The diploma thesis deals with the issue of representations of Native Americans in Czech written sources from the 16th century which are related to the topic of european overseas exploration. Special emphasis is placed on the formation of representations of corporeality in the context of discourses present in the early modern literary production and on the representations of gender relations that discourses of the body help to produce in texts. Apart from other things, the textual representations were influenced by the europocentric interpretation of the world which emerging from christian discourse at that time. As well, the work shows how the practices of othering of American Indians and their societies are produced in analyzed sources. The othering was realized, beside other things, in the context of dichotomous discourses of civilization and barbarism, religious discourse and the discourse of power. Emphasis is also put on the changes and mutual similarities of discourses in the written sources. In order to analyze representations of American Indians, the work uses the method of Foucalt's discursive analysis. The work also uses the constructivist theory of representation and the theory of hegemonic gender configurations. Key words Native Americans, corporeality, gender, otherness, textual...

Pokorný, V., To think from psychedelic experiences. Transdisciplinary interpretation. Diseration Thesis, Departement of General Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University Prague, 2016 Abstract: The goal of this text is to think from and according to psychedelic experiences. To think from psychededic experiences means to introduce a transdisciplinary model of psychedelic domain. This model is based on autoethnographic, cognitive, phenomenological and psychopharmacological types of analysis. These analyses allow to demonstrate: 1) place of psychedelics in contemporary globalised czech society; 2) possible heuristic (theoretical and experiemental) value of psychedelic experience for understanding human situation. This text interprets psychedelic experience as a process of deteritorialization and reteritorialization that occurs on different, intertwinned levels of our experience, and, thus, it is a contribution to explication of a philosophical concept of intertwinning. Keywords: psychedelic experience, transdisciplinarity, autoethnography, cognitive anthropology, anthropology of experience, enactivism, phenomenology, embodiment, analogy, intertwinning

I uppsatsen undersöks barns konstruktion av det teologiska språket med avseende på försoning som begrepp. Barnens förståelse av försoning sätts i kritisk relation till Miroslav Volfs förståelse av försoning och omfamning (embrace). Därigenom framträder att barnen utvecklar försoningsbegreppet genom att det överträder vår uppfattning om tid och rum. Barnen konstruerar det teologiska språket utifrån en materialitet som består av egna erfarenheter av kroppslig (o)försoning. / In this essay I study how children construct their theological language in relation to the topic of reconciliation. The children's voices are put in critical dialog with the Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf’s notion of reconciliation in relation to embrace. The children’s perception of reconciliation develop and expand the theological concept of reconciliation. Seemingly, children's theological language describe reconciliation as an act that transcends time and space. Children construct their theological language through a materiality based on their own corporeal experiences of conflict and reconciliation.

Cette thèse suggère que la figure du vampire est une représentation de la neutralité, et ce, à travers diverses perspectives telles que la neutralité du genre, la neutralité temporelle et la neutralité corporelle. Le vampire a d’abord été considéré comme une créature malsaine avant de devenir plus humanisée au fil du temps. Cependant, je maintiens que le vampire contemporain n’est ni « négatif » ou « positif », mais plutôt neutre, ce que mettent en lumière les concepts de performativité et de corporalité élaborés par Judith Butler. Le vampire, étant à la fois arrêté dans le temps et existant pour toujours, manifeste non seulement la neutralité sexuelle et celle du genre, mais la créature vampirique illustre également l’importance du neutre tant au niveau corporel (tel qu’élaboré par Judith Butler) qu’au niveau temporel (tel que défini par Frank Kermode). Le neutre sera défini à partir des théories de Claude Stéphane Perrin, Maurice Blanchot et Roland Barthes. Étant à la fois présent/absent et à l’intérieur/à l’extérieur de l’expérience humaine, le vampire n’est pas seulement neutre, mais il permet d’étudier les différents aspects inhérents à la neutralité, soient-ils liés à la performativité du genre et de la sexualité, à la corporalité ou à la temporalité. Les aspects théoriques développés dans cette thèse sont analysés à travers les romans vampiriques contemporains suivants : Let the Right One in de John Ajvide Lindqvist (2004), The Vampire Chronicles de Anne Rice, plus précisément The Vampire Lestat (1987) et Queen of the Damned (1989), et The Passage (2010) de Justin Cronin. Le texte de Lindqvist redéfinit, entres autres, la neutralité du phallus à travers la castration, faisant du personnage d’Eli un vampire neutre et genderqueer. De plus, les crocs des vampires permettront une redéfinition neutre du phallus. La prépuberté vampirique dans les romans de Cronin et de Lindqvist sera également pertinente puisqu’un corps arrêté dans le temps et qui demeurera toujours prépubère solidifie le statut neutre du vampire. Les romans de Rice permettront de redéfinir le tabou de l’inceste et, donc, de consolider la neutralité du vampire. Les espaces vampiriques neutres dans les romans de Rice et de Cronin seront également mis de l’avant, et ce, à travers une conceptualisation de la temporalité comme étant neutre. Concrètement, la figure littéraire du vampire tente de déconstruire les normes sociétales du genre, de la sexualité, de la corporalité et de la temporalité en faveur d’une ontologie fluide et libre qui mène au neutre. / The figure of the vampire is a representation of the concept of neutrality, shown through different perspectives ranging from gender neutrality, corporeal neutrality, and temporal neutrality. The vampire has been shown to go from a “negative” representation to a “positive” one over the centuries. My claim is that the contemporary vampire is neither “negative” nor “positive” but neutral. This neutrality will be analyzed through the lens of Judith Butler’s conceptualizations of gender performativity and of corporeality. The vampire, being both time-stopped and existing forever, not only manifests gender and sexual neutrality, but also neutral corporeality (as elaborated by Judith Butler) and neutral temporality (as defined by Frank Kermode). The concept of the neutral will be approached based on the works of Claude Stéphane Perrin, Maurice Blanchot, and Roland Barthes. By being both present/absent and inside/outside the human experience, the vampire manifests different aspects of neutrality, be it performing gender and sexuality, understanding corporeality, or experiencing temporality. The theoretical aspects of this dissertation are analyzed based on the following contemporary vampire-centric narratives: Let the Right One in (2004) by John Ajvide Lindqvist, The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, more specifically The Vampire Lestat (1987) and Queen of the Damned (1989), and The Passage (2010) by Justin Cronin. Lindqvist’s novel redefines, among other things, the neutrality of the phallus through the act of castration, making the character of Eli a neutral and genderqueer vampire. Furthermore, vampire fangs will be of importance as they can be perceived as a manifestation of a neutral phallus. Vampiric prepubescence is also shown to espouse the neutral as it personifies a time-stopped body that will forever exist on the cusp of change. Rice’s novels will allow a resignification of the taboo of incest, further manifesting vampiric neutrality. The concept of vampiric neutral spaces will be tackled in both Rice’s and Cronin’s novels through a neutral conceptualization of temporality. In essence, the figure of the literary vampire attempts to deconstruct societal norms pertaining to gender, sexuality, corporeality, and temporality in favor of a free and fluid ontology which leads to the neutral.

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This project forms part of a growing engagement with biology by critical psychology and, more broadly, body studies. The specific focus is on the neurological body whose dogmatic exclusion from critical endeavours is challenged by arguing that neuroscience offers a vital resource for emancipatory agendas. Rather than conversely treating biology as a site for the factual supplementation of social theory the aim is to engage (negotiate) with neuroscience more directly and critically. In this process a discursive reductionism and attempted escape from complicity associated with critical psychology are addressed. Similarly a naïve and apolitical empiricism claimed by neuroscience is disrupted. The primary objective is however to demonstrate the utility of neuroscience in developing critical theory. These objectives are pursued through the ‘method’ of deconstruction, (mis)reading several highly regarded neuroscience texts written by prominent neuroscientists, working within the convolutions of these texts so as develop openings for critical conceptualisations of (neural) corporeality. In this manner the various spectres associated with neurology, including essentialism, determinism, individualism, reductionism and dualism, are displaced. This includes, amongst others, the omnipresent mind/body and body/society binaries. The (mis)readings address a number of prominent themes associated with contemporary neuroscience: Attempts at specifying an identity for (part of) the brain are shown to rely on a necessary relationship with the excluded other (such as the body, the socio-cultural, and the environment). Similarly, attempts at articulating a centre, a point from which agency can proceed, which finds existing identity in the functions of the prefrontal cortices, are also undone by the (multiple, affective, and unconscious) other which decentres the centre by being the essential supplement for any such claims. The causal metaphysic must likewise proceed within the play of différance, a logic of difference and deferral that undermines causal routes, innate origins and autocratic centres. Finally, reductionism must advance as a necessary strategy through which to engage with complexity, its ambitions always impossible as the aneconomic is forever in excess of any economy. The emancipatory viability of such (mis)readings is discussed within a context where the open and malleable body has been co-opted by contemporary neo-liberal geoculture. / Psychology / D.Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

Ce mémoire est consacré aux œuvres de fiction de la cinéaste Paule Baillargeon. Il s'agit d'examiner le processus de subjectivation, en retraçant son parcours cinématographique par l'entremise de ses longs métrages de fiction, et de voir comment elle utilise le langage cinématographique de façon singulière en permettant une prise de parole alternative devant et derrière la caméra. Alors que le cinéma dominant persiste à catégoriser les œuvres des réalisatrices québécoises de "films de femmes" ou de "cinéma de femmes", un bref survol de l'évolution générale des femmes en fiction, et de l'expérience de Baillargeon en particulier, permet de rendre compte des difficultés d'accessibilité qui persistent pour elles dans ce secteur d'activités. Par la suite, l'analyse des quatre principales œuvres de la réalisatrice - Anastasie oh ma chérie (1977), La cuisine rouge (1980), Le sexe des étoiles (1993), Trente tableaux (2011) - témoigne de la nécessité de cette prise de parole alternative, mais aussi de l'interaction entre chacun des films et une théorie féministe spécifique, issue entre autres des travaux de Luce Irigaray et Judith Butler. / This thesis is devoted to the fiction long features of filmmaker Paule Baillargeon. Her career in cinema and her particular uses of the cinematic language, are examined to demonstrate the women's subjectivation process, by her "prise de parole" before and behind the camera. While mainstream cinema continues to categorize the work of Quebec filmmakers of women's films or women's cinema, a brief overview of their general evolution in fiction, and more specifically of Paule Baillargeon's experience, testifies of the accessibility problems that persists for them in this sector. Subsequently, the analysis of the four major works of fiction of the director - Anastasie oh ma chérie (1977), La cuisine rouge (1980), Le sexe des étoiles (1993), Trente tableaux (2011) - shows the need of an alternative speech and the interaction that occurs between the films and specific feminist theories, from Luce Irigaray to Judith Butler, among others.

This thesis offers an analysis of women in horror film through an in depth exploration of what I term ‘gynaehorror’ – horror films that are concerned with female sex, sexuality and reproduction. While this is a broad and fruitful area of study, work in it has been shaped by a pronounced emphasis upon psychoanalytic theory, which I argue has limited the field of inquiry. To challenge this, this thesis achieves three things. Firstly, I interrogate a subgenre of horror that has not been studied in depth for twenty years, but that is experiencing renewed interest. Secondly, I analyse aspects of this subgenre outside of the dominant modes of inquiry by placing an emphasis upon philosophies of sex, gender and corporeality, rather than focussing on psychodynamic approaches. Thirdly, I consider not only what these theories may do for the study of horror films, but what spaces of inquiry horror films may open up within these philosophical areas. To do this, I focus on six broad streams: the current limitations and opportunities in the field of horror scholarship, which I augment with a discussion of women’s bodies, houses and spatiality; the relationship between normative heterosexuality and the twin figures of the chaste virgin and the voracious vagina dentata; the representation and expression of female subjectivity in horror films that feature pregnancy and abortion; the manner in which reproductive technology is bound up within hegemonic constructions of gender and power, as is evidenced by the figure of the ‘mad scientist’; the way that discourses of motherhood and maternity in horror films shift over time, but nonetheless result in the demonisation of the mother; and the theoretical and corporeal possibilities opened up through Deleuze and Guattari’s model of schizoanalysis, with specific regard to the 'Alien' films. As such, this thesis makes a unique contribution to the study of women in horror film, while also advocating for an expansion of the theoretical repertoire available to the horror scholar.

There appears to be little doubt about the nature of the relationship between the fashion model and the young girl in contemporary Western culture. Dominant literature, emerging from medico-psychological and feminist research, situates the model as a disorderly influence, imbued with the capacity to infect and, hence, distort the healthy minds and bodies of 'suggestible' young girls. Opposing these perspectives is a smaller, more recent body of literature, emerging from post-feminist work that argues that the model-girl relationship is a delightful influence. Thus, the contemporary field of scholarship reveals an increasingly dichotomous way of thinking about fashion model influence: the model influences young girls in ways that are disorderly or delightful, never both. This thesis argues that to assume that the model-girl encounter is 'neatly' disorderly or delightful is shifty at best. It suggests that, in their rush to judge the fashion model as either pernicious or pleasurable, existing literature fails to account for the precision with which young girls know the fashion model. Using poststructuralist theory, the thesis argues that 'influence' may be more usefully thought of as a discursive effect, which may produce a range of effects for better and worse. Following Foucault (1972), fashion model influence is interrogated as a regime of truth about the model-girl encounter, constituted discursively under specific social, cultural and historical conditions. In so doing, the thesis makes different sense of fashion model influence, and questions influence as an independently-existing 'force' that bears down on vulnerable young girls. Drawing on a poststructural conceptual architecture, this thesis re-conceptualises the model-girl encounter as a pedagogical relationship focused on the (ideal) female body. It suggests that the fashion model, as an authoritative embodied pedagogue, transmits knowledge about 'ideal' feminine bodily conduct to the young girl, as attentive gazing apprentice. Fashion model influence is re-interrogated as the product of certain forms of disciplinary training (Foucault, 1977a), with young girls learning a discursive knowledge about how to discipline the body in ways that are properly feminine. Such a perspective departs from the notion that fashion model influence is necessarily disorderly or delightful, and makes possible a re-reading of influence in terms of learning outcomes. A problematic arises conceptualising the fashion model in this way. To consider the model as a 'good' teacher breaches a number of discursive rules for best pedagogical practice in postmodern times: She is not a pedagogue of the mind; she is not student-centred, facilitative, asexual, interpersonally engaged, relational, or authentic. To create a space for thinking differently about the model as a teacher, then, the thesis looks to ancient historical times and places in which female-to-female and body-to-body pedagogies were practised and understood. The first phase of the research project embedded in this thesis defamiliarises pedagogical work using historical texts from ancient Greece. It examines in particular the erotically embodied pedagogical relationships conducted between older, authoritative elite prostitutes known as hetairae, and their younger female apprentices. The discursive rules governing these pedagogical relationships are examined with a view to diagnosing the model-girl encounter in terms of these rules. These rules are then used to interrogate ethnographic data generated through observation of the model-girl encounter in situ in a modelling course, and through focus group interviews with groups of young girls. Working through notions of corporeal embodiment, self as art, desire, discipline, stillness, spectacle, the gaze and the conduct of conduct, the study interrogates the model-girl encounter as a contemporary pedagogical encounter. To avoid reaffirming more traditional binaries, the reading of data is ironic, working within and between binaries such as disorder/delight. Three ironic categories of femininity are produced out of the analysis: unnaturally natural, stompy grace and beautifully grotesque. These categories 'speak' the fragmentation, fissure, contradiction, inconsistency and absurdity that permeate the talk of young girls and model-girl pedagogy in the modelling classroom. Thus, the thesis offers up an analysis of the model-girl encounter that refuses the neatness and uni-dimensionality that characterises existing literature.

This project forms part of a growing engagement with biology by critical psychology and, more broadly, body studies. The specific focus is on the neurological body whose dogmatic exclusion from critical endeavours is challenged by arguing that neuroscience offers a vital resource for emancipatory agendas. Rather than conversely treating biology as a site for the factual supplementation of social theory the aim is to engage (negotiate) with neuroscience more directly and critically. In this process a discursive reductionism and attempted escape from complicity associated with critical psychology are addressed. Similarly a naïve and apolitical empiricism claimed by neuroscience is disrupted. The primary objective is however to demonstrate the utility of neuroscience in developing critical theory. These objectives are pursued through the ‘method’ of deconstruction, (mis)reading several highly regarded neuroscience texts written by prominent neuroscientists, working within the convolutions of these texts so as develop openings for critical conceptualisations of (neural) corporeality. In this manner the various spectres associated with neurology, including essentialism, determinism, individualism, reductionism and dualism, are displaced. This includes, amongst others, the omnipresent mind/body and body/society binaries. The (mis)readings address a number of prominent themes associated with contemporary neuroscience: Attempts at specifying an identity for (part of) the brain are shown to rely on a necessary relationship with the excluded other (such as the body, the socio-cultural, and the environment). Similarly, attempts at articulating a centre, a point from which agency can proceed, which finds existing identity in the functions of the prefrontal cortices, are also undone by the (multiple, affective, and unconscious) other which decentres the centre by being the essential supplement for any such claims. The causal metaphysic must likewise proceed within the play of différance, a logic of difference and deferral that undermines causal routes, innate origins and autocratic centres. Finally, reductionism must advance as a necessary strategy through which to engage with complexity, its ambitions always impossible as the aneconomic is forever in excess of any economy. The emancipatory viability of such (mis)readings is discussed within a context where the open and malleable body has been co-opted by contemporary neo-liberal geoculture. / Psychology / D.Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)