Publications, recordings and other outputs

An overview of what I have written and published (as sociologist) or recorded and released (as musician). Simply, all public "outputs" of my work. When technically feasible and legally possible, I will add full texts and, in respective parts of the musical section of this web, musical samples in mp3.
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KONOPÁSEK, Z. (2023 - in press): Globální uhlíková daň ladem ležící: K politickému rozměru tzv. nepolitických řešení [A Global Carbon Tax Idling: Towards the Political Dimension of So-Called Non-Political Solutions]. Vesmír, 102

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One of the proposals for solving the climate crisis is a global carbon tax. At first glance, it looks like a miraculously simple and self-sufficient tool. Yet it attracts surprisingly little attention. This is so (among other things) because it is being not only promoted but also constructed as a purely non-political solution. Since people are often tempted to prefer what is declared as non-political solutions, characteristically under the pressure of existential threat and with support in scientific argumentation, it is worthwhile to examine the case of the GUD global carbon tax in more detail.

NELSON, Nicole C. / TIMMERMANS, Stefan / WARWICK, Andrew / KONOPÁSEK, Zdeněk / VANCE, Russell E / KUO, Wen-Hua (2023): On first reading Bruno Latour. Social Studies of Science, 53 (2): 174-179

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Contributions to the special issue of the journal dedicated to Bruno Latour who passed away in October 2022.

KONOPÁSEK, Z. / MARŠÁLEK, J. (2023): Se sociology v zádech: laboratoře, texty, teorie [Sociologists in the scientists' back: Laboratories, texts, theories]. Československý časopis pro fyziku, 73 (2): 102-106

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Having dealt with scientific controversies in our last text, we will now turn to some other “sites” from which sociologists have attempted to grasp science as a subject of inquiry . First, we show what the so-called "laboratory ethnographies", focused on everyday scientific practices, have brought about. Second, we discuss why it is important to pay attention to scientific language and scientific discourse. And finally, we present some rare examples of sociological scrutinizing theoretical work, i.e., of an activity when little seems to happen outside the unaccessible scientific mind. In this context, we point out that, just like other disciplines, sociology shapes its research object in various ways according to its needs, while transforming itself in interaction with it.

KONOPÁSEK, Z. / MARŠÁLEK, J. (2023): Když se dva hádají, třetí... pozoruje: Sociologické studium vědeckých kontroverzí [When two argue, the third… observes: A sociological study of scientific controversies]. Československý časopis pro fyziku, 73 (1): 4-7

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This is the second of six texts on sociology of science and scientific knowledge (and, more broadly, so called Science Studies) – the discipline that has often taken physics as an object of study. Why, in the field of Science Studies, have the scientific controversies been objects of so passionate interest? We explain the importance and methodological consequences of this empirical programme. Then, the specificity of this approach is discussed with the reference to the Trevor Pinch's study of R. Davis's solar-neutrino experiment. We argue that, in more general terms, scientific controversies have been providing social scientists with an efficient point of access to scientific practice the multiformity of which is systematically obliterated once new scientific facts are consolidated.

KONOPÁSEK, Z. (2023 - in press): Věda a politika, vpravo, vlevo [Science and politics, right, left]. Sociální studia, ?? (??): ??-??

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[In Czech only]

MARŠÁLEK, J. / KONOPÁSEK, Z. / HADWIGER ZÁMEČNÍK, L. (2022): Kolik fyziky se vejde do vývěvy (a co všechno do fyziky)? [How much physics can fit into a vacuum pump (and what everything fits into physics)?]. Československý časopis pro fyziku, 72 (6): 424-426

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Physics is perhaps the most studied scientific discipline in the so-called social studies of science. The aim of this short text is to outline the space in which the sociology of physics - and more broadly Science Studies - operates, and which we will try to map out in the forthcoming six-part series of overview texts.

KONOPÁSEK, Z. (2022): Konopásek kontra Latour: Barša má vidiny pistolníků a z vlastních kvérů se mu ještě kouří [Konopásek versus Latour: Barša has visions of gunslingers and his own guns are still smoking]. Zdeněk Konopásek's Blog, 14. 8. 2022. Available at http://zdenek.konopasek.net/index.php?m=16&b=16&i=4368

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KONOPÁSEK, Z. (2022): Religion in action: How Marian apparitions may become true. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 12 (1): 170–183

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According to Latour, religion and science have nothing in common. The two are successful (or failing) in quite different ways. Religiousness is not aimed at fact-making, but at presence-making, he says. To critically reconsider these ideas, I discuss the case study of Marian apparitions in Litmanová. The study suggests a more complicated picture by not focusing on pure and ready-made religion, but rather on religion in the making, a kind of “almost-religion.” It shows how the reality of apparitions, initially of quite unclear status, was becoming more and more religious. Fact-making and fact-checking clearly belonged to this trajectory and have never stopped being relevant. Nonethless, together with how the apparition was progressively becoming truly religious (or religiously true), Latourian presence-making was gaining in importance.

KONOPÁSEK, Z. (2021): Konec hermeneutiky? Atlas.ti, verze devátá. [The end of hermeneutics? Atlas.ti, version 9]. Biograf, 73-74: 233-246

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It is argued that the new version of this software package for qualitative analysis continues in a problematic direction (taken already in version 8). Despite claims about improved workflow, the program interface remains confusing and difficult to use. It requires too many clicks, its setting options are almost zero (impossible to define window background colours, completely missing network views options). Above all, however, it turns out that some of the program capabilities lost with the transition to version 8 in 2016 have not come back (yet). Even after five years, despite original promises, the program does not allow synchronized work with sound recordings and their transcripts (Windows version). What a shame. I also show that the program gradually weakens the emphasis on hermeneutic work with text (various modes of reading and writing) in favor of the easiest possible text encoding. It happens by means of subtle details in respective procedures. As a result, Atlas.ti (projects of which were once called “hermeneutic units”) loses its former uniqueness among other CAQDAS programs.

3 Lydi (2021): 1981. Digital album available at Bandcamp

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Home recordings made with poor equipment in Spring and Summer 1981. [audio samples here]
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