Key cultural sources, ideas, and practices of Western alternative spirituality and medicine
Provider: Grantová agentura ČR
Programme: Standardní projekty
Implementation period: 01.01.23 - 30.06.24
Workplace:
Fakulta filozofická - Oddělení religionistiky
Investigator: Dyndová Helena
Description:
The project concerns the historical, cultural, and social aspects of the doctrinal base and embodied experience in contemporary Western (and especially Czech) alternative spirituality. The research intends to contribute to the understanding of energy, a key religious as well as secular concept which certainly deserves more scholarly attention, and to fill a knowledge gap regarding the ways in which Czech alternative spirituality interacts with Latin American indigenous cultural material, contemporary Czech shamanism, and textual and audiovisual popular culture. Specifically, the goal is to describe and interpret how alternative spirituality is historically and socially produced and reproduced and how concrete embodied and narrated experiences intersect with established cultural norms and values. The research will be based on two main methodologies: discourse analysis and hermeneutics, on the one hand, and qualitative fieldwork and ethnography, on the other. The expected outcomes include two monographs (2x B) and seven articles (2x Jimp, 3x Jsc, and 2x Jost).
The project concerns the historical, cultural, and social aspects of the doctrinal base and embodied experience in contemporary Western (and especially Czech) alternative spirituality. The research intends to contribute to the understanding of energy, a key religious as well as secular concept which certainly deserves more scholarly attention, and to fill a knowledge gap regarding the ways in which Czech alternative spirituality interacts with Latin American indigenous cultural material, contemporary Czech shamanism, and textual and audiovisual popular culture. Specifically, the goal is to describe and interpret how alternative spirituality is historically and socially produced and reproduced and how concrete embodied and narrated experiences intersect with established cultural norms and values. The research will be based on two main methodologies: discourse analysis and hermeneutics, on the one hand, and qualitative fieldwork and ethnography, on the other. The expected outcomes include two monographs (2x B) and seven articles (2x Jimp, 3x Jsc, and 2x Jost).
