Filip Vostal
Filip Vostal, Ph.D.
post-doctoral researcher
e-mail:
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phone: +420 221 183 341
office: 201a
Filip Vostal's work combines two areas of research: first, the examination and evaluation of claims by some contemporary social and political theorists (such as Hartmut Rosa, John Tomlinson, William Scheuerman, Robert Hassan) declaring that technological acceleration, the speed of social change, accelerated 'pace of living' and cultural speed-up are central to the temporal dynamic of modernity. Specific attention is paid to the semantics of acceleration and to how, and with what effects the discursive constructions of acceleration (as a promise, as a threat, as a motive) manifest themselves and interact. Without denying its oppressive and negative features, Filip Vostal also explores positive attributes of acceleration experience. At the same time, he seeks to critique the increasingly popular counter-weight to modern speed-up: ideology of slowness. Second, Filip Vostal is interested in sociology of science, broadly conceived. In particular, concentrating on the concerns outlined above, he looks at the shifting socio-economic role of the university and scientific institutions and analyzes associated changes in academic life. Specifically then, he investigates how academic time transforms – and to what extent it is possible to say that it 'accelerates' – as a result of marketization, managerialism and audit culture: trends that increasingly characterize the contemporary university. Filip Vostal defended his PhD dissertation in March 2013 at the University of Bristol. He was supervised by Gregor McLennan and Susan Robertson and examined by John Holmwood and John Downer. His work was published in European Journal of Social Theory and Time & Society and, currently, he is reworking his dissertation into a monograph.
