Workshop: Dimitris Xygalatas - Ritual and synchrony in the wild

10:00 – 12:00 workshop

I will discuss recent and forthcoming naturalistic research on the effects of ritualized, rhythmic collective behavior. Examples include studies conducted in religious temples, sports stadiums, and other real-life settings. Although, I argue, the questions I am asking go beyond religion, they are key to understanding religious rituals.

Přednáška: Dimitris Xygalatas - Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living

17:00 – 18:00 přednáška

LEVYNA a HUME Lab vás srdečně zve na přednášku – pondělí 9. 5., od 17:00 - 18:00 – v místnosti C43 (pro ty, co se nemohou dostavit osobně viz Zoom link níže).

Pozvání tentokrát přijal antropolog a kognitivní vědec dr. Dimitris Xygalatas působící na Ústavu antropologie a Ústavu psychologických věd, University of Connecticut. O zacílení jeho výzkumu se dozvíte více na jeho webových stránkách (https://www.xygalatas.com/) nebo přes jeho Google Scholar profil (https://scholar.google.cz/citations?hl=en&user=misuSsoAAAAJ).

Workshop: Luke Glowacki – Building cross-cultural ethnographic databases to study complex social behavior

16:00 – 18:00 workshop

Are there cultural universals? Does human social behavior vary in systematic ways across cultures? Answering questions like these requires detailed data from societies across the globe. Fortunately, ethnographic materials from prior anthropological studies are now widely available online and can be used to construct systematic databases that offer a powerful means to study human behavior. I discuss how to construct such a database using the example of the Natural History of Song project, which contains information on music from a representative sample of the world’s societies. I then discuss an in-progress database on the rituals of peace-making.

Přednáška: Luke Glowacki – Rituals for war and peace

17:00 – 18:00 přednáška

War and peace are both major aspects of human sociality, yet understanding each presents a unique challenge. War is a puzzle because it involves individuals risking their lives to harm others. Peace is a challenge because it involves restoring cooperative relationships after a significant breach. Rituals are an important but unexplored mechanism for promoting both war and peace. In war, rituals are commonly used to alter perceptions regarding the likelihood of harm and foster group solidarity. During peace, rituals commonly function to indicate cooperative intent and cement ties. I use ethnographic case studies from small-scale societies to explore the functions of rituals in both war and peace.

Státní doktorská zkouška a obhajoba disertační práce – Mgr. Peter Maňo, M.A.

9:00

Pozvánka na veřejné zasedání komise pro státní doktorskou zkoušku a obhajobu disertační práce, které se koná v pátek 21. ledna 2022 od 9:00 hod. distanční formou – s využitím platformy Zoom.

Před komisí pro obor Religionistika bude obhajovat Mgr. Peter Maňo, M.A. disertační práci na téma Ritualization effects and the impact of ritual costs on efficacy judgments, religious signaling strategies, and prosocial behavior.

Přednáška dr. Martina Langa - Kooperativní fenotyp: Jak poznat s kým spolupracovat?

16:00 – 18:00 přednáška

Workshop: Manvir Singh – Building and analyzing large, cross-cultural databases to understand global patterns

10:00 – 12:00 workshop

For over a century, fieldworkers have recorded the rich cultural products of the world’s societies, including people’s songs, stories, and visual art. New computational methods and much easier access to these collections allow researchers to study universality and diversity in cultural behaviors on a scale that was hitherto impossible. In this workshop, we will discuss building and analyzing large, cross-cultural databases. I will focus on two projects: the Natural History of Song, a database of the song structure and behavior, and Anansi, a database of myth, folktales, and legends. I will discuss how we built these projects, some techniques for analyzing them, and some of the main issues that arise, ranging from guaranteeing quality data to managing collaborations and ownership.

Přednáška: Manvir Singh – The social and psychological origins of religious super-attractors

16:00 – 17:00 přednáška

Human societies reliably develop “cultural super-attractors”, or complex practices and beliefs that exhibit striking similarities. In this talk, I will present research on the nature and origins of three religious super-attractors: shamanism, religious self-denial, and beliefs in supernatural punishment. These cultural practices appeared in the vast majority of human societies, predated doctrinal religions, and persist even when doctrinal religious authorities try to quash them. Drawing variously on cultural evolutionary theory, cross-cultural comparative projects, and studies conducted among the Mentawai people of Indonesia, I will characterize these practices, present hypotheses for why they recur, and test those hypotheses against anthropological data. The findings of these projects suggest that religious super-attractors recur as people iteratively develop traditions that appear to satisfy proximate psychological ends.