The thesis explores Czechoslovak Spartakiads in the context of modern mythologies theory. The analysis is concerned with reflection on changes of shape and ideological image of the Spartakiad from the 1950s to the 1980s. The thesis explores the Spartakiad as a cultural and sporting event and as an unique type of collective ritual in conditions of socialist dictatorship. The main focus is put on the narratives generated by the Spartakiad tradition and its evolution. Moreover it tries to regard possibilities to define the Spartakiads in the context of aesthetics of performativity. Based on analyzing those signs and cultural meanings, the thesis follows the role of the Spartakiad and Spartakiad-related subjects in formation of mythologies of the changing communist regime and its specific festivity, and also the Spartakiad's function in the process of the dictatorship's self-legitimation and in the promotion of concrete social coexistence models. Particular chapters of thesis are concerned with reflection on Spartakiad narratives in a relation to time and space as principal narratological categories. Last chapter contains a case study dedicated to performances of children and youth in 1955 and 1980 - this case study tries to approximate specific ways of emblematisation of gymnasts in Spartakiad...

Title: Against Dualism - Conceptual Art in the Context of Functional-Normative Theory Author: Michaela Brejcha Department: Department of Aesthetics Supervisor: Mgr. Ondřej Dadejík, Ph.D. Abstract: The present dissertation thesis focuses on the problem of theoretical reflection of conceptual art in Anglo American aesthetic discourse in the second half of 20th and the beginning of 21st centuries. It is based on the claim of many conceptual artists and also some theoreticians, which emerged in the nineteen- fifties, that the conceptual art or tendencies have nothing in common with aesthetics or aesthetic theory. This work shows that this presumed discord draws on reduced understanding of what is the aesthetics and, at the same time, this understanding itself is based on the dualistic paradigm, which presents one of the most fundamental frames for our approach to reality. In the context of analysis of selected texts of Anglo American aesthetics, eight particular distinctions of dualism will be defined, which to a great extent contributed to the rejection of aesthetics by conceptual artists, and on the other hand to bad recognition of conceptual art by the aesthetic theory. As an alternative to the dualistic approach in the context of definition of conceptual art, the fluid and dynamic conception of aesthetics...

The theme of this thesis are surfaces made of unburned earth and used in architecture. The thesis focuses mainly on detailed mapping and analysis of the present state. However, it does not omit the historical roots of earthen surfaces in the area of today`s Czech Republic. In these roots it looks for connections with contemporary practice. The thesis deduces conclusions from thorough evaluation of the present situation – it shows perspectives and possible drift of the future development of earthen surfaces. Both in the field of architecture and in areas broadening this field.