Books

The town of Longyearbyen in the high Arctic is the world's northernmost settlement. Here, climate change is happening fast. It is clearly seen and sensed by the locals; with higher temperatures, more rain and permafrost thaw. At the same time, the town is shifting from state-controlled coal production to tourism, research and development, rapidly globalising, with numerous languages spoken, cruise ships sounding the horn in the harbour and planes landing and taking off.

Zdenka Sokolickova lived here between 2019 and 2021, and her research in the community uncovered a story about the conflict between sustainability and the driving forces of politics and economy in the rich global North. A small town of 2,400 inhabitants at 78 degrees latitude north on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, Longyearbyen provided a unique view into the unmistakable relationship between global capitalism and climate change.

The Paradox of Svalbard looks at both local and global trends to access a deep understanding of the effects of tourism, immigration, labour and many other elements on the trajectory of climate crisis, and whether anything can be done to reverse them.

Modernismus- und Antimodernimuskrise in der katholischen Kirche sind ein höchst bewegtes und entscheidendes Kapitel der modernen Kirchen- und Sozialgeschichte. Der Dominikanerprofessor Vincent Zapletal war einer der streitbarsten Vertreter der Modernismuskrise und einer der großen Wegbereiter der modernen katholischen Exegese zu Ende des 19. und Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. In Mähren geboren, studierte er zunächst in Wien, später in Jerusalem an der Ecole biblique. Von 1893-1928 lehrte er an der Universität Fribourg/Schweiz an der Theologischen Fakultät des Dominikanerordens Altes Testament. Neben M.-J. Lagrange OP ist Vincent Zapletal eine der prägendsten und menschlich beeindruckendsten Gestalten im Kampf um eine moderne wissenschaftliche Exegese in der katholischen Kirche. Zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts galt er als wichtigster deutschschreibender katholischer Exeget. Zwischen 1918 und 1926 publizierte er außerdem sechs umfangreiche biblische Romane in deutscher Sprache. Leben und Werk dieser Schlüsselfigur der Modernismuskrise werden hier erstmals umfassend dargestellt. Die wissenschaftlich akribische, auf reiches Quellenmaterial gestützte Biographie zeichnet ein vielschichtiges, lebendiges Lebensporträt, in dem sich zentrale Themen der modernen Geschichte, und nicht nur der katholischen Kirchengeschichte erschließen. 

A detailed study of the Catholic Church’s acceptance of the historical-critical method and modernization through the pivotal work of European theologians and biblical scholars.

One of the few topics in Catholic studies that demonstrates a marked about-face in theological attitudes within the Catholic Church is the reception of the historical-critical method in biblical exegesis and its dramatic rise from outright condemnation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to its official acceptance by the 1990s. The Bible and the Crisis of Modernism tells the dramatic story of the ultimate acceptance of this modern method by the Catholic Church as it worked out the relationship between faith and reason in view of advances in the social and natural sciences. Particular attention to the contributions of Czech theologians to the field of biblical exegesis foregrounds the tensions at play in the church’s gradual recognition of the value of the historical-critical method to a better understanding of the Christian scriptures.

In this extensive study of the church’s response to the historical-critical method, Petráček broaches wider topics, such as the relationship between the Catholic Church and society in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the modernization of the church in the face of a changing world, the balance between institutional authority and individual freedom of conscience, and the balance between scholarly independence and ecclesial convictions. The attitude of the Catholic Church to modern scholarly research in many ways reflects its complicated relationship to the modern world in general, as The Bible and the Crisis of Modernism shows. Scholars in biblical studies, Catholic studies, and the history of the church in the Czech Republic will find Petráček’s work an enlightening addition to their collections. 

The monograph deals with one of the most important features of knowledge management, i.e. knowledge transfer and knowledge transfer management. The authors in their work analyse the academic environment, which is considered to be primary source of theoretical knowledge. The monograph uncovers current trends in which learning is a primary driver of flexible reactions in an organization to changes in business environment. Knowledge is therefore one of the most important resources in an organization.

The main goal of the monograph is to describe knowledge transfer from the academic sphere towards businesses in tourism sector. Furthermore, the need to create effective system of knowledge sharing and transfer not only in companies, but especially within the tourism

destination is justified. The effort is to critically assesses situations in which academic knowledge is beneficial to tourism enterprises, whether it is applicable in practice. The monograph comes up with a proposal of a knowledge transfer model for tourism destination. It also suggests further research to be made in the field of knowledge transfer, especially from the academic sphere towards tourism businesses.

Configuring Memory in Czech Family Sagas: The Art of Forgetting in Generic Tradition explores how literature may configure family memory. Family sagas can be viewed as a structure helping us to share our memories. Special attention will be paid to crucial generic motifs within family sagas, as well as to elements of the narrative structure, which hold powerful memory-forming potential. The book proves that this potential can be fulfilled in two ways. The genre under analysis tends to strengthen the “bad family memory” and consider it as a burden, and to encourage one to forget their family past. Despite the prevalence of the saga as a cultural form right across mass media, the literary genre of the family saga has not attracted intensive critical acclaim. Readers of this book will not only learn more about the genre of family saga but also be encouraged to reflect on their own family memories.

Performing Immanence: Forced Entertainment is a unique probe into the multi-faceted nature of the works of the British experimental theatre Forced Entertainment via the thought of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Jan Suk explores the transformation-potentiality of the territory between the actors and the spectators, namely via Forced Entertainment’s structural patterns, sympathy provoking aesthetics, audience integration and accentuated emphasis of the now. Besides writings of Tim Etchells, the company’s director, the foci of the analyses are devised as well as durational projects of Forced Entertainment. The examination includes a wider spectrum of state-of the-art live artists, e.g. Tehching Hsieh, Franko B or Goat Island, discussed within the contemporary performance discourse. Performing Immanence: Forced Entertainment investigates how the immanent reading of Forced Entertainment’s performances brings the potentiality of creative transformative experience via the thought of Gilles Deleuze. The interconnections of Deleuze’s thought and the contemporary devised performance theatre results in the symbiotic relationship that proves that such readings are not mere academic exercises, but truly life-illuminating realizations.

This book brings together a unique set of comparative data from Western and Central Europe on how contemporary families live, and discusses the similarities and differences in family lifestyles in this region. The empirical data comes from the authors‘ original research derived from adult representatives of families with children in the Czech Republic, Germany, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine. The authors compare and interpret information on the social and economic situation of families, expressed satisfaction in their lifestyles, and leisure and media in the everyday life of families. Overall, the authors bring into the discussion both current knowledge and original empirical data on families and contribute to literature on the sociology of the family, particularly in Europe. This book is useful to researchers and students interested in family issues, along with professionals in the field of family care and social policy.

This book is not a list or an overview of various theories of ethics. Nor is it a didactic manual for specific teaching units on moral education aimed at some group based on age or a particular theme (although some educational frameworks will be proposed). As the title suggests, the book intends to seek the starting points or foundations without which no moral education would be possible. The goal is to formulate and tackle the key questions which precede all moral education. What makes “good vs. evil” language possible and meaningful? Can virtue be taught and learnt? What makes our actions good? What is the condition of human nature? Are we naturally good, or evil? What constitutes an educator’s right to morally influence anyone else (not just a child)? What is the goal of moral education? What does a morally educated person look like? And how can we ensure the coveted moral result? Or – in the words of Jan Amos Comenius, the “teacher of nations” – how to educate a person to not only know what is good, but also to want what is good, and to do what is good “even if no one is looking?”

This book maps the history of Czechoslovak PEN Club from its creation till the present days. The author captured all the important moments of Club life in five chapters not only from strictly historical view, but also from cultural, political and literary perspective. The most interesting part of the book is probably the one about the interwar period in which cultural life was just thriving. On the contrary the activities of Czech PEN during the communist era in the fifties and later in the seventies and eighties were halted under the severe leadership of the party. Only during the sixties there was a short period of liberalization which swiftly ended after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the upcoming process of normalization. The Club had to rest for twenty years until finally there came a complete renaissance of Czech PEN after the Velvet Revolution.

Power and Exploitation in the Czech Lands in the 10th-12th Centuries: A Central European Perspective offers a unique analysis of the history of early medieval Czech society. It draws new attention to the role of serfdom and slavery in the early period of the Přemyslid dynasty in the Czech lands, and the organization of land and property access and ownership. The provocative conclusions reached by the author in this study shed new light on the oldest period of Czech history. Petráček analyses these issues comparatively, also taking into account Poland and Hungary; this is an approach unique to this book.