Konference, semináře, přednášky

Přednáška v rámci čtvrtečních seminářů CTS (10-12h, seminární místnost, 3. patro)

Fenomény jako je posedlost démony, zjevení Panny Marie nebo slyšení hlasu Božího jsou mnohdy kontroverzní a obtížně uchopitelné. Člověk s těmito zážitky se může dostat jak do péče duchovních, tak do péče psychiatrické; jeho zkušenosti totiž mohou být chápány jako symptomy duševní nemoci nebo jako nefalšovaný duchovní prožitek. V psychiatrii i pastoraci se však překvapivě vyskytují i situace, kdy tyto na první pohled protichůdné “interpretace” spíše pokojně koexistují, kdy se mezi nimi nerozhoduje v logice buď-anebo. Pokusíme se ukázat, že tyto situace jsou pro oba obory svým způsobem důležité a že přistoupit na takovou nejednoznačnost neznamená rezignovat na pastorační či psychiatrickou práci, ale může to naopak otevírat příležitost k činu. 

Příspěvek pro konferenci Politics of knowing: Research, institutions and gender in the making, Praha, 27.-28. listopadu 2008

Apparitions and possessions are a strange kind of phenomena. Being rather marginal and extraordinary experiences or happenings, often hardly accountable and controversial, they can be defined, treated, understood and accepted (i.e., performed, enacted) from within at least two different perspectives or epistemic cultures: mental health care and pastoral care. Simply put, they can be taken as symptoms of psychopathology or as genuine spiritual events. In this paper we would like to focus upon occasions when the two seemingly conflicting “interpretations” rather peacefully co-exist. Given the omnipresent tensions between “the rational” and “the spiritual” or between scientific and religious approaches to the world, such occasions - surprisingly - appear. And even more: as we will try to show in our empirical analysis, they are important for maintaining the respective epistemic cultures and their concepts strong, distinct, and yet interconnected.Apparitions and possessions are a strange kind of phenomena. Being rather marginal and extraordinary experiences or happenings, often hardly accountable and controversial, they can be defined, treated, understood and accepted (i.e., performed, enacted) from within at least two different perspectives or epistemic cultures: mental health care and pastoral care. Simply put, they can be taken as symptoms of psychopathology or as genuine spiritual events. In this paper we would like to focus upon occasions when the two seemingly conflicting “interpretations” rather peacefully co-exist. Given the omnipresent tensions between “the rational” and “the spiritual” or between scientific and religious approaches to the world, such occasions - surprisingly - appear. And even more: as we will try to show in our empirical analysis, they are important for maintaining the respective epistemic cultures and their concepts strong, distinct, and yet interconnected.

Příspěvek v rámci čtvrtečního semináře CTS a Týdne vědy a techniky AV ČR (CTS, 10-12h, blok "Co se děje na Zemi" - spolu s Davidem Storchem a Cyrilem Říhou)

Příspěvek na speciálním semináři k narozeninám Ivana M. Havla, CTS (seminární místnost, 9-17h)

Vystoupení na společné výroční konferenci Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) & European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) s názvem "Acting with science, technology and medicine", Rotterdam, Holandsko, 20.-23. srpna 2008 (Sekce 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.

Vystoupení na 5. obroční evropské konference Society for Literature, Science & Arts "Figurations of knowledge", Berlín, Německo, 2.-7. června 2008 (Stream 1: Inspiration & intuition)

In our research we focus on the thresholds, passages and incommensurabilities between psychiatry and spirituality. More specifically, we ask: How it happens, in terms of observable and accountable practices, that phenomena such as hearing the voice of God, having an apparition of Virgin Mary or suffering from demonic oppression are sometimes understood as symptoms of mental illnesses or, other times, as elements of true spiritual or religious experience? Assuming that it simply is psychiatry, which produces the former, and pastoral practice, which pushes such cases to the latter end, is misleading. The field of practices we study is much more complicated. A useful methodological tool for observing subtleties of our phenomena is taking a symmetrical stand toward them, i.e., taking the spiritual and the psychiatric equally seriously. In our paper we would like to discuss the movie “Exorcism of Emily Rose” (Scott Derrickson, 2005), a combination of horror and court drama, in which a priest is sued for causing death of a young woman by performing exorcism on her. We analyze various means by which the film maintains undecidability for us, as audience, as for the key point of the story: was the young woman, Emily Rose, sick, or possessed? The aim of our analysis is to show what such a symmetrical approach might mean and what implications it could have for research practice, which also can be seen, after all, as a kind of trial.

Přednáška v rámci čtvrtečních seminářů CTS (Centrum pro teoretická studia, Husova 4, 3. patro - seminární místnost, 10-12h)

Příspěvek pro mezinárodní workshop The potential and limitations of lists, Praha, Centrum pro teoretická studia, 6.-8. listopadu 2007.

Vystoupení na Annual Conference for the Society for Social Studies of Science, Montreal, Canada, 11.-13. října 2007 (Sekce 15.8: Magic, religion, and science)

Vystoupení na Annual Conference for the Society for Social Studies of Science, Montreal, Canada, 11.-13. října 2007 (Sekce 8.1: Managing nature)

We study processes by which the European nature-reserve project NATURA 2000 is being implemented in the Czech Republic. These processes involve production and mobilisation of expertise as well as political negotiations and decision-making. Expert knowledge and scientific criteria were to play a decisive role in this project, any other criteria being only secondary. An extensive and systematic review of the state of nature was initiated. In the beginning, exhaustive catalogues of biotopes were created so that any piece of landscape could be classified during the subsequent fieldwork. Hundreds of collaborators of varying professional and scientific background were then hired to undertake an unprecedented mapping of the Czech nature. On the basis of such a mapping, lists of protected areas were created, negotiated and proposed for approval. We discuss these processes and procedures in order to highlight diversity of interests, strategies, practical purposes and applications that all together contribute to the creation of above-mentioned catalogues, maps, and lists (as “boundary objects” of a kind). Above all, we are interested in how the business of expert knowledge production and evaluation was from the very beginning intertwined with everyday administrative work of responsible regional bodies or with the political agenda of environmentalist NGOs. In conclusion, we confront such “messy” practical local arrangements with the primacy of purely expert criteria emphasised by the official NATURA 2000 documents and by participants in particular controversies over the proposed areas of protection.

Vystoupení na 2. mezinárodní konferenci Interdisciplinary social sciences, University of Granada, Španělsko, 10.-13. července 2007

Vystoupení na 2. mezinárodní konferenci Interdisciplinary social sciences, University of Granada, Španělsko, 10.-13. července 2007

Vystoupení na 9. pracovní konferenci Biografu, Borek u Suchomast, 25.-27. května 2007

Přednáška v rámci čtvrtečních seminářů CTS (10-12h, seminární místnost, Husova 4, Praha 1)

Přednáška v rámci čtvrtečních seminářů CTS (10-12h, seminární místnost, Husova 4, Praha 1)