The publication of the thitherto unavailable original scroll of On the Road in 2007 marked a decisive point for Beat scholarship. Enabling line-by-line comparison, the two versions could suddenly be placed under proper scrutiny, and Kerouac’s revisions set up against the established myth of the novel’s creation. How should we understand the revisions? To supply a contribution to an answer, this paper will map the artistic as well as personal trajectory of Jack Kerouac throughout the 1950s. Basing my analysis largely on correspondence, I will show how Kerouac constantly oscillated between different positions and attitudes within the space of literary production. The essay will argue that Kerouac’s pursuit of literary prestige, stood side by side with the always-present alternative of satisfying the demands of the large audience. If we add to this Kerouac’s obsession with his imagined audience it becomes clear that his final work resulted from more than his own aesthetic preferences. Devoting a section to his aesthetic program, I will explore to what extent editorial revisions, even seemingly minor ones, compromised his original text in significant ways. Keeping in mind his erratic trajectory, and adding to it Warren French’s complementary observation that Kerouac’s personality was violently split, will allow us to identify an equally contradictory literary self-expression. Thus comparing On the Road with Visions of Cody (the latter emerged through the revisions of the former), Kerouac’s literary expression can be said to manifest itself in two fundamentally different ways. In Road as a reifying gesture that mystifies man’s connection with the earth, and, in Visions as an opposite gesture of dereification that seeks to disclose the source of man-made products that have become reified. Proposing that the autobiographical component of Kerouac’s writing is essentially a gesture of dereification, the essay will argue that editorial revisions of such works inescapably destabilize the unity between experienced reality and textual representation.

Animal and duty to provide compensation for damage Abstract As of 2014, an animal is no longer considered a mere thing within the Czech legal system. The legislator thus responded to society's changing attitude towards animals. Animals have gained in importance also in private lives. It is not exceptional for an animal to take on a role of a close companion today. However, due to their unpredictability animals often find themselves out of human control. Consequently, damage to legally protected goods often occurs. This diploma thesis concentrates on damage caused by an animal as well as damage caused to an animal. The aim of the thesis is to provide a complex insight into the legal regulation of compensation for the damage in question and to evaluate whether the regulation adequately reflects the special nature of an animal as a living creature, especially in the context of dereification of animals. The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter is devoted to an animal and its legal status. First, the chapter focuses on the conceptual definition of an animal. Subsequently, the phenomenon of dereification of animals is discussed. The chapter identifies interests pursued by the dereification of animals and rejects the notion of dereification as a mere proclamation without practical consequences....

L'une des caractéristiques principales de la méditation de pleine conscience est la réalisation que les événements perçus ou imaginés ne sont pas nécessairement une représentation exacte de la réalité, un processus connu sous le nom de déréification. La déréification est aussi l'objectif de nombreuses approches psychothérapeutiques, puisque l'on sait que l'immersion excessive dans le mental peut être liée à la détresse psychologique et à certains troubles psychiatriques. L'objectif de notre étude était d'évaluer dans quelle mesure la réification des contenus mentaux (réalisme subjectif) contribue aux dispositions automatiques et de comprendre les mécanismes permettant aux pratiques de méditation de les modifier. Notre hypothèse principale était que la reconnaissance du réalisme subjectif grâce aux pratiques méditatives de pleine conscience réduit le biais cognitif. Nous avons mené deux études auprès de méditants novices et expérimentés. Dans la première nous avons exploré l'effet d'une instruction brève de pleine présence sur l'attitude envers la nourriture, pour étudier comment le réalisme subjectif module les tendances automatiques d'approche et d'évitement. La seconde étude nous a permis d'explorer l'impact de la méditation sur la modulation des attentes sémantiques automatiques dans un paradigme de narration. Nous avons adopté une approche neurophénoménologique, combinant des données moléculaires, physiologiques, électroencéphalographiques et comportementales, avec des données à la première personne recueillies à l'aide d'auto-évaluations et d'entretiens qualitatifs. Dans l'ensemble, nos résultats multimodaux ont confirmé notre hypothèse selon laquelle la déréalisation peut entraîner la réduction du biais cognitif. Les résultats de l'exploration phénoménologique indiquent que les participants ont utilisé différentes stratégies cognitives pour réaliser la déréification, et que de telles stratégies varient en fonction de l'expérience en méditation. Les participants novices utilisent plus souvent des stratégies de type réévaluation cognitive et régulation émotionnelle, qui se reflètent dans la modulation des composantes tardives des potentiels évoqués (PE) cérébraux. En revanche les méditants utilisent moins souvent des stratégies élaboratives, en accord avec la modulation de composantes plus précoces des PE. / One of the key features of Mindful meditation is realizing that imagined or perceived events are not necessarily an accurate depiction of reality, a process known as dereification. Dereification is also a target of many psychotherapeutic approaches, as excessive immersion into one's mental contents has been related to psychological distress and several psychiatric conditions. The aim of this study was to investigate to what extent engagement with mental content as being real (i.e. subjective realism) can bias automatic tendencies toward the world, and to elucidate the mechanisms by which meditation practices can modulate it. Our main hypothesis was that recognizing subjective realism during mindfulness-related practices de-automatizes cognitive bias.We ran two studies in naïve and experienced meditators: Firstly, we explored the effect of a brief mindful-attention instruction on a food engagement paradigm to investigate how subjective realism modulates automatic approach-avoidance tendencies. Secondly, we explored whether mindful-attention meditation could modulate automatic semantic expectations in a modified storytelling paradigm. We used a neurophenomenological approach, combining molecular, physiological, electroencephalographic (EEG) and behavioral data, with first-person data collected using self-reports and qualitative interviews.Overall, behavioral, physiological and EEG results supported our hypothesis that derealization can prompt des-automatization of cognitive bias. Neurophenomenological accounts indicate that participants used different cognitive strategies to achieve dereification, and that such strategies vary as a function of meditation expertise, among others. Naïve participants use more often cognitive reappraisal/emotional regulation-type strategies, which are reflected in the modulation of late ERP components. In contrast, meditators used less often elaborative strategies as reflected by the modulation of early sensory ERPs