The celebrations of the Comenius anniversaries in 1892 and 1920 were an important element in the ... more The celebrations of the Comenius anniversaries in 1892 and 1920 were an important element in the formation of the political culture in the Czech lands, particularly in view of the way they reflected the symbolic creation of the collective spirit of the Nation and State. Based on an analysis of the festive discourse, I conclude that in the new state no answer was found to the basic question of how the independence of the Czechoslovak state was “regained” in Masarykʼs day after the Czech Nationʼs loss of independence during Comeniusʼs time.10611
In this article author suggests new possibilities in studying modern festivities based on thoroug... more In this article author suggests new possibilities in studying modern festivities based on thoroughreview of existing literature. His goal is to review and confront three disciplinary discourses thatconceptualized social practices related to festive cultures. First, theories of ritual in social and culturalanthropology are analysed and assessed in relation to modern festivities. Second, the conceptsof custom and habit used in the European ethnology, especially Central European tradition of Volkskunde(including Czech národopis), are presented and considered for research of modern festivities.Third, historical discourse about modern festivities is presented and theoretical challenges relatedto the historical perspective are introduced. On these grounds author proposes a conceptual frameworkbased on performance studies that both reflects advantages of former three disciplinarydiscourses and overcomes their disadvantages. Finally, a set of new and innovative research questionsis suggeste...
The Czech research evaluation policy was rooted in an instrumental paradigm of policy process and... more The Czech research evaluation policy was rooted in an instrumental paradigm of policy process and evidence embodied in metrics-based cost-benefit logic. But this framework disintegrated when confronted with actual institutional interests. Based on the ethnography of university departments, this study shows how academics challenged the notion of evidence for evaluation. It is argued that research policy should be studied as an arena of conflicting group and individual interests, where policy process is regarded as a contested meaning-making process rather than a rational-technical one. It is demonstrated that the role of evidence in research evaluation policies is situational according to the knowledge regimes of the academic communities involved.
Twelve historians and social scientists reflect on Miroslav Hroch's contributions to the ... more Twelve historians and social scientists reflect on Miroslav Hroch's contributions to the field of nationalism studies. There are essays on his pioneering comparative historical studies of 'small nation' national movements and his distinction between nationalism and national movements. Other essays focus on concepts such as those of protagonist, the three phases of national movements, the small nation and nationally relevant conflict of interest. A further set of essays explores how Hroch's approach can be extended beyond small nations, beyond Europe and into the contemporary period.
This doctoral thesis focuses on researching the festive culture of a nation and its performative ... more This doctoral thesis focuses on researching the festive culture of a nation and its performative ability to shape national self-identifications. By analysis of a variety of activities which culminated between the 1860's and the 1870's this dissertation aims to examine why the interrelation between the concept of a nation and the festive culture was so significant particularly in that historical period, and also how it affected the form and dynamics of national (Czech) self-identification
This study provides a critical introduction into and overview of the state of research on subcult... more This study provides a critical introduction into and overview of the state of research on subcultures in both the international and Czech and Slovak contexts. At the same time, it presents a seldom-used historical source – fanzines – specific in their formation out of resistance to modern institutions, which excludes them from the scope of activity of standard archival practices. Therefore, fanzines have the potential to provide information, which may not be captured in standard sources, and thus contribute to the writing of the “history from below“. As alternative media, fanzines offer, in the first place, an insight into the opinions of their creators and reflect events within certain communities, scenes, or subcultures. But at the same time, they serve as a relevant testimony to the societal, political, and cultural life and institutions of the time.
Poslední říjnový víkend roku 2015 organizovalo Centrum pro studium populární kul-tury (CSPK)ve sp... more Poslední říjnový víkend roku 2015 organizovalo Centrum pro studium populární kul-tury (CSPK)ve spolupráci se svými partnery ze zemí V4, tj. Univerzity Karlovy (CZ), Národního muzea (CZ), Konstantinovy univerzity v Nitře (SK), Slovenské akademie věd (SK), Univerzity ve Varšavě (PL), a Institutu politické historie v Budapešti (M), konferenci Beyond the Café/Pub Split: Interlocking Urbanity and Rurality in the Popular Culture of East Central European Societies. Konferenci podpořily Visegrádský fond, Erste Stiftung a WUS Austria. Tradiční historický narativ utváření moderních národů ve středo-východní Ev-ropě zdůrazňoval propojení města a vesnice v kontextu národních hnutí. Přímočarý proces urbanizace v tomto regionu spoléhal na logiku propojující venkovský a měst-ský prostor. Zatímco kapitalismus i státní socialismus přivedly z venkova do urbani-zovaných center příliv venkovských migrantů, poskytoval tento proces také podněty ke vzniku mnoha uměleckých a sociálních hnutí ve městě, kter...
... View all references, 79). While in 1988 people with elementary education earned on average tw... more ... View all references, 79). While in 1988 people with elementary education earned on average two‐thirds of the salary of a person with HE, four years later in 1992 they earned on average only slightly more than a half the average HE salary (Table 7). ...
An adequate research evaluation in the SSH (and beyond) corresponds to the research practices, ma... more An adequate research evaluation in the SSH (and beyond) corresponds to the research practices, makes its policy goals explicit, involves all stakeholders, ensures diversity of evaluation practices by respecting research's local and international embeddedness, uses a broad range of explicit quality criteria adequate for the discipline(s) under evaluation, evaluates each criterion separately, is based on informed peer review combining qualitative judgement and quantitative information, respects interdisciplinarity and does not prioritise some fields over others.
The article introduces a monothematic issue of Studia Ethnologica Pragensia by positing "kut... more The article introduces a monothematic issue of Studia Ethnologica Pragensia by positing "kutilství" (a local variant of DIY) as a historically situated phenomenon and shows that despite a generally shared image of a late socialist, typically masculine handyman practice, "kutilství" has much deeper historical and cultural roots. The emergence of self-led manual activities as a response to the modernisation of society points to societal tensions that underpin "kutilství" (and DIY more broadly) since the beginning of the 20th century. The disciplination of independent production and consumption, which can be subsumed under the term "prosumption", has played an important role in relation to the formation of both State and Market, especially the segment targeting DIYers. The authors elucidate how pondering "kutilství" and DIY in general can become a starting point for scholars to understand and challenge modernist dichotomies that are tra...
n Eastern Europe, which is the focus of our study, different national scholarly traditions assign... more n Eastern Europe, which is the focus of our study, different national scholarly traditions assigned their own place to the study of culture. Although the influence of the kulturologia (“culturology”) schools installed at Russian universities in the 1980s radiated out into Eastern European countries, local academic communities dictated the approach to the study of popular culture. While the Polish field of kulturoznawstwo was propelled by internal forces from the early 1970s onwards, in Czechoslovakia, kulturologie emerged as a new discipline around the fall of the Communist regime. Even so, it failed to take off and by 2012 had vanished completely from the Czech Republic. Central European countries were also affected by the German academic tradition of Kulturwissenschaften with its emphasis on philosophy and aesthetics. Our inquiry highlights the first international conference on cultural studies in the Czech Republic in 2013. It was during this event that a group of new postdocs fr...
The celebrations of the Comenius anniversaries in 1892 and 1920 were an important element in the ... more The celebrations of the Comenius anniversaries in 1892 and 1920 were an important element in the formation of the political culture in the Czech lands, particularly in view of the way they reflected the symbolic creation of the collective spirit of the Nation and State. Based on an analysis of the festive discourse, I conclude that in the new state no answer was found to the basic question of how the independence of the Czechoslovak state was “regained” in Masarykʼs day after the Czech Nationʼs loss of independence during Comeniusʼs time.10611
In this article author suggests new possibilities in studying modern festivities based on thoroug... more In this article author suggests new possibilities in studying modern festivities based on thoroughreview of existing literature. His goal is to review and confront three disciplinary discourses thatconceptualized social practices related to festive cultures. First, theories of ritual in social and culturalanthropology are analysed and assessed in relation to modern festivities. Second, the conceptsof custom and habit used in the European ethnology, especially Central European tradition of Volkskunde(including Czech národopis), are presented and considered for research of modern festivities.Third, historical discourse about modern festivities is presented and theoretical challenges relatedto the historical perspective are introduced. On these grounds author proposes a conceptual frameworkbased on performance studies that both reflects advantages of former three disciplinarydiscourses and overcomes their disadvantages. Finally, a set of new and innovative research questionsis suggeste...
The Czech research evaluation policy was rooted in an instrumental paradigm of policy process and... more The Czech research evaluation policy was rooted in an instrumental paradigm of policy process and evidence embodied in metrics-based cost-benefit logic. But this framework disintegrated when confronted with actual institutional interests. Based on the ethnography of university departments, this study shows how academics challenged the notion of evidence for evaluation. It is argued that research policy should be studied as an arena of conflicting group and individual interests, where policy process is regarded as a contested meaning-making process rather than a rational-technical one. It is demonstrated that the role of evidence in research evaluation policies is situational according to the knowledge regimes of the academic communities involved.
Twelve historians and social scientists reflect on Miroslav Hroch's contributions to the ... more Twelve historians and social scientists reflect on Miroslav Hroch's contributions to the field of nationalism studies. There are essays on his pioneering comparative historical studies of 'small nation' national movements and his distinction between nationalism and national movements. Other essays focus on concepts such as those of protagonist, the three phases of national movements, the small nation and nationally relevant conflict of interest. A further set of essays explores how Hroch's approach can be extended beyond small nations, beyond Europe and into the contemporary period.
This doctoral thesis focuses on researching the festive culture of a nation and its performative ... more This doctoral thesis focuses on researching the festive culture of a nation and its performative ability to shape national self-identifications. By analysis of a variety of activities which culminated between the 1860's and the 1870's this dissertation aims to examine why the interrelation between the concept of a nation and the festive culture was so significant particularly in that historical period, and also how it affected the form and dynamics of national (Czech) self-identification
This study provides a critical introduction into and overview of the state of research on subcult... more This study provides a critical introduction into and overview of the state of research on subcultures in both the international and Czech and Slovak contexts. At the same time, it presents a seldom-used historical source – fanzines – specific in their formation out of resistance to modern institutions, which excludes them from the scope of activity of standard archival practices. Therefore, fanzines have the potential to provide information, which may not be captured in standard sources, and thus contribute to the writing of the “history from below“. As alternative media, fanzines offer, in the first place, an insight into the opinions of their creators and reflect events within certain communities, scenes, or subcultures. But at the same time, they serve as a relevant testimony to the societal, political, and cultural life and institutions of the time.
Poslední říjnový víkend roku 2015 organizovalo Centrum pro studium populární kul-tury (CSPK)ve sp... more Poslední říjnový víkend roku 2015 organizovalo Centrum pro studium populární kul-tury (CSPK)ve spolupráci se svými partnery ze zemí V4, tj. Univerzity Karlovy (CZ), Národního muzea (CZ), Konstantinovy univerzity v Nitře (SK), Slovenské akademie věd (SK), Univerzity ve Varšavě (PL), a Institutu politické historie v Budapešti (M), konferenci Beyond the Café/Pub Split: Interlocking Urbanity and Rurality in the Popular Culture of East Central European Societies. Konferenci podpořily Visegrádský fond, Erste Stiftung a WUS Austria. Tradiční historický narativ utváření moderních národů ve středo-východní Ev-ropě zdůrazňoval propojení města a vesnice v kontextu národních hnutí. Přímočarý proces urbanizace v tomto regionu spoléhal na logiku propojující venkovský a měst-ský prostor. Zatímco kapitalismus i státní socialismus přivedly z venkova do urbani-zovaných center příliv venkovských migrantů, poskytoval tento proces také podněty ke vzniku mnoha uměleckých a sociálních hnutí ve městě, kter...
... View all references, 79). While in 1988 people with elementary education earned on average tw... more ... View all references, 79). While in 1988 people with elementary education earned on average two‐thirds of the salary of a person with HE, four years later in 1992 they earned on average only slightly more than a half the average HE salary (Table 7). ...
An adequate research evaluation in the SSH (and beyond) corresponds to the research practices, ma... more An adequate research evaluation in the SSH (and beyond) corresponds to the research practices, makes its policy goals explicit, involves all stakeholders, ensures diversity of evaluation practices by respecting research's local and international embeddedness, uses a broad range of explicit quality criteria adequate for the discipline(s) under evaluation, evaluates each criterion separately, is based on informed peer review combining qualitative judgement and quantitative information, respects interdisciplinarity and does not prioritise some fields over others.
The article introduces a monothematic issue of Studia Ethnologica Pragensia by positing "kut... more The article introduces a monothematic issue of Studia Ethnologica Pragensia by positing "kutilství" (a local variant of DIY) as a historically situated phenomenon and shows that despite a generally shared image of a late socialist, typically masculine handyman practice, "kutilství" has much deeper historical and cultural roots. The emergence of self-led manual activities as a response to the modernisation of society points to societal tensions that underpin "kutilství" (and DIY more broadly) since the beginning of the 20th century. The disciplination of independent production and consumption, which can be subsumed under the term "prosumption", has played an important role in relation to the formation of both State and Market, especially the segment targeting DIYers. The authors elucidate how pondering "kutilství" and DIY in general can become a starting point for scholars to understand and challenge modernist dichotomies that are tra...
n Eastern Europe, which is the focus of our study, different national scholarly traditions assign... more n Eastern Europe, which is the focus of our study, different national scholarly traditions assigned their own place to the study of culture. Although the influence of the kulturologia (“culturology”) schools installed at Russian universities in the 1980s radiated out into Eastern European countries, local academic communities dictated the approach to the study of popular culture. While the Polish field of kulturoznawstwo was propelled by internal forces from the early 1970s onwards, in Czechoslovakia, kulturologie emerged as a new discipline around the fall of the Communist regime. Even so, it failed to take off and by 2012 had vanished completely from the Czech Republic. Central European countries were also affected by the German academic tradition of Kulturwissenschaften with its emphasis on philosophy and aesthetics. Our inquiry highlights the first international conference on cultural studies in the Czech Republic in 2013. It was during this event that a group of new postdocs fr...
Call for paper for SIEF2019 14th Congress (Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 14-17 April 2019)
Deadl... more Call for paper for SIEF2019 14th Congress (Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 14-17 April 2019) Deadline for proposals: 15 Oct 2019
The panel seeks empirical studies and theoretical contributions tracking changes to do-it-yourself (DIY) and exploring the ways in which wider societal transformations reflect and are reflected in the transformations of DIY in terms of practices, produced materialities and their effects on meanings.
Call for papers for the16th EASA Biennial Conference
Do-It-Yourself in Europe across East/West and North/South divides
Material culture of (post)socia... more Do-It-Yourself in Europe across East/West and North/South divides Material culture of (post)socialist and capitalist presumption panel P085
The panel focuses on the material culture of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and what it can tell us about the changes societies in Europe have been undergoing since the 1980s characterised by the beginning of profound changes to both state socialism and capitalism the outcomes of which reverberate until present. Although DIY has been studied from various viewpoints, anthropological concern with material culture as a prism to understand both everyday experience and societal transformation represents an approach not fully exploited with respect to DIY. The panel seeks contributions that concentrate on the materiality of DIY and follow the things created, altered and used in DIY activities, explore practices and emotions in which they are immersed, and use these in order to generate novel understandings of the profound changes and transformations of contemporary societies. We understand DIY as encompassing complex self-led manual projects as well as minor work and repairs which are carried out in one´s free time, but which comprise also extended networks of people, e. g. families, groups of neighbours, hobbyists and activists. We want to ask how these relations enter material ecologies of things and how they shape politics of private, semi-public and public space. On this ground, we want to explore and compare the divides between the East and the West shaped by the legacies of the Iron Curtain as well as the divides between the North and the South informed by the last economic crisis and ensuing austerity policies.
The Call for Papers is now open and closes at 23:59 GMT/WEST on 20 January 2020.
Uploads
Papers by Karel Šima
Deadline for proposals: 15 Oct 2019
The panel seeks empirical studies and theoretical contributions tracking changes to do-it-yourself (DIY) and exploring the ways in which wider societal transformations reflect and are reflected in the transformations of DIY in terms of practices, produced materialities and their effects on meanings.
Material culture of (post)socialist and capitalist presumption
panel P085
The panel focuses on the material culture of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and what it can tell us about the changes societies in Europe have been undergoing since the 1980s characterised by the beginning of profound changes to both state socialism and capitalism the outcomes of which reverberate until present. Although DIY has been studied from various viewpoints, anthropological concern with material culture as a prism to understand both everyday experience and societal transformation represents an approach not fully exploited with respect to DIY.
The panel seeks contributions that concentrate on the materiality of DIY and follow the things created, altered and used in DIY activities, explore practices and emotions in which they are immersed, and use these in order to generate novel understandings of the profound changes and transformations of contemporary societies.
We understand DIY as encompassing complex self-led manual projects as well as minor work and repairs which are carried out in one´s free time, but which comprise also extended networks of people, e. g. families, groups of neighbours, hobbyists and activists. We want to ask how these relations enter material ecologies of things and how they shape politics of private, semi-public and public space. On this ground, we want to explore and compare the divides between the East and the West shaped by the legacies of the Iron Curtain as well as the divides between the North and the South informed by the last economic crisis and ensuing austerity policies.
The Call for Papers is now open and closes at 23:59 GMT/WEST on 20 January 2020.
Submit your papers to the panel via the online submitting system available at:
https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/easa2020/p/8730
In case of any queries and questions, do not hesitate to contact panel convenors
Petr Gibas (petr.gibas@soc.cas.cz) and Karel Šima (karel.sima@ff.cuni.cz)