I am a social scientist interested in the long-term dynamics of human societies, combining computational methods and naturalistic theoretical framework. I am employed as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of West Bohemia, Plzeň, Czech Republic. I am also employed as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Science. This website is dedicated to my research, teaching and enthusiasm in such areas as Cultural Evolution, Cognitive Science of Religion, Computational Social Science and Digital Humanities.
What is my academic discipline? In Plzeň, I am employed at the Department of Philosophy, while in Brno, I have been trained in the Study of Religion. My Ph.D in Helsinki was in New Testament Studies. In Aarhus, I was affiliated to the Department of History and Classical Studies and my supervisor there was an Archeologist. So, what would you say?:-).
Look at my CV, check my ORCID or academia.edu profile or my profiles at these institutions: University of West Bohemia; Aarhus University; Masaryk University
At UWB, I am responsible for managing CCS-Lab (Computing Culture & Society Laboratory). I am also a a Research Associate at the Center for the Digital Research of Religion (CEDRR) at Masaryk University, Brno.
Over the yes, I had the privilege to be involved in the following research projects:
- The Origins of Modern Encyclopaedism (TOME): Launching Evolutionary Metaphorology
- CEMRAM: The Cultural Evolution of Moralizing Religions in the Ancient Mediterranean: A Distant Reading Approach – as a researcher at the University of West Bohemia; PI Tomáš Glomb (Masaryk University); funded by the The Czech Science Foundation (GAČR)
- SDAM: Social Dynamics in the Ancient Mediterranean] – as a researcher at Aarhus University; PI Adéla Sobotková
- REECR: Ritual and the Emergence of Early Christian Religion: A Socio-Cognitive Analysis – as a researcher at University of Helsinki; PI Risto Pro
- GEHIR: Generative Historiography of Religion Project – as a researcher at Masaryk University; PI Alex Chalupa
Since my research is funded from public resources, I attempt to make my work as much open as possible. Thus, in the Publications section, you will find most of my work avaialble in PDF and my coding projects are available on GitHub for further reuse.
In March 2019, I successfully defended my PhD dissertation with the title „Tracing the Origins of Eucharistic Magic: On the Role of Cognitive Attraction in the Cultural Transmission of Collective Rituals“ (available from here or here). I pursued my doctoral studies under a cotutelle agreement between the University of Helsinki, Finland and Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. My supervisors were Risto Uro, István Czachesz and Dalibor Papoušek. In June 2019, my work has been awarded by a 2nd prize in the Jacques Derrida Award for the best PhD research work in all fields of social sciences and humanities in the Czech Republic.
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