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Representation of (former) African colonies in 19th and 20th century domestic travel writing
Martinek, Adam ; Novotný, Josef (advisor) ; Šarše, Vojtěch (referee)
This diploma thesis analyzes 19th and 20th Czech language travel literature from (former) African colonies. The thesis is rooted in postcolonial theory - namely Osterhammel's synthesis of colonialism as a structure and an ideology, as well as Said's theory of orientalism. A key theoretical aspect of this work is Sarah Lemmen's updated notion of noncolonial orientalism, which arose out of her empirical work on Czech/Czechoslovak travel writing. Lemmen's concept addresses the specific standing of the Czech traveler vis-à-vis the colony, as they were not a representative of any world power, yet still exhibited orientalist views on colonies and the colonized. This work also pays special attention to the influence of socialist ideology on travel literature published between the years 1948 and 1989. The research questions which this work aims to answer are as follows: a) how is colonialism represented in Czech travel literature?, b) how is decolonization represented?, c) how do these travelogues portray Africans and their relationship to Europeans? These questions aim at understanding the authors' relationship with colonialism and orientalism as both ideology and practice which they encountered in Africa. The thesis consists of an analysis of nineteen of potential fifty-eight travelogues written by...
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Religious Experiences Induced by LARPing
Martinek, Adam ; Beláňová, Andrea (advisor) ; Hrabec, Ondřej (referee)
This bachelor's thesis is concerned mainly with experiences of live action role-playing games players, who have, during the course of such games, played characters related to religion. The aim of this qualitative study was to first and foremost discover and describe if and when do play induced religious experiences arise. The thesis is theoretically based on those currents of psychology of religion which hold religion to be a socially constructed phenomenon, that can be, albeit possessing certain cognitive specificities, studied through standard methods, mainly those which are inductive in their reasoning. This view is held chiefly because of the socially constructed nature of religion and the absence of a definitive explanatory theory of religion. To answer my research questions, ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with different participants, during which I respected the participant's own perception of the religiosity of their play experience. These interviews were analysed through the lens of grounded theory, the aim of the analysis was to describe circumstances of the emergence of game-specific experiences, their contents with regard to the religious theme of the game(s) and their possible effects on players' lives outside the game(s). The results of the study are discussed in light...
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