Thursday Seminars
18. 12. 2025: Neuvěřitelný příběh párových ekologických indexů [detail]
Přednáší David Storch ; Arnošt L. Šizling
Our publications
Haluzík, Radan (2025): "Why Brothers in Kosovo Build Identical Houses: The House as an Attempt to Adapt to Contradictions of Globalization"
In: East European Politics and Societies, 39(3), 557-584. https://doi.org/10.1177/08883254251335981
Media
News
News archive
Arnost Sizling and colleagues just published (online) a paper in Ecography showing that all pairwise community indices can be classified to only three meaningful families, and the popular partioning into nestedness and turnover component makes no sense.
Link to the article here.
(created 9. 12. 2025)
Workshop Invitation: Ruins and Relics: Rhytms, Temporalities, and Trajectories of ChangeDate: 3. 12. 2025, Venue: Institute of Ethnology of the CAS, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1, 5th floor
The Workshop Program is in the attached invitation here. Excursion Guide to download here. (created 1. 12. 2025)
The Workshop Program is in the attached invitation here. Excursion Guide to download here. (created 1. 12. 2025)
David Storch, Grace Ridder and Jordan Okie have just published (online) a paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, which applies Equilibrium Theory of Biodiversity Dynamics on our understanding of global biodiversity changes during the Cenozoic. They show how the diversity equilibria establish, and infer that while temperate diversity is probably below its equilibrium level, tropical diversity may be above equilibrium, which elevates extinction risk in tropical biomes.
Link to the article here.
(created 21. 11. 2025)
A collection of group final projects by participants of the Microcredential Programme Anthropocene: The Contemporary World in a Transdisciplinary Perspective (2024 run) has been released.
The publication establishes a periodic digital series, Acta Anthropocenica, which we plan to continue in future editions of the course.
If you’re curious how beehives, glass panes, Tyrian purple, fordit, or perfume relate to the Anthropocene, you can download the publication from our website.
The publication is available in the repository Zenodo v modu Open Access. (created 12. 11. 2025)
If you’re curious how beehives, glass panes, Tyrian purple, fordit, or perfume relate to the Anthropocene, you can download the publication from our website.
The publication is available in the repository Zenodo v modu Open Access. (created 12. 11. 2025)
Invitation to an online webinar with participants from CTS:
Environmental Law and Politics between Skepticism and ActivismDate: 24. 6. 2025, 2 pm – 4 pm CET (1 pm – 3 pm GMT) Online: organized by Centre for Theoretical Study (Charles University / Czech Academy of Sciences) and the Centre for Environmental Law and Policy (CELP) [School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University].
Environmental law is a field that communicates more with non-legal experts compared to other fields of law. Moreover, it also communicates with experts from the natural sciences, whose approach to truth, facticity, and normativity differs from the approaches in politics and law. Natural sciences are typical for their vigilant approach and careful confirmation of hypotheses. Law and politics, however, are social subsystems in which there is a need to decide; and decisions sometimes cannot wait for the vigilance of the natural sciences. In the case of environmental issues, there are also pressing questions around climate change that provide a space for various political narratives. Thus, environmental law and politics are situated between the millstones of skepticism and activism. However, such an in-between location of law and politics can inform both skepticism and activism that they have substantial limits.
What are the problems which lawmakers face while listening to both sceptic and activist discourses? What are the limits of skepticism and activism considering both the character of environmental law and environmental reality? Is there a simple equation of science with skepticism and politics with activism, or is there something like scientific activism and political skepticism? These questions will be posed during an interdisciplinary roundtable in cooperation with academic centers from Charles University and Cardiff University.
Confirmed discussants: Eva Balounová, Jan Géryk, Zdeněk Konopásek, Ben Pontin, David Storch, Irena Šímová, Anna Tószögyová.
Link to the event: Microsoft Teams Join the meeting now
Meeting ID: 310 602 959 811 3 Passcode: XF9s9eK3 (created 13. 6. 2025)
Environmental Law and Politics between Skepticism and ActivismDate: 24. 6. 2025, 2 pm – 4 pm CET (1 pm – 3 pm GMT) Online: organized by Centre for Theoretical Study (Charles University / Czech Academy of Sciences) and the Centre for Environmental Law and Policy (CELP) [School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University].
Environmental law is a field that communicates more with non-legal experts compared to other fields of law. Moreover, it also communicates with experts from the natural sciences, whose approach to truth, facticity, and normativity differs from the approaches in politics and law. Natural sciences are typical for their vigilant approach and careful confirmation of hypotheses. Law and politics, however, are social subsystems in which there is a need to decide; and decisions sometimes cannot wait for the vigilance of the natural sciences. In the case of environmental issues, there are also pressing questions around climate change that provide a space for various political narratives. Thus, environmental law and politics are situated between the millstones of skepticism and activism. However, such an in-between location of law and politics can inform both skepticism and activism that they have substantial limits.
What are the problems which lawmakers face while listening to both sceptic and activist discourses? What are the limits of skepticism and activism considering both the character of environmental law and environmental reality? Is there a simple equation of science with skepticism and politics with activism, or is there something like scientific activism and political skepticism? These questions will be posed during an interdisciplinary roundtable in cooperation with academic centers from Charles University and Cardiff University.
Confirmed discussants: Eva Balounová, Jan Géryk, Zdeněk Konopásek, Ben Pontin, David Storch, Irena Šímová, Anna Tószögyová.
Link to the event: Microsoft Teams Join the meeting now
Meeting ID: 310 602 959 811 3 Passcode: XF9s9eK3 (created 13. 6. 2025)
Workshop Invitation: Spatialization of Memory in Traumatized Regions
Workshop Programme here. (created 7. 5. 2025)
Date: 16. 5. 2025, Location: Academic Conference Center, Husova 4a, Prague 1
Workshop Programme here. (created 7. 5. 2025)
Summer School on the Anthropocene: The Contemporary World in a Transdisciplinary Perspective.
Date: May - October 2025
Application deadline: April 30, 2025
For all information, please visit here.
(created 20. 3. 2025)
Periferie: cyklus workshopů Date: October 25 - December 13, 2024 Venue: Ústav státu a práva AV ČR, Právnická fakulta MU, Centrum pro teoretická studia UK/AV
Workshops:
Ideological Peripheries in Europe – 25. 10. 2024 – Ústav státu a práva AV ČR
Periferie, region, krajina – 29. 11. 2024 – Centrum pro teoretická studia UK/AV
Právo, identita a normalita – 13. 12. 2024 – Právnická fakulta MU
More information about each of the workshops here. (created 3. 10. 2024)
Opening for the Postdoctoral Researcher position
Applications for the position should be submitted by September 30th, 2024.
Rector of Charles University announces an opening at the Center for Theoretical Study for the position: Postdoctoral Researcher interested in one of the disciplines developed at the CTS, and open for transdisciplinary interactions and the dialogue between natural sciences and humanities/social sciences. The position is for 2 years. Requirements: Completed Ph.D. study, preferably within 3 years after the awarded Ph.D. (or equivalent title), fluent English, demonstrated experience in sciences or humanities. Required documents: A letter of intent together with a proposal of suggested research activities, specifying the links to CTS research topics, professional CV, list of publications, copy of the Ph.D. diploma or the confirmation of the defence of Ph.D. dissertation or its submission. Expected starting date is 1st January 2025. Applications for the position should be sent by recorded mail to the Centre for Theoretical Studies, Jilská 1, 110 00 Prague 1 by September 30th, 2024. For more detailed information, please call 222 220 671 or e-mail office@cts.cuni.cz. (created 18. 7. 2024)
Course Offer: Summer School on the Anthropocene: The Contemporary World in a Transdisciplinary Perspective.
Date: May - October 2024
Application deadline: April 30, 2024
For all information, please visit here.
(created 21. 3. 2024)