26 November '26
A talk with Dr Jessica RODA
Memory & Exile
6.30 pm - 7.30 pm | chapelle des ursulines, Brussels
This lecture explores Sephardic music as a site of memory, exile, and transmission. Following their expulsion from Spain and Portugal in the late 15th century, Sephardic Jewish communities across the Mediterranean developed musical practices that combined Iberian, Judeo-Spanish, and Arabic heritage. The political upheavals of the 20th century, decolonization, and new population displacements profoundly transformed the presence of these communities and the significance of their musical repertoires. Drawing from songs in Judeo-Spanish and Arabic, this presentation examines how this music reflects exile, attachment to former homelands, and histories of coexistence between Jews and Muslims. It also considers its contemporary role in dialogue, transmission, and heritage tourism, without ignoring the wounds and power imbalances associated with the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, Israel, and Palestine.
Jessica Roda is an Associate Professor of Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. As an anthropologist and ethnomusicologist, her research examines the intersections of music, religion, gender, media, and globalized healing practices. Trained across Europe and North America, she has authored over twenty articles, two monographs, and edited several collective volumes.
Her first monograph, Se réinventer au présent (PUR, 2018), investigates the socio-political dimensions of Judeo-Spanish musical practices in France. Her award-winning second book, For Women and Girls Only (NYU Press, 2024), explores how ultra-Orthodox and formerly religious Jewish women leverage performance and digital platforms to reshape religious norms. Her current research analyzes altered states of consciousness, breathwork, and psychedelics within Jewish theology and practice.
Roda has held visiting positions at major institutions worldwide, including Columbia, UCLA, McGill, and UPenn, and her public scholarship is widely featured across international media such as the BBC, France Culture, and The Conversation. Also a trained flutist, pianist, and modern jazz dancer from the Paris Conservatory, her personal and intellectual outlook is deeply informed by growing up in French Guiana.
3 December '26
A talk with Cecilia Paredes
War in the Time of Charles V
6.30 pm - 7.30 PM | CHAPELLE DES URSULINES, BRUSSELS
During the Renaissance, warfare was omnipresent. Waging war was an attribute of princely power, closely linked to honor, glory, religion, or dynastic rights.
The realm of war resonated and was staged within spaces representing power. Precious, ceremonial, and prestige objects—as well as decorative programs designed to exalt the prince's authority—echoed military feats. Inventories, surviving works of art, and chroniclers' accounts reveal a diverse array of forms and expressions across a wide spectrum of media, including paintings, frescoes, engravings, and tapestries. This paper aims to provide an overview of the forms, subjects, and narrative modalities of military representations within court decor.
Cecilia Paredes is an architect and holds a PhD in Philosophy and Letters from the Université libre de Bruxelles.
Her research focuses primarily on the study of tapestries and princely decoration in the early modern period within their artistic and cultural context. Her contributions favor a cross-disciplinary approach, engaging with the cultural, symbolic, and material aspects of art objects. Furthermore, she is also involved in broader research on Brussels, covering its artistic and cultural history, urban history, and representations. Her interest in representations of war during the Renaissance stems from an in-depth study she dedicated to the tapestries of the Battle of Pavia.
With the support of
