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Cold War Technopolitics: Czechoslovak Hydroexpertise in Africa
Mazanec, Jakub ; Janáč, Jiří (advisor) ; Miescher, Stephan (referee) ; Schulze, Frederik (referee)
Ghana, Guinea, Egypt, Algeria, Zambia, Ethiopia, and many other African countries; that is exactly where you can find great water works, machines, hydrological maps, plans, or the imaginary "footprints" of hydro experts from Czechoslovakia dwelling here especially before 1989. How is such a thing possible in a landlocked, central European country without a colonial history? The decolonisation of Africa, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, gave rise to a number of new states. These countries, until recently completely dependent politically and economically on their colonial capitals, were now looking for the most appropriate political, economic, and social model for their future direction. As part of full independence, they were trying to modernise their economies, which, in addition to supplementing their lack of infrastructure, meant making better use of their natural resources. The notion of a path to modernization through large-scale industrialization and the necessary electrification that went hand in hand with it made African leaders seek to make better use of the water resources their countries possessed. Given the lack of their own funds, experts and technology, the new governments were mostly dependent on cooperation with states in the Global North for water resources development. Water...
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Linguistic Identity in the English as a Lingua Franca Communication: Changing Perceptions on English Non-nativeness in the Context of an Erasmus Community of Practice
Klánová, Aneta ; Janáč, Jiří (advisor) ; Sherman, Tamah (referee) ; Sonkoly, Gábor (referee)
The standard ideology, embedded in discourses of traditional language teaching, has been found to have an influence on non-native speakers' linguistic identities. It manifests itself in their preoccupation with grammatical correctness and accent, and consequently in shaping negative self-perceptions, by focusing on the lacks in proficiency relative to the native speaker model. Some of the recent studies, however, reported contrasting findings. They reveal a weakening of this influence, which stems mainly from the current role of English as a global lingua franca. The ultimate goal of this study is to explore the English non-native students' perceptions of their English, as it served as a main shared resource for socializing within their community, in order to find whether and how this decentralization, combined with the "real life" use of English within an informal environment of an Erasmus community of practice, might impact their linguistic identities. The theoretical part of this study consists of three sections. Firstly, it provides a description of the concept of English as a lingua franca and its development. The second part explicates the relation between ELF and linguistic identity whereas the third part introduces the community of practice approach, which has been employed both as a...
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Online Communication of the Hungarian National Gallery and the National Gallery Prague: The Case Study of the Two Visegrad Alliance Member Countries' National Galleries
Tikhonova, Tatiana ; Janáč, Jiří (advisor) ; Veress, Dániel (referee)
and keywords The presentation of heritage is a central role of a museum. The growing complexity of media technologies made it possible for museums to display heritage through online media channels. Museum online strategy unites various actors, sources, and audiences. However, online communication poses a challenge for a museum to manage the online environment, dynamic and open, that confronts the nature of museum's organizational structure: institutionalized, stable, and limited by its responsibilities. The focus of the research is on the online communication of the Hungarian National Gallery and the National Gallery Prague. This thesis aims to investigate the landscape of online strategy and museum-user online interaction developed by the two Central European galleries. The products of online communication, the gallery's website, and social media constitute the data set for the thesis. The interviews with the Galleries' online communications specialists and the international students in Hungary allow me to juxtapose the first-had designer perspective and the end side of the communication process. The methods of the textual analysis of a website content and content analysis of the website textual data bring the understanding of the narratives and themes revolving in the communication. In line with...
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Half a century of inventing the mountains (1960-2010)
Moravanský, Matěj ; Spurný, Matěj (advisor) ; Janáč, Jiří (referee)
The thesis aims to describe the process of "inventing "mountains between the 60s of the 20th century and zero years of the 21st century on the example of Giant Mountains. In this process, the relationship of socialist, state-socialist and post-socialist society towards nature was formed; it is possible to trace how social and natural ecosystems interconnected and how they were devastated or, on the contrary, protected and reinforced. The ambition of the thesis is to show not only efforts to protect nature but also to describe relationships between human and nonhuman agents. The first part discusses the plans, visions and concepts defining the organising of nature in the mountains. The second part introduced some stories regarding tourism development and nature protection. The last third part contains broader arguments: the application of the post-colonial perspective, the application of Jason W. Moore's concept of "capitalist ecology ", connecting nature's condition with the crisis of legitimacy of state socialism and the neoliberal turn in the 90s of the 20th century. The thesis focuses primarily on Giant Mountains as mountains which were founded as a national park, and due to that, many broader trends were established.
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The impact of Google Maps' reviews and algorithms on young adults' choices of museums to visit in Prague
Schröter Freitas, Fernanda ; Janáč, Jiří (advisor) ; Pýcha, Čeněk (referee) ; Klement, Judit (referee)
When in need of a map, over 2 billion people consult Google Maps. Besides cartography, this tool offers information and opinions on all kinds of places, including museums. Since memory institutions are important sites of preserving and interpreting cultural identity, it becomes vital to investigate the impact digital platforms such as Google Maps have on their visitors. This research aims to measure how much Google Maps' reviews influence the choice of people to visit (or not visit) museums. For that, around 20 Erasmus students in Prague were surveyed on their use of the platform and its tools, their cultural habits, and their overall use of technology. From those, five were interviewed and had their Google Maps account analyzed. Overall, all students relied on Google Maps in some way or another, with most underestimating the impact the tool had on their choices. They were most affected by negative reviews that undermined a museum's social status and positive reviews that deemed the exhibitions as interesting/interactive. Google Maps overall showed commercial museums to most students looking for museums on the platform and showed positive reviews on top of negative ones, actively hiding reviews with a political bias. The work highlights the impact this tool could have on European culture, by...
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Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant from the perspective of the anti-nuclear movement and diplomacy.
Křeček, Pavel ; Koura, Jan (advisor) ; Janáč, Jiří (referee)
The thesis deals with the Austrian nuclear power plant Zwentendorf, focusing on the development of the Austrian anti-nuclear movement and the impact of the referendum rejection of the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant on Czechoslovak-Austrian diplomatic relations. The Austrian anti-nuclear movement is set in a broader European and global context, within which the interconnection of the Austrian movement with the development of European protests against nuclear power is particularly examined. At the same time, the 1978 referendum on the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant, which was strongly influenced by the Austrian anti-nuclear movement, can be seen as the starting point of the ongoing Czech-Austrian diplomatic disputes over nuclear power plants. In this particular context, the thesis will focus on the influence of the nuclear energy issue on Czechoslovak-Austrian diplomatic relations between 1978 and 1989. Keywords Antinuclear movement, Zwentendorf, Austria, diplomacy, global history
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Environmental history in Southeastern Europe
Třešňák, Jakub ; Janáč, Jiří (advisor) ; Vojtěchovský, Ondřej (referee)
The thesis is focused on South-eastern Europe and environmental history. The aim is to examine the state of environmental history in this area and to determine what are the main topics of the researches done there. In the introduction will be given definitions to used terms, on basis of them were selected the works analysed further. Next is historical and historiographical context and categorization of works by their topic. Separately, there will be described the Albanian case, which will go deeper into history, historiography and also parts of politics and society. In the end, the thesis will sum up the information and will determine possibilities of further researches.
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Levirate Marriage in Jewish Society - Inspirational Sources, Roots and Selected Aspects of Development
Knollová, Michaela ; Janáč, Jiří (advisor) ; Hajdinová, Eva (referee)
Master's Thesis Levirate Marriage in Jewish Society - Inspiration Sources, Roots and Selected Aspects of Development Michaela Knollová Charles University, Faculty of Arts, Institut of World History Abstract (in English): Levirate marriage is an institute established in Ancient times that corresponded to the needs of the society of that time. However, in connection with its establishment in the Torah, it is still part of Jewish law today. This diploma thesis is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the beginnings of this institute in Jewish law and its sources of inspiration. The Hittite Empire is considered a source of inspiration, and in this context, not only links between the Hittite and Hebrew nations are sought, but also assumed importance that levirate marriage had for ancient society. In this regard, the importance of levirate marriage officially proclaimed in the Bible is compared with real needs of society at the time. In the second part, the paper moves to the present and it analyzes the current application of a two-thousand-year-old institute in the State of Israel. Summary of individual religious circles opinions is captured here, whereas number of areas (levirate marriage included) are thus perceived by different groups from different perspectives due to different historical...
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Region Formation and Transformations of its Roles in Course of the 20th Century: Bohemian-Moravian Highlands
Krajíček, Jan ; Klusáková, Luďa (advisor) ; Janáč, Jiří (referee)
"Region" is nowadays one of the most frequented term in the discourse of the humanities. In the approach of the History, the region is used as a theoretical and methodological concept, whose content has wide range in other social sciences, such as Human Geography and Sociology. This thesis deals with the possibility of the utilization of this term in the historical research applicated on the particular case of the Bohemian- Moravian Highlands. Thesis describes the recent state of the research and the progress in the approach to the term of region. The main concepts which can be used in the case of the Highlands are also shown and described. This particular region was chosen because of its specificity - it's a central periphery, which formed itself into a centralized and institutionalized modern region, the Vysočina Region, during the 20th century. The basic way-out is Anssi Paasi's theory of the shaping of regions. According to it, region can be found in many dimensions in the process of its creation - not just in a physical shape, but also in a symbolic shape, in the making of its identity. Eventually, region has got variable social and economic characteristics. The meaning in which region is percepted and imagined is also changed by these processes of creation - the role of the region is changing...
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