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The phenomenon of the new
Hodec, Markus E. ; Sepp, Hans Rainer (advisor) ; Stenger, Georg (referee) ; Schmiedl-Neuburg, Hilmar (referee)
The present work on the phenomenon of the new sees itself as an introductory structure of kainology. In doing so, it is pursuing two goals. On the one hand, it seeks the establishment of a new philosophical concept and an independent philosophical method, kainology. On the other hand, the main scope of this investigation applies to the problematization of the phenomenon of the new. In order to take a systematic look at the new, the work is divided into three sections, each of which produces its own partial result. The first section deals with the history of the new. Exemplifying the ontological opposition of Heraclitus and Parmenides, the new emerges as a phenomenon that can be treated more precisely in terms of becoming rather than in terms of being. The second section is dedicated to the method. The kainological method is based on the one hand on dialectics as formulated by Hegel and further developed by Adorno. On the other hand, kainology borrows from the method of phenomenology, namely Husserl's. The complementarity of the two pioneering achievements results in four main methodological elements for kainology: first person singular, from fact to Wesen, the included middle and subject-object. After the history of the new has been traced and the method of kainology established, it is time to examine the...
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Synthetic bodies
Veselá, Lenka ; Kolářová,, Kateřina (referee) ; Klodová, Lenka (referee) ; Fajnor, Richard (advisor)
In my dissertation thesis grounded in the notion of synthetic bodies, I reflect on the fact that we are not enclosed entities, but lively structures formed in relation to the environments which surround and entangle us. With a focus on industrially manufactured chemicals, which have become ubiquitous on Earth in the Anthropocene, I examine the far-reaching effects of what it means to be a synthetic body in a world permeated and transformed by man-made technologies. Through the collective publication and exhibition project Synthetic Becoming and individually developed intervention which localizes the effects of anthropogenic chemical pollution on our sadness, irritability, anxieties, inability to concentrate, and feelings of despair and hopelessness, I explore how we can live well in the context of changes caused by industrial modernity. How can we come to terms with our open and permeable, and thus also vulnerable and wounded bodies? How can we understand who we are becoming with anthropogenic chemicals? How can we accept and affirm the part of ourselves which is co-constituted through industrial production, distribution, and consumption? How can we resist, survive, and keep going — with and despite industrial chemicals?
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Becoming Bodies: An Ethnographic study of Ayurvedic Practice
Wolfová, Alžběta ; Bittnerová, Dana (advisor) ; Holmerová, Iva (referee) ; Horák, Miroslav (referee)
This thesis introduces a critical analysis of a self-proclaimed alternative to modernity. Based on a case of selected, so-called non-conventional medicine within the context of the Czech Republic between 2013 and 2017, I explore how a specific bodily practice like Ayurveda works in this environment. Since it is sought and employed in the everyday lives of an increasing number of people, even in such modestly sized post-socialist country, it resembles similar tendencies generally described in the globalized world (especially from the middle class upwards) in recent decades. Drawing upon (auto)ethnographic research, which originated at a school for future Ayurvedic practitioners and continued into informal meetings- sometimes at the homes of practitioners, I introduce Ayurveda as a specific way of body becoming. Starting with how the body and wellbeing is discursively established within the space of schools, I nevertheless focus mostly on individual practice. I look at how Ayurvedic epistemology is employed and how it enables recognition of one's own body, and subjectivity as interconnected with the surrounding environment. I follow how, as a result of this process, this recognition conditions a certain self- empowerment, especially regarding the establishment or maintenance of one's own wellbeing. I...
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Becoming a doctor from the viewpoint of anthropologist
Rebendová, Eva ; Halbich, Marek (advisor) ; Hrešanová, Ema (referee)
This paper is about a process of a nascency of new doctors, and how it is possible to approach this topic from the viewpoint of social anthropologist. As a starting point, I use actor-network theory, which is one of the social science paradigms focusing on materiality. I consider it (on the basis of work by Bruno Latour and other scholars, who are dealing with this field), to be a remarkable actor in matters connected with human action, and thus an appropriate subject for an anthropological inquiry. Since the topic concerns medicine in the Czech Republic nowadays, I contribute to the knowledge of medical anthropology, which does not have such a strong academic base here as in the Anglo-Saxon world. Special attention is dedicated to a detailed description of activities leading to the formation of the text of this thesis. Reflexivity, on which I put emphasis, shall serve as the foundation of the context of genesis of an anthropological knowledge and also to describe the ethical concerns of the research. The main methods are observation and semi-structured in-depth interviews with twelve informants, who were medicine students or medicine faculty graduates.
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Radical Experience and Thinking of Poetic Inspiration. The Body (without Organs) in Maurice Blanchot's Space of Literature.
Poch, Martin ; Ševčík, Miloš (advisor) ; Jarošová, Helena (referee)
Radical Thinking and Experience of Poetic Inspiration → Abstract Blanchot's radical thinking of writer's experience poses, but do not answer a question of its physical dimension. According to Blanchot, it seems as if the writer's experience was completely unbodied, so that it excludes the possibility of writing and realization of essential speech in the world. Our interpretation of Blanchot's key concepts proceeds with an attempt to solve this problem and present its main consequences. In the last section we operate some of the terms of Deleuze and Guattari - namely becoming, the body without organs - in order to conceive writer's experience as inherently differentiated process in which the body is absent, because - deprived of its organs - it becomes an imperceptible part of assemblage which enters the space of literature.
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Becoming Heaviness: Philosophy of Difference and Metal Music
Volák, Vojtěch ; Švantner, Martin (advisor) ; Marcelli, Miroslav (referee)
Metal music is a term that currently serves as a designation for a plethora of different subgenres. The main goal of this work is to find a process that is shared between given subgenres of metal music. The search is based on the non-essentialist position of Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of difference. For this reason, the first focus of the work is extensive excursion into this philosophy, to which it devotes it's first chapter. In it, through analysis of Difference and Repetition, it creates a thought and conceptual basis for the processual perception of ideas as multiplicities, a position that makes it possible to examine the process of becoming. From this position, the second chapter focuses on metal music and it's main characteristic quality - heaviness, and examines the ways in which music can become heavy. Keywords: Gilles Deleuze, metal music, heaviness, difference, becoming, multiplicity, intensity
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Semiotic "ethnography" of Deleuze and Guattari and non-standard animism
Šír, David ; Charvát, Martin (advisor) ; Fulka, Josef (referee)
The starting point of this work is the concept of indigenous animism in Félix Guattari's late work at the end of his life, understood as a form of subjectivity operating through different regimes of signs than the "modern" one. These animist semiotics are "polysemic" and "trans-individual," while instead of building a sharp division between the spheres of "nature" and "culture", they inhabit reality by "collective entities half-thing half-soul, half- man half-animal, machine and flow, matter and sign." The aim of most of the following text is then primarily to trace these semiotics across the joint work of Deleuze and Guattari. After introducing the context of Deleuze's philosophy and its specific "image of thought," and explaining its basic concepts, we will focus on the description and comparison of the semiotic "ethnographies" of Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. The first volume traces the "universal history" of the ways of hominization (becoming human) of man from the state of nature, through various forms of inscription, which constitute society and culture. These modes are several and do not work only through language. In the limit experience of schizophrenia, the authors of Anti-Oedipa find a moment preceding all these historically contingent forms of hominization. In contrast, the...
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Jewish identity: formation and deformation. Ethnography of Moishe House Prague.
Adlerová, Nina ; Novotná, Hedvika (advisor) ; Abu Ghosh, Yasar (referee)
This thesis is based on a long-term field research in the Prague Jewish community in which I am trying to express the Jewish identity of young Czech Jews. The aim is to characterize the formation and construction of Jewish identities, their coexistence with other types of social identities and the role of material elements in this process. The formation has a processional nature and there are continual transformations and negotiations of concrete forms of Jewish identities over time. These identities are publicly manifested through various material elements and by this manifestation those identities are also strengthened. I also examine the impact of physical structures and other objects on the Jewish community, how they strengthen its cohesion and on the role that they play in materializing and bringing the collective memories into the present. I simultaneously work with the concept of materiality in the context of the Moishe House Prague project. I examine the position of techno-social tools and the power of leadership. This thesis is based on several theoretical perspectives that I connect and combine in order for me to explore social reality and Jewishness in their entirety. Key words Identity, Jewish identity, material culture, materiality, Moishe House, formation, construct, negotiation...
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Kierkegaard's philosophy of existence
Šimeček, Andrej ; Kouba, Pavel (advisor) ; Němec, Václav (referee)
This work takes as its central issue the existential movement as it appears in the philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard. There appears to be relatively little secondary literature on this topic, so it is a very fruitful area to explore. The texts explored include Kierkegaard's 'psychological' books, in particular Concept of Anxiety and Sickness unto Death. These provide our work with the crucial concepts of innocence, guilt, despair, anxiety, existence and spirit. From the more traditional philosophical works, Philosophical Fragments, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments and Johannes Climacus have been utilised. These texts inform the work mostly on the meaning of movement, doubt, contradiction and absolute paradox. From the more lyrical works, this work is informed by Fear and Trembling and Repetition. Inquiry into these texts combined will provide a picture of existential movement as it is presented by Kierkegaard. This work attempts to capture the 'becoming subjective' which is so central to Kierkegaard's thought, through the reconstruction of the existential stages. It is also the purpose of this work (in the process) to treat areas of Kierkegaard's thought that are usually left untreated. The latter are for example, the problematic of the leap of sin, the unclear status of the...
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Becoming a doctor from the viewpoint of anthropologist
Rebendová, Eva ; Halbich, Marek (advisor) ; Hrešanová, Ema (referee)
This paper is about a process of a nascency of new doctors, and how it is possible to approach this topic from the viewpoint of social anthropologist. As a starting point, I use actor-network theory, which is one of the social science paradigms focusing on materiality. I consider it (on the basis of work by Bruno Latour and other scholars, who are dealing with this field), to be a remarkable actor in matters connected with human action, and thus an appropriate subject for an anthropological inquiry. Since the topic concerns medicine in the Czech Republic nowadays, I contribute to the knowledge of medical anthropology, which does not have such a strong academic base here as in the Anglo-Saxon world. Special attention is dedicated to a detailed description of activities leading to the formation of the text of this thesis. Reflexivity, on which I put emphasis, shall serve as the foundation of the context of genesis of an anthropological knowledge and also to describe the ethical concerns of the research. The main methods are observation and semi-structured in-depth interviews with twelve informants, who were medicine students or medicine faculty graduates.
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