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Journey of Mantra from India to the Czech Republic: Contribution to Ethnography of Music and Globalization
Seidlová, Veronika ; Jurková, Zuzana (advisor) ; Stavělová, Daniela (referee) ; Matoušek, Vlastislav (referee)
This PhD thesis is a multi-sited ethnographical study (Marcus 1995) of globalized world through focusing on the social life (Appadurai 1986) of one of the well-known Vedic mantras (the Gayatri Mantra) as a globalized phenomenon and a commodity. Chanting of mantras (Hindu sacred chants in Vedic Sanskrit; pronunciation, intonation and rhythm of which is prohibited to change in the Brahmanic discourse) which had been a local cultural practice, has become a globally known phenomenon. During the globalizing process of their cultural transmission from India to the West and later to the Czech Republic, the mantras have gained new sound forms, new social and cultural contexts, new functions and new meanings. Contemporary cultural productions of mantras are a thick example how the present inter-continental connectedness works in everyday life, music and in the relationship to the Sacred. Selected places on this trajectory will be sites of the fieldwork. The project will research, how the transmission process happens, what music forms it takes, and what meanings are attached to them by their agents.
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"Musicians or Curiosities?" Czechoslovak All-Girl Band Satanic Girls
Svobodová, Eliška ; Havelková, Tereza (advisor) ; Seidlová, Veronika (referee)
The thesis deals with the Czechoslovakian all-girl band Satanic Girls (in South America performing under the name Las Satánicas), which performed in exile since August 1968. The author, using music and anthropological approaches based on the analysis of interviews (conducted in the period February 2013 - March 2014), press articles, photos, videos and archival materials, describes, analyses and interprets the history of the band. Doing so, the main emphasis is being put on the processes of negotiation. Setting out the thematic line "women - musicians - emigrants", the text observes how the emigration and the constant extreme changes in the cultural environment as well as the managers influenced the musical and visual style of the band. One of the central themes is a permanent, involuntary (and sometimes unconscious) oscillation of the band between being presented as the musicians or as the sexual attractions.
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The Czechs play the "balkan music": research on stereotypes of Czech musicians
Libánská, Alena ; Jurková, Zuzana (advisor) ; Seidlová, Veronika (referee)
The thesis deals with the Czech community of musicians who play so-called "Balkan music". The research deals with those coming originally from the Czech Republic and who do not have any obvious links to the Balkan peninsula. The emphasis is put on their stereotypical notion about Balkans. The content of the music works they produce and the way how are performed are considered as the key moments how the musicians express their feelings and visions about Balkan. The most of the thesis originates from my personal experience with the "Balkan music" in the Czech environment and from my participation in the Džezvica band. This band is also utilized as an reference model of the "western idea"about the Balkan. The work comprises of both theoretical part denoting the stereotypization and balkanism and the field research carried out during years 2010-2012 in Prague. As an integral part follows the analysis of semi-structured interviews with selected musicians on the (general) topic "balkan music". As the main outcome, the thesis captures and analyses whether we can evaluate the "czech balkanism" with the balkanism and if and how are such musicians' concepts being made.
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Who SIngs Jewish? Voice as a Vehicle of Performing Jewish Identities in Prague Synagogues and Prayer Rooms
Seidlová, Veronika ; Jurková, Zuzana (advisor) ; Fontánová, Anna (referee)
The aim of this mainly musical anthropology research is to describe, analyze and to interpret the process of searching for Jewish identity through the changes of Jewish religious music in Prague and through the positions taken by its participants . During the last centuries, the Jewish ritual music has gone through changes which have been depending on what did it mean to be a Jew at that time - what did the actors want to be and how did they fullfil this idea through the performance. Especially striking change happened to the synagogue music in Prague during the post-Socialist period. Attention is paid to the social-historical context of different types of ritual music design, to the period aesthetic ideals and to the conflicts about what is the real Jewish music performance. All these phenomenons show the deeper social negotiation of the community members about the poignant question, how to be a right Jew and how to integrate the components of one's identity at the same time. The ethos of the particular time periods are also demonstrated by personal histories of some Prague synagogue singers leading the worship (the so-called chazanim or cantors). The research combines the qualitative ethnographic attitudes of social and historical anthropology and anthropology of music.
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