Increasing international uncertainty - including factors such as ongoing financial crises, climate change and energy scarcity - raises questions about which policy strategies can best solve environmental problems and promote community development. This article describes the functioning of the farmers' market in the Czech city of Brno and analyses how it may contribute to local sustainable development. Theoretically, the article engages the debate over the meaning of sustainability and appropriate policies to achieve sustainability goals. Field observations, interviews, content analysis (...) of government documents, and a survey of vendors reveal how the market functions, indicate the meaning of the market for customers and vendors alike, shed light on the future use of the space and provide data for comparison of market activities with official sustainability policy. The article concludes that a novel approach toward sustainable development is to work with existing traditions like farmers' markets rather than focus efforts exclusively on top-down initiatives and high-tech solutions. While such markets are not automatically ecologically friendly, and farmers' markets alone cannot produce a sustainable society, this research demonstrates the potential of such emergent, bottom-up activities to help transform society-nature relations while improving urban quality of life. (shrink)

This paper is an ethnographic study of everyday walking practice in the city. The research was conducted in 2014-2015 in selected streets of Brno city and was based on a hybrid method of shared walking (go-along) coupled with observations and semi-structured interviews. As urban walking is recognized as a significant mode of travel, this paper aims to expand existing knowledge by contributing qualitative data. The key influence is the work of Michel de Certeau (1984) who understands walking as a (...) practice of everyday life. Everyday walking helps shape physical spaces and this subsequently affects human behavior. In this article I will discuss how people relate to walking, how they act in urban space and what importance they attach to their behavior. Another aim is to ascertain how pedestrians behave while performing their everyday routine and how they interact with drivers and cyclists. (shrink)

C'est le compte-rendu de: Barnés Vázquez, Antonio & Magda Kučerková (ed.), _The Figurativeness of the Language of Mystical Experience._ _Particularities and Interpretations. _Brno, Masaryk University Press, 2021, 279 pp., ISBN 978-80-210-9997-5.

La imagen del gitano en la lexicografía española Ivo Buzek, hoy día Doctor en lenguas románicas y Profesor ayudante de lingüística española en la Universidad Masaryk de Brno, especializado sobre todo en el área de la lexicología y lexicografía española, publicó entre muchos, un extenso estudio monográfico al que le dio el título de LA IMAGEN DEL GITANO EN LA LEXICOGRAFÍA ESPAÑOLA, y que salió a la luz en 2010. A primera vista parece que se trata de un diccionario (...) de dos centenares de voces g... (shrink)

The following text is inspired by a special issue of the journal ESPES vol. 10, no. 2 (2021) entitled _Everyday Aesthetics: European Perspectives _and returns to the theme of _flâneurie_. It focuses on the Czech environment and, after a brief outline of the artistic _flâneurism _associated mainly with Prague, it moves on to the specific phenomenon of the Brno _štatl _and _štatlaři_, which are to some extent related to _flâneurism_. The _štatl _community followed the tradition of the _plotna_, a (...) more closed group of socially weaker inhabitants of the city in the first half of the twentieth century, whose features included a special dialect – _hantec_. _Štatlaři _recruited more from the milieu of the educated people, bohemians, and artists, adopted, and transformed. The aim of the study is to show which characteristics _flâneurism _and “_štatlař-ism_” have in common and in what ways they differ. Furthermore, we will address the question of how knowledge of the phenomenon of _štatlaři _can influence the perception of flaneurs when they are walking around the city of Brno. (shrink)

The following text is inspired by a special issue of the journal ESPES vol. 10, no. 2 (2021) entitled _Everyday Aesthetics: European Perspectives _and returns to the theme of _flâneurie_. It focuses on the Czech environment and, after a brief outline of the artistic _flâneurism _associated mainly with Prague, it moves on to the specific phenomenon of the Brno _štatl _and _štatlaři_, which are to some extent related to _flâneurism_. The _štatl _community followed the tradition of the _plotna_, a (...) more closed group of socially weaker inhabitants of the city in the first half of the twentieth century, whose features included a special dialect – _hantec_. _Štatlaři _recruited more from the milieu of the educated people, bohemians, and artists, adopted, and transformed. The aim of the study is to show which characteristics _flâneurism _and “_štatlař-ism_” have in common and in what ways they differ. Furthermore, we will address the question of how knowledge of the phenomenon of _štatlaři _can influence the perception of flaneurs when they are walking around the city of Brno. (shrink)

The following text is inspired by a special issue of the journal ESPES vol. 10, no. 2 (2021) entitled _Everyday Aesthetics: European Perspectives _and returns to the theme of _flâneurie_. It focuses on the Czech environment and, after a brief outline of the artistic _flâneurism _associated mainly with Prague, it moves on to the specific phenomenon of the Brno _štatl _and _štatlaři_, which are to some extent related to _flâneurism_. The _štatl _community followed the tradition of the _plotna_, a (...) more closed group of socially weaker inhabitants of the city in the first half of the twentieth century, whose features included a special dialect – _hantec_. _Štatlaři _recruited more from the milieu of the educated people, bohemians, and artists, adopted, and transformed. The aim of the study is to show which characteristics _flâneurism _and “_štatlař-ism_” have in common and in what ways they differ. Furthermore, we will address the question of how knowledge of the phenomenon of _štatlaři _can influence the perception of flaneurs when they are walking around the city of Brno. (shrink)

Efforts to bring science into early 19th century breeding practices in Central Europe, organised from Brno, the Hapsburg city in which Mendel would later turn breeding experiments into a body of timeless theory, are here considered as a significant prelude to the great discovery. During those years prior to Mendel's arrival in Brno, enlightened breeders were seeking ways to regulate the process of heredity, which they viewed as a force to be controlled. Many were specialising in sheep breeding (...) for the benefit of the local wool industry while others were showing an interest in commercial plants, especially fruit trees and vines, and later cereals. Breeders explained their problems in regulating heredity in terms of (1) climatic influences (2) disruption due to crossing (3) sports or saltations. Practical experience led them to the concepts of 'inheritance capacity' and the 'mutual elective affinity' of parents. The former was seen to differ among individuals and also among traits; the latter was proposed as a means of adding strength to heredity. The breeders came to recognise that traits might be hidden and yet transmitted as a 'potential' to future generations. They also grew to understand that heredity would be strengthened when a quality was 'fixed' within a lineage by 'pure blood relations.' Continued selection of the desired quality might then lead to 'a higher perfection.' But the ultimate 'physiological' question about breeding, 'what is inherited and how?,' found no answer. Major figures in this development included Abbot Napp, the one who asked this question and who was due to receive Mendel into the monastery in 1843, and Professor Diebl whose lectures on agriculture and natural science at the Brno Philosophical Institute Mendel would attend in 1846. Here we analyse their progress in theorizing about breeding up until about 1840. In discussing this development, we refer to certain international contacts, especially with respect to information transfer and scientific education, within the wider context of the late Enlightenment. (shrink)

Efforts to bring science into early 19th century breeding practices in Central Europe, organised from Brno, the Hapsburg city in which Mendel would later turn breeding experiments into a body of timeless theory, are here considered as a significant prelude to the great discovery. During those years prior to Mendel's arrival in Brno, enlightened breeders were seeking ways to regulate the process of heredity, which they viewed as a force to be controlled. Many were specialising in sheep breeding (...) for the benefit of the local wool industry while others were showing an interest in commercial plants, especially fruit trees and vines, and later cereals. Breeders explained their problems in regulating heredity in terms of climatic influences disruption due to crossing sports or saltations. Practical experience led them to the concepts of 'inheritance capacity' and the 'mutual elective affinity' of parents. The former was seen to differ among individuals and also among traits; the latter was proposed as a means of adding strength to heredity. The breeders came to recognise that traits might be hidden and yet transmitted as a 'potential' to future generations. They also grew to understand that heredity would be strengthened when a quality was 'fixed' within a lineage by 'pure blood relations.' Continued selection of the desired quality might then lead to 'a higher perfection.' But the ultimate 'physiological' question about breeding, 'what is inherited and how?,' found no answer. Major figures in this development included Abbot Napp, the one who asked this question and who was due to receive Mendel into the monastery in 1843, and Professor Diebl whose lectures on agriculture and natural science at the Brno Philosophical Institute Mendel would attend in 1846. Here we analyse their progress in theorizing about breeding up until about 1840. In discussing this development, we refer to certain international contacts, especially with respect to information transfer and scientific education, within the wider context of the late Enlightenment. (shrink)

Studie recenzuje následující díla: Maurice HALBWACHS, Kolektivní paměť. Praha: SLON 2009, 289 s. ; Françoise MAYER, Češi a jejich komunismus: paměť a politická identita. Praha: Argo 2009, 273 s. ; Zdeněk VAŠÍČEK – Françoise MAYER, Minulost a současnost, paměť a dějiny. Brno – Praha: CDK – Triáda 2008, 199 s. Studie konstatuje, že v češtině začíná být k dispozici dostatečné množství publikací o sociální paměti, aby teoreticky zabezpečily širší pojetí výzkumů paměti. Zároveň by však tyto výzkumy neměly být podřizovány (...) historiografii, a především je v nich zapotřebí pracovat nejen s koncepty identity a sociálních svazků, ale i moci a konfliktu. (shrink)

The study reviews following books: Richard DAWKINS, Bož blud: Přin nboženstv těchu, nebo bolest? Praha: Academia 2009, 480 s. (The God Delusion, translated by Zuzana Gabrov with epilogue by Filip Jaro and Stanislav Komrek); HANU, J. - VYBRAL, J. (eds.), Dawkins pod mikroskopem: Diskuse nad knihou Richarda Dawkinse Bož blud. Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury 2010. The aim of this study is to overview the debate inspired by publication of the Czech translation of Dawkins' book The God (...) Delusion, whose most complex contributions inspired publication of the book Dawkins pod mikroskopem. (shrink)

Moses Dobruska, born as a Jew in Brno, Moravia in 1753, died on the guillotine in Paris in 1794. His life was adventurous, but the biography is not enough to understand the creative force of this atypical intellectual. Silvana Greco, sociologist of.

This study aims to identify student attitudes to and perceptions of the topical phenomenon of plagiarism at the Faculty of Regional Development and International Studies at Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic. The paper includes a theoretical framework describing plagiarism, academic ethics and provides a different perspective on plagiarism by many authors. Furthermore, the article presents a semi-structured questionnaire conducted in July 2018 with a sample of 235 respondents. The questionnaire was used in this research to explore students’ personal (...) experiences, recommendations and other information relating to their attitudes to and perceptions of plagiarism. The results indicate that FRDIS students were familiar with the concept of plagiarism but not always able to clearly identify the correct answers. The recommendation for the Faculty, based on the data analysis, is to hold a tutorial on all the important aspects of plagiarism, such as citations, referencing, and common mistakes. This paper concludes that plagiarism can only be eliminated if it is tackled at the prevention phase, not merely through the use of warnings and threats. (shrink)

Essays and documents surveying the post-communist architectural scene in the Czech Republic. - 1/ “Wild & Wilder” (1997) – A brief travelogue with comments on Kew Gardens, London, and Mies van der Rohe’s Villa Tugendhat (1930), Brno. 2/ “Angel City” (1999) – A short report on Jean Nouvel’s Golden Angel office tower in Smíchov, Prague. 3/ “Read & Weep: Scandal in Bohemia” (1999) – Essay on post-communist machinations within the architectural scene in the Czech Republic, including reports on: Jean (...) Nouvel’s Angel City and its critics; charges of “lite (postmodern) neo-functionalism” here and there; a cooked “open” competition for a proposed Kupka museum in an old mill on the island of Kampa (in the Vltava); a tourist-dodging transit through Josip Plečnik’s gardens at Prague Castle; and stories and legends regarding the Star Pavilion and oak wood at White Mountain. 4/ “The Body of the City” (2001) – Critique of Richard Meier and Partners’ proposed ECM Radio Plaza, a series of towers meant to complete an unfinished, communist-era “Rockefeller Center” in the Pankrác district of Prague. 5/ “Gnomic Works: The Sculptural Works of Kurt Gebauer” (2002) – Essay on the sculpture of Czech artist Kurt Gebauer with images from his exhibition in Zlín in 2001. 6/ “House of the Wind: May Day” (2004) – Prose poem written on May Day 2004 regarding wandering around Olšanské hřbitovy, a mostly 19th-century cemetery in the Žižkov district of Prague. 7/ “Architectural Eyewash” (2004) – An essay surveying: various complaints within the Czech architectural community regarding an outbreak of “architectural eyewash” in the 2004 Chamber of Architects’ Grand Prix competition; rumors and innuendo regarding a proposed Kupka museum on Kampa; complaints about Daniel Libeskind’s proposed Dalí House, Prague; etc. 8/ “Moravian Shadows” (2004) – Essay on “cultural shadows” in the context of Czech architecture, with a nod to Nietzsches’ The Birth of Tragedy. 9/ The Near & The Far: Moravian Garden (2006) – Notes and discurses on a very small, yet “immense” South Moravian country garden in Skryje, Czech Republic. (shrink)

The upheavals of late eighteenth century Europe encouraged people to demand greater liberties, including the freedom to explore the natural world, individually or as part of investigative associations. The Moravian Agricultural and Natural Science Society, organized by Christian Carl André, was one such group of keen practitioners of theoretical and applied scientific disciplines. Headquartered in the “Moravian Manchester” Brünn, the centre of the textile industry, society members debated the improvement of sheep wool to fulfil the needs of the Habsburg armies (...) fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. Wool, as the raw material of soldiers' clothing, could influence the war’s outcome. During the early nineteenth century, wool united politics, economics, and science in Brno, where breeders and natural scientists investigated the possibilities of increasing wool production. They regularly discussed how “climate” or “seed” characteristics influenced wool quality and quantity. Breeders and academics put their knowledge into immediate practice to create sheep with better wool traits through consanguineous matching of animals and artificial selection. This apparent disregard for the incest taboo, however, was viewed as violating natural laws and cultural norms. The debate intensified between 1817 and 1820, when a Hungarian veteran soldier, sheep breeder, and self-taught natural scientist, Imre Festetics, displayed his inbred Mimush sheep, which yielded wool extremely well suited for the fabrication of light but strong garments. Members of the Society questioned whether such “bastard sheep” would be prone to climatic degeneration, should be regarded as freaks of nature, or could be explained by natural laws. The exploration of inbreeding in sheep began to be distilled into hereditary principles that culminated in 1819 with Festetics’s “laws of organic functions” and “genetic laws of nature,” four decades before Gregor Johann Mendel’s seminal work on heredity in peas. (shrink)

Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach was born 18 February 1838 in the Moravian village of Chrlice (near Brno), at that time part of the Austrian Monarchy, now the Czech Republic, and died 19 February 1916 in Vaterstetten (near Munich). He enjoyed a very successful career as an experimental physicist (the unit for the velocity of sound has been named after him). His importance for the philosophy of science derives mainly from his “historico‐critical” writings (Mach 1872, 1883, 1896b, 1921). Mach (...) studied mathematics and physics at the University of Vienna (1855–60, doctorate in physics 1860, his “Habilitation” (i.e., qualification to become a university professor) 1861) and his subsequent work was in the physiology of the senses. In 1864 he became professor first of mathematics and then (1866) of physics at Graz University; from 1867 to 1895 he was professor of experimental physics at Prague University; and in 1895 he took a chair in “Philosophy, especially the History and Theory of the Inductive Sciences” at Vienna University. In 1898 a stroke ended Mach's university teaching, but he was able to continue scientific work to a certain degree. (shrink)

Studie recenzuje díla: Richard DAWKINS, Boží blud: Přináší náboženství útěchu, nebo bolest? Praha: Academia 2009, 480 s. ; HANUŠ, J. - VYBÍRAL, J., Dawkins pod mikroskopem: Diskuse nad knihou Richarda Dawkinse Boží blud. Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury 2010. Cílem textu je poukázat na debatu vyvolanou českým vydáním Dawkinsova díla Boží blud, jejímž nejdůkladnějším příspěvkem je vydání knihy Dawkins pod mikroskopem.

The Faculty of Law at Masaryk University in Brno, the Czech Re- public, offers several fields of studies, one of them being the three-year Bachelor’s degree programme of International Trade Law. This programme includes two semesters of English for specific purposes which the students take in their first year of studies. However, as the programme is offered as a part time study, there are only 10 lessons of English taught within two days per semester. Preparing a course which would (...) develop the students’ language abilities and skills in the international trade law environment appears to be rather challenging under such conditions. In the paper I would like to share the ideas and experience from re- designing the syllabus for this course of English for international trade law. I describe the process from the original syllabus to a new one in which the teaching situation and students’ needs are taken into account. The course in- tends to include both product and process oriented goals and helps to improve general professional needs. In order to cover the field specific vocabulary, language practice and soft skills development within the above mentioned limited time frame, the students need to work both before and after the classes. The course is going to be piloted this year and we expect further modifications after its evaluation. (shrink)

Food is becoming an increasingly important issue in the urban context. Urban food policies are a new phenomenon in Czechia, where urban food alternatives to the current food regime are promoted by food movements or take the form of traditional self-provisioning. This paper examines how urban food governance in Prague and Brno is constituted based on the municipalities’ relations with actors engaged in urban food alternatives. We argue that prioritizing aspects of local food system transformation compliant with the status (...) quo is non-systemic and implies a fragmentation of urban food alternatives based on different levels of social capital and radicality. We conceptualize urban food alternatives as values-based modes of production and consumption and focus on values that guide urban food governance in its participatory and territorial interplay with the actors of urban food alternatives. Our analysis reveals that the values underpinning the two cities’ progressive food policies do not match reality on the ground. We propose four types of relations between the two examined cities and aspects of the local food system transformation. Aspects compliant with the status quo, such as food waste reduction and community gardening are embraced, whereas those requiring more public intervention, such as public procurement, short supply chains, or the protection of cultivable land are disregarded, degraded, or, at most, subject to experimentation as part of biodiversity protection. Chances for a successful transformation of the local food system under such governance are low but can be increased by strengthening social capital and coalition work among urban food alternatives. (shrink)

In a paper published in volume 50 of Annals of Science an astrolabe at the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, Florence, was attributed to the hand of Gerard Mercator, c. 1570, when his workshop was in Duisburg. This was the first scientific instrument by Mercator to be identified. Since then two further astrolabes by Mercator have been identified, one of them bearing his monogram: GMR. They belong to the Städtische Kunstsammlungen, Augsburg, and the Moravian Gallery, Brno. All (...) three instruments are described as a group, and reasons for believing that the Brno astrolabe was made earlier than 1550, and therefore in Louvain, are given. (shrink)

Ernst Tugendhat is one of the most important living German philosophers. He was born in Brno in 1930 to a Jewish family. In 1938 the Tugendhatshad to leave the country because of the threat represented by Nazi Germany. They emigrated first toSwitzerland, then to Caracas, Venezuela. After classical studies at Stanford University ,Ernst Tugendhat moved to Germany in order to study philosophy in Freiburg and Münster . He became an assistant professor in Tübingen before getting a professorship in Heidelberg. (...) He worked at the Max-Plack-Institut zurErforschung der Lebensbedingungen der wissenschaftlich-technischen Welt , spend some years in Chile and was a professor at the FreieUniversität Berlin till his retirement. He was and still is visiting professor in universities in Europe aswell as in North and South America. Among his many books: Vorlesungen zur Einführung in diesprachanalytische Philosophie, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1976; Selbstbewusstsein undSelbstbestimmung, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1979; Probleme der Ethik, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1984;Vorlesungen über Ethik, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1993, and Egozentrizität und Mystik. Eineanthropologische Studie, München: Beck, 2003. (shrink)

“Since 1989 we have lived in a world where the nightmare of socialist science fiction has become reality: capitalism has won. With some exceptions, we have no alternative visions of economic, technological, and social future, no visions that would spring from anything besides capitalism”.1 With these words, Tomáš Pospiszyl closes the introduction to a volume that accompanied a recent exhibition about imaginary futures in socialist Czechoslovakia organized in Dům umění in Brno and Centrum současného umění Dox in Prague. Pospiszyl’s (...) idea indeed echoes through contemporary Czech culture. At second sight, however, through the over-a-century-old... (shrink)

The growing consumerism has its opponents. Among these are environmental activists within the freegan subculture. The goal of the study is to describe how freegans construct and practice non-consumerism. The qualitative research on the freegan subculture was conducted in Brno, the Czech Republic. Two main categories were identified. Each category is conceptualized as a “picture of non-consumerism”, showing how freegans construct and practice non-consumerism. “Individual modesty” is an inward non-consumerist strategy, aimed at the individual life careers of the subculture (...) members, while “agents of social change” is an outward strategy, aimed at the general public and endeavouring to reduce consumerism in society. (shrink)

Michel Foucault Zrození biopolitiky. Překlad a doslov Petr Horák. 1. vyd. Brno: CDK, 2009, 352 s., ISBN 978-80-7325-181-9.

The preference for learning styles is an important and widely discussed topic in educational psychology. Knowing students' preferences regarding learning style enables teachers to use more effective methods of providing information and to choose better educational tools for a particular student. This research deals with the comparison of male and female students' learning styles and contributes to the discussion of whether gender can affect a student's learning style. Kolb's assessment method was used to determine an individual's learning style. The research (...) uses both quantitative and qualitative methods in order to strengthen each method and get clearer results. 100 questionnaires were given out and 10 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The study took place at the College of Healthcare and Nursing in Brno. To concentrate on the research objectives, the respondents of similar age, same education level, and similar background were chosen. The results clearly show that male and female students tend to prefer different learning styles and that is contrary to the findings of previous research done in this area. The study helps to understand how gender can affect our way of studying and how to help individuals learn more effectively. (shrink)

Recenze: Lukáš Hadwiger Zámečník, Nástin filozofie vědy. Empirické základy vědy v analytické tradici. Host: Brno 2015, 409 stran.