Events

Concert in the Exit Club, Štítného 30, Praha 3 - Žižkov (8 p.m.).

Theatrical performance

Triplets in petanque, organized by SLOPE Brno

More than 75 teams participating, ranked as "prestige". Karel and Jakub Malivánek & ZK (all PK 1293, Vojnův Městec) - 17.-32. place

Speech at the special seminar at the occasion of Ivan M. Havel birthday celebration, CTS (Seminar room, 9-17h)

Archa Theatre (Na Poříčí 26, 110 00, Praha 1), 8 pm.

Jaroslav Dušek - speaking, acting, dancing, singing; Pjér Lašéz - bass, guitar, singing, speaking; Zdeněk Konopásek - drums, percussion, trumpet; Viktor Zborník - lights (Under the whip of Zdeňek Konopásek and the enlightened lashing of Viktor Zborník, Jaroslav Dušek and Pjér la Šé´z gaze into each other’s eyes).

Improvised performance for the Eko-film festival

Jaroslav Dušek - speaking, acting, dancing, singing; Pjér Lašéz - bass, guitar, singing, speaking; Zdeněk Konopásek - drums, percussion, trumpet; Viktor Zborník - lights.

Doublets in petanque, organized by KLIP Litovel

48 teams playing, ranked as "prestige"; Karel Malivánek & Zdeněk Konopásek (both PK 1293, Vojnův Městec) - 26. place

Improvised preformance, Buena Vista Club

Jaroslav Dušek - speaking, acting, dancing, singing; Pjér Lašéz - bass, guitar, singing, speaking; Zdeněk Konopásek - drums, percussion, trumpet; Viktor Zborník - lights.

Improvised performance, Archa Theatre (Na Poříčí 26, 110 00, Praha 1), 8 pm.

Improvised performance, Archa Theatre (Na Poříčí 26, 110 00, Praha 1), 8 pm.

Doublets in petanque

Presentation at the joint annual conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) & European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) on "Acting with science, technology and medicine", Rotterdam, Netherlands, August 20-23, 2008 (Session 1.4.3: Modern diseases)

We study how catholic quasi/religious experiences are dealt with in psychiatric care. We ask how it happens that, in particular therapeutic or pastoral settings, phenomena such as hearing the voice of God or having an apparition of Virgin Mary are enacted by participants as, on one hand, a legitimate religious experience or, on the other hand, a symptom of mental illness. To understand this border-work carried out, from time to time, in psychiatric (and also pastoral) practice, we used a symmetrical approach, in which no preference is a priori given to spiritual or medical explanations. That is also why we interviewed, among others, not only psychiatric professionals, but also catholic priests. Our interviewees frequently manifested their genuine interest in our research. Facing their curiosity (but also initial hesitations) we started thinking about the value of symmetrical approach somewhat differently. We appreciated that the “politics of symmetry” has implications far beyond what and how is known and started thinking more of what the symmetrical perspective means for “acting with our scientific knowledge” in the medical and pastoral fields. We decided to set up an experiment. In our early paper on the topic, we discussed a horror/court drama “Exorcism of Emily Rose” (Scott Derrickson, 2005), which tells about a catholic priest accused of negligent homicide of a young woman, Emily Rose, who had been considered by her family and the priest as possessed and did not survive attempted exorcism. Two competing versions of the case were confronted during the trial: while the prosecutor argued that Emily had been sick and exorcism directly led to her death, the defendant – with the help of an anthropologist – tried to take seriously the reality of possession. In this early paper, we show how the movie on Emily Rose carefully develops a balanced view of the phenomena and we also use this analysis to explain the principle of symmetry in our own research design. In the experiment, we have asked some mental health professionals and clerics, to watch the movie and read our early paper to prepare themselves for subsequent focused discussions with us. In the paper proposed for the 4S/EASST conference, we thus want to offer a close analysis of these discussions and shed some light on how the (explained and applied) principle of symmetry might be understood or misunderstood, accepted or rejected as relevant by the concerned professional audiences. We therefore want to contribute to the STS literature on symmetry by a small empirical exercise focused not so much on the “cognitive” relevance of this methodological standpoint, but rather on how symmetrical accounts can be accepted, understood and used by actors in the field(s) under study.

Doublets in petanque, Brno - Slatina

Doublets in petanque

Within the Pacovsky polednik festival