This thesis applies a sociological framework to the North American celebrity career of Canadian pianist and broadcaster Glenn Gould (1932-1982) to account for Gould's iconic status as an artist in modern musical culture. Despite the persistent cultural fascination with Gould, as evidenced in the seemingly endless supply of biographies, films, novels, and fan texts which narrate and celebrate his life and work, modern Gould scholarship has consistently neglected issues relating to his artistic reception. This thesis proposes that the modern Gould phenomenon is productively analysed in terms of the contexts of its historical production in North America, where it first originated. Focusing on the circumstances of Gould's career during his lifetime, it identifies three areas of overlapping conceptual interest that provide the basis for an explanatory account of his modern mythology: i) Gould's relationship to the culture of his time, particularly in Canada; ii) Gould's relationship to the mass media; iii) Gould's relationship to his own artistic identity. This approach is refined through the application of Stuart Hall's 'Circuit of Culture' model, which yields an understanding of Gould's celebrity in terms of the processes of its representation, production, regulation, and consumption. Against this theoretical backdrop, and consistent with the premise of my thesis, I ask some key questions: what was Gould's relationship to Canadian cultural nationalism and, specifically, a nationalist discourse of public broadcasting? How did media institutions brand his image, and for what commercial purposes? How did Gould mobilise understandings of his genius and Canadian identity through his artistic discourse and experimental media self-representations as a 'Northerner' and a technologist? Based on this analysis, the thesis concludes that Gould continues to fascinate because of the unique ideological work performed by his cultural identities, and because of the highly mediated nature of his celebrity. The ubiquity of his image on video-sharing websites and social media platforms is a vindication of his radical belief in the validity of a musical career pursued primarily through the electronic media.

This dissertation explores the numerous literary representations of the femme de lettres during the first half of the nineteenth century in order to illustrate the complexities of women’s entrance into the male-dominated domain of literature and also to suggest the impact these fictional characters might have had on the reception of actual women writers as well as their omission from the century’s literary canon. The works that will be included in this analysis include: Mme de Staël’s Corinne, ou l’Italie, Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le noir, Honoré de Balzac’s Béatrix, La Muse du département and Illusions perdues, Delphine de Girardin’s La Canne de M. de Balzac, Napoline and La joie fait peur and George Sand’s Histoire de ma vie, Lettres d’un voyageur and Un Hiver à Majorque. In compiling such diverse works of literature, it becomes clear that both male and female authors from the early nineteenth century were unable to envision a publicly embraced female genius. Although almost all of the fictional femmes de lettres in this study faced a destiny of professional silence, the reasons given for their failures are split between the male and female authors. For the male authors, the woman as a successful intellectual, artist or author was ultimately impossible because of her inability to combine her female body and psyche with the “masculine” pursuit of knowledge. Conversely, the female authors wrote characters whose inability to fully embrace a public literary or artistic career stemmed from society’s unwillingness to tolerate her exceptionality rather than from an inherent disconnect between genius and the female sex. / text

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The diploma thesis aspires, in its theoretical part, for a description of the theoretical and methodical basis and objectives of the educational process in the courses "Life and Art. " This school subject shall provide pupils of 58th grades in primary school with a basic cultural overview of medieval, Renaissance and Baroque architecture and art. The theses defines the concepts of animation, cultural animation and enculturation, experiential education, creative education and artefiletics, and outlines the prospects of their use in the educational process. The thesis also deals with the theory of perception in art and its connection to the pedagogical practice. It mentions the term genius loci as one of the elements of cognition of an architectural object and the place where it is located. In the practical part of the thesis, the individual architectural object of the Tabor Urban Conservation Area and it's immediate neighborhood are described. The thesis provides cultural, general and local historical, and also the theological context of art styles and places, which are the subject of the educational program. Following that, the thesis introduces examples of didactic methods, applicable in the courses "Life and Art."

Qu’elle soit le fait des artistes, des institutions muséales ou des acteurs économiques, désormais une nouvelle discursivité s’ajoute à la production critique traditionnelle des historiens, théoriciens et philosophes de l’art, et accompagne de manière quasi systématique les propositions plastiques des artistes contemporains. A cet accroissement discursif correspond aussi une démultiplication des fonctions du discours théorique qui se trouve parfois être utilisé comme le matériau plastique même des œuvres. Empreintes d’une plasticité toute singulière, les œuvres contemporaines étendent les possibles, au point de pouvoir se manifester sous n’importe quelle forme, voire de complètement disparaître. Cette extrême diversité résulte de l’adhésion à un nouveau principe artistique, le « second degré », ou l’auto-réflexivité de l’œuvre d’art, qui attribue à l'idée de l’œuvre une importance aussi grande qu'à la formulation matérielle de celle-ci. Ce qui est devenu indéterminé dans la forme plastique semble être compensé, en retour, par l'exigence d'une détermination conceptuelle accrue. Nous nous sommes attachés, dans notre recherche, à mettre en lumière l’origine du primat discursif dans la nouvelle situation paradigmatique des arts plastiques. Ne se limitant pas à la seule logique de médiation et de légitimation sociale des œuvres, la discursivité ouvre aussi un espace créatif et herméneutique nouveau impliquant le discours théorique comme geste créatif complémentaire à la forme plastique. / Whether by artists, museums or economic actors, now a new discursivity is added to the traditional critical production of historians, theoreticians and philosophers of art, and accompanies almost systematically the plastics works of contemporary artists. This discursive growth answers also to a proliferation of functions of the theoretical discourse, which is used, in some contemporary artistic practices, as the very plastic material of the work. Marked by a singular plasticity, contemporary art works extend the expressive possibilities to the point that the work can manifest itself in any form, and even completely disappear. This extreme diversity results from the adherence to a new artistic principle, the "second degree", or the self-reflexivity of the artwork, which attributes to the idea of the work, the same importance as its’ very material formulation. What became undetermined in the plastic form seems, in return, to be offset by the requirement for greater conceptual determination. We were committed, in our research, to highlight the origin of this discursive primacy in the new paradigmatic situation of visual arts. Not being limited only to the purpose of mediation and social legitimization of the art works, discursivity opens also a new creative and hermeneutic space, involving theoretical discourse as a creative act complementary to plastic form.

The architecture and urban planning study of the Ohrada sports grounds examines the possibility of building a multipurpose sports and recreation centre in the Vsetín – Ohrada location. Currently, the grounds are in a very poor condition. With respect to the dimensions of the grounds, the roofed stands of the Spartakiad stadium serving a lodging house along with the tennis club facilities fail to fulfill its potential. I approached the area layout in a way which enables a clearly identifiable morphology of the buildings with an accentuated maximum utilization of daylight, open space, greenery, and social interaction to combine ideas and needs of the future generation and thus give the location a new genius loci. The biggest challenge of the complex layout of the whole site was to find a meaningful use for the great amount of soil found in the decaying stands. I find the best solution in creating an accessible, walkable mass that provides several different sections with various atmospheres and purposes. This concept resulted in a study which uses the qualities of the premises and complements them with a number of sports and recreational activities. The fundamental idea was to create a public leisure space with a focus on a great variability of the purpose of the grounds to make it useful for a wide range of public across generations. This led to the creation of several main masses which divide the location, reduce the scale of the area and give it a different atmosphere. At the same time, the grounds are freely accessible and open to the public. A long-term, functioning society demonstrates an ability to treat public and semipublic space with respect. The area in front of and in between buildings becomes, therefore, more important than the buildings themselves. At such a moment, one can talk of a sustainable public life.

The thesis deals with urban study for the central part of the town of Náchod, located in the proximity of the town’s historic core. The relief of the landscape lends distinctiveness to the whole area. This fact was taken into consideration when elaborating the urban concept which orientates the design towards the centre and the castle. The design is formed by three pillars – functions: square – culture, park – relax and housing. As regards the territory in question, Náchod has a great potential. My attempt was to understand it and create an area in the town centre which would have significant unified city-forming character, and which would enhance the core – the centre of the town.

This paper aims to elaborate an urbanistic study focused on the establishment of a multifunction athletic and recreational area located in Vsetín-Ohrada, carrying the name of the location, Ohrada. The reason to elaborate on this project is the current desolate state of the area, which already does not fulfil its purpose and serves only as lodgings and as a facility for the tennis club. My approach for this project implies identified accidence of buildings with an emphasis on maximal use of daylight, open spaces, green areas, and social interactions. All of these parts connect ideas and needs of future generations and deliver into the area new Genio Loci. For me, the biggest challenge in this complex area is finding the answer to meaningful use of the big amount of soil that is part of the canker tribune. The solution for this challenge might be in the creation of new access paths and footbridge to the buildings which provide several parts of space with different atmosphere and purpose. The main idea was the creation of a leisure public space with an emphasis on the variability of used areas that serve people from all age groups. It creates several main areas that divide the location and deliver various atmospheres for each generation. Additionally, the area as a whole is open and accessible to the public. A sign of long-term functional society is the ability of considerable behaviour toward public areas. Space in front of and between buildings happened to be more important than the building itself. In this case, we can talk about public life that is sustainable in time.

More and more research studies are being conducted on the quality of architectural space as a factor affecting our mental, social and physical health. In the past, this topic was often overlooked in its complexity. The establishment of the specialized fields of building biology, biophilic architecture and the works of Christopher Alexander and Nikos Salingaros now allow us to consider various facets of this subject. This dissertation aims to analyse the topic of vitality in architectural space by studying the abilities and perceptions of its users. Therefore its aim is not to develop a new theory of “vitality-enhancing architectural space”, but to describe how this phenomenon is perceived by the users themselves. Users can provide feedback on which features of architectural space they see as the most important for the feeling of vitality. These features have been hierarchically organized based on their perceived importance, analysed and described in detail to allow their relatively easy application in practice. This dissertation will also allow a comparison with other existing works on the studied topic.

The dissertation thesis deals with the relation of a person towards the physical public space from the point of view of an artist/teacher in the academic milieu. The frequently discussed subject of public space is not limited to purely artistic sphere or artistic gesture. It also implies a simple transgression to everyday life related to education and cultivation. An essential part of the research is the case study at the Department of Art Education of the Faculty of Education of the Charles University, which inquires into the perception of the future pedagogues of the physical public space and how they gtranslate it into the art language. The cornerstone stimulus for the research lies in the premise that future teachers will, through the prism of their view of the worl and by their vocation influence the education of the young generation. This fact of transgression is given by the existence of the subject of Art Education where the 3D design itself plays a certain role. The research is focused on what lies behind the phenomena in the process of the creation and inception of "something new" in the physical public space. The concept of a gesture represents a metaphor of material introduction into a space that, at some point, becomes a part o it .The integration is called actualization and the issue of the...