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Gastronauts of Eastern Europe: Experiencing and Digesting Luxury Gastronomy in the Czech Republic
Hajdáková, Iveta ; Abu Ghosh, Yasar (advisor) ; Balon, Jan (referee) ; Eyal, Gil (referee)
This dissertation is based on a research of luxury gastronomy conducted in two luxury restaurants in Prague. The main focus of analysis is on gastronomic experience as an affective commodity and a vehicle of social, economic and political transformation. The study examines how affect is produced, commodified and how value is generated in luxury "experiential gastronomy." It also analyzes the role of affect in transformation of individuals, the society, consumption practices, entrepreneurial practices, and labor. It shows how experts on gastronomy educate the public on appropriate consumption practices and eating habits. Eating and dining serve as "technologies of the self" (Rose 2004) through which individual and social health and well-being are achieved. Cultivated affect becomes a vehicle of the "purification from socialism" (Eyal 2003) and also plays an important part on the formation of ethical consumer and citizen (Muehlebach 2011). Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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Zionist without Zeal: Imagination and Performance of Transnational Belonging
Pokorná, Anna ; Ezzeddine, Petra (advisor) ; Halbich, Marek (referee) ; Szaló, Csaba (referee)
This dissertation based on a fieldwork conducted among Czech Jewish youth during a ten-days educational touristic program Taglit-Birthright explores production of transnational space of mutual belonging. The transnational belonging to Jewish collective is produced through particular physical space of Israel through practice of tourism in collective constructed by the programme as a collective of common origin based on "blood ties". I examine participants' tourist bodily experience, performances, emotions and attitudes as a site of production and reproduction of transnational space using a concept of embodiment as ways in which the individual grasps the world around him/her and makes sense of it in ways that engage both body and mind. Transnational space created throughout the programme becomes socially constructed emotional category of "ahavat Israel", "love for Israel" that might conceal its political implications. Keywords: Transnationalism, diaspora, tourism, embodiment, Jewish youth, Taglit-Birthright, Czech Republic, Israel
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No Grain, No Gain: Vegan Athletes' Self-Perception of Corporeality
Rutová, Simona ; Grygar, Jakub (advisor) ; Orcígr, Václav (referee)
This thesis deals with the corporeality of vegan athletes. It aims to clarify how the members of a specific vegan athlete community perceive their corporeality. It also describes the corporeality shaping process and how the process is affected by the community and by the shared body practices - mainly vegan diet and sports activities. The main concepts concerning this issue are habitus, embodiment, and the mindful body. This thesis's key ideas derive from Merleau-Ponty's views on corporeality, Csordas' embodiment, and Scheper-Hughes's and Lock's mindful body, which provided an analytical framework for this research. The research highlighted the importance of a strong community, which vegan athletes build. They can then act on the bodies of the community members and thus make bodies presenting veganism as sufficient. It is a sport that plays a crucial role in this, as it keeps bodies healthy and makes them strong. Sport thus functions as a defense for their practices, which are in the community's eyes the right way of living and respond to the current environmental crisis and immoral abuse of animals. It is the effort to defend and present veganism as sufficient that influences the practices shared in the researched community. These practices subsequently affect the formation and perception of the...
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Flow Arts: Flow state as a trance practice in western societies
Mikešová, Eva ; Spalová, Barbora (advisor) ; Sedláčková, Tereza (referee)
My bachelor thesis is mainly focused on Flow Arts phenomenon and so-called flow state, which is induced by these practices. The goal is to detect not only individual experiences of flow artists, but also the processes influencing the flow state. To achieve this goal, I use the analysis of field diary and nine biographic interviews. I consider the flow state to be an altered state of consciousness and in dialogue with study of neo-shamanic practice (Horská 2017) I try to do a complex analysis of the dynamics of the flow state and the partial aspects of the flow arts practices. This analysis focuses on the key processes (learning process & automation of the body movement process) related to induction of the flow state, where consciousness plays the key role. These processes allow mastering techniques of the body (Mauss 1968) and are necessary for inducing the flow state. Therefore, the main subject of this analysis are these two key aspects of flow arts - body and physicality. Also, my analysis focuses on the structures that are formed alongside the flow arts practices. I suggest to call these structures "interest network" or "community of interest" as they represent a place to share any knowledge or skill, which is important for learning the body techniques.
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Origins of intentionality and Husserl's late thinking
Zelenka, Jiří ; Novotný, Karel (advisor) ; Zika, Richard (referee)
This work aims to pursue the roots and sources of intentionality. Intentional structure of consciousness is the very core of Edmund Husserl's phenomenology and plays the main role since his Logical investigations. The problem of intentionality is complicated and complex and resonates through the Husserl lifelong work Our starting point is Husserl's late work Erfahrung und Urteil. The reason why we choose this work is twofold. First, this work shows the thoughts which result from the life long investigation of problematics. And the second reason is, this work hasn't been the subject of examination as much as Husserl's earlier works so far. The key to our work is the perspective in which every phenomenon shows. That's the reason, why we follow intentionality in three perspectives, which gradually uncovers itselves. The first perspective is the descent from acts of judgment to the original layers of intentionality. This brings us to the second perspective, which is the instinctive intentionality. This is the subject of following part of our work. The exposing of instinctive intentionality underlines the role of embodiment. The importance of embodiment in regard to intentionality is the final perspective. We investigate this with help of Maurice Merleau-Ponty Phenomenology of perception. This will...
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Light in the palm: An anthropological study of the Reiki phenomenon
Proboštová, Jana ; Spalová, Barbora (advisor) ; Grygar, Jakub (referee)
The interest of anthropology of religion often focuses on the view of life and values of practitioners of a religion or spiritual system and the following text is put into the same context. This master thesis deals with the Reiki phenomenon - originally eastern spiritual technique that was, just like other similar philosophical-spiritual systems, spread out in America and Europe in the second half of twentieth century. Reiki has another distinct feature, besides spirituality. It is its affiliation to so called healing systems because of which I do not consider it purely spiritual system, but rather specific spiritual praxis with healing aspect that is historically connected with medical environment. I base my theory not only on anthropology of religion, but I also think in terms of medical anthropology and the theory of embodiment. Through explaining of basic Reiki principles, I am showing that the world of Reiki practitioners is to a certain extent divided. The evolution of the teaching led to many significantly different modifications and to current state, where these modifications coexist and make one single definition of the teaching very difficult. The perspective of embodiment allows me to focus more in detail on the healing praxis itself and its most important aspect - the body, which I see...
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Gender aspects of body and corporeality of female downhill longboard riders
Víznerová, Petra ; Kolářová, Kateřina (advisor) ; Šlesingerová, Eva (referee)
Focusing on girls who compete in downhill longboarding, this thesis examines how women are pushed to display typically "male" characteristics in order to succeed. With contemporary western society viewing attributes such as speed, being competitive, overcoming fear and coping with pain as typically masculine traits, the main research goal of this inquiry is to find out how female riders cope with maintaining their femininity in the masculinized world of downhill longboarding. The main focus is on observing how female riders cope with being a good rider and being feminine at the same time, primarily through the way this double-faced pressure is projected in the bodies of female downhill longboarders.The theoretical part of this thesis is mainly focused on a sport as a gendered/masculinized field and the ideal form of the body constructed by the sociocultural pressure and instructions which are associated with it. The analytical part of this thesis is focused on the experiences of Czech female downhillers and the way in which they negotiate their femininity/masculinity, perceived or otherwise, and how the gender order is projected onto their bodies. This thesis aims to reveal the ambivalences caused by the pressure to women to maintain the hegemonic femininity and be masculinized competitive sport...
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Body, physicality and identity in Fight club novel
Alferyová, Jana ; Heczková, Libuše (advisor) ; Šebek, Josef (referee)
This thesis examines the issues of body, embodiment and indentity in relation to the novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. The duality between speech and embodiment is explored in depth, both in the story of the novel and in the author's narrative style. Furthermore, the issue of power in relation to the society as well as towards one's own identity is discussed.
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The role of the body in acquiring skills
Adámková, Anna ; Ivan, Michal (advisor) ; Charvát, Martin (referee)
The main topic of the master thesis is the exploration of a process of learning and acquitision of skills. In fact these processes are the important parts of a human life indeed. The issue of this topic is being considered through a different but certainly related topic - the rules and their function. The first part of this thesis consists of the analyses of several points of view on the topic of rules as a whole. The introduction of the thesis is supplemented with the theory of S. Blackmore speaking about the meaning of mems in our lifes. After the first part, where the work of J. Peregrin "A Man and rules" is analised, the other bigger charter begins with the analysis of M. Merleau-Ponty point of view on a human body and embodiment - the essence of a human being. In fact the studies of S. Curtiss and A. S. Benzaquen are the sources of the particular cases that are closely connected with the topic of the previous chapters of the thesis and that close the thesis.
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