CMS Centre for Medieval Studies

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Mgr. Martin Pjecha, Ph.D.

Image Martin Pjecha

Research Interests:

I have mostly been interested in religio-political dissent movements in the pre-modern West, particularly the Hussite movement of 15th century Bohemia. This concerned the visions of order and reformation which contributed to radicalization and even revolutionary outcomes. Especially interesting for me has been the employment of older discourses (Christian Platonism, Apocalypticism) by Hussite leaders to imagine profound transformations in society and spirituality. More recently, my interests have begun to also shift my research further into the early-modern period, particularly in relation to holistic religio-political thought of the great thinker Jan Amos Comenius.

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Education

September 2013 – September 2022
Central European University (Budapest, Hungary – Vienna, Austria), PhD in Comparative History, Summa cum laude.

Dissertation Title: "Theo-Politics of the Hussite Movement: from Reform to Revolution".

June 2021

Doctoral Masterclass "Whither Blasphemy: On the Resilience of an Idea, Past and Present". Center for Religious Studies, Central European University (Vienna, Austria).

July-August 2017
Eurasian Religions in Contact (ERiC) Summer School, Center for Religious Studies, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum

June 2017
Challenging Grand Narratives, Medieval history workshop, Trinity College, Dublin.

September 2016
Material Exchange in the Early Modern World, The Princeton-Oxford-Münster-Budapest-Istanbul Early Modern History Workshop at Oxford University

July 2016
What Makes Us Human? Philosophical and Religious Perspectives in China and the West, Summer University at Central European University, Budapest, Hungary

July 2015
Religious Violence in Global Perspective, Summer University at Central European University, Budapest, Hungary

September 2011- June 2012
Central European University (Budapest, Hungary), Master of Arts degree in History, with a specialization in Religious Studies.

September 2005 - October 2009
Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada), Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in History.

Work Experience

September - December 2022

Visiting professor, Department of History, Central European University (Vienna, Austria).

January 2019-present
Team member and researcher at the Centre for Medieval Studies (Prague, Czech Republic) on Projekt EXPRO 19-28415X "From Performativity to Institutionalization: Handling Conflict in the Late Middle Ages (Strategies, Agents, Communication)"

February 2018-May 2018
Instructor: "Religious Discord & Dissent in the Medieval West", Faculty of Humanities (FHS), Charles University, Prague.

2017
Organizer of first annual doctoral conference: "Enchantments, Disenchantments, Re-enchantments: Religion, State, and Society through History", 29 June - 1 July 2017 (Center for Religious Studies, Central European University, Budapest)

January 2017– April 2017
Teaching Assistant for CEU Master's level course "Interdisciplinary Methods of Comparative History".

September 2016 – January 2017
Teaching Assistant for CEU Master's level course "Historiography: Themes in its History and Approaches to its Theory"

February 2016 – April 2016
Translator and Research Assistant for Mihai Surdu: "Whose Blood, Which Genes? Narratives and Sampling Strategies in Roma-Related Genetic Research from 1921 up to Today", Institute of Advanced Study, Central European University, Budapest.

since 2015
Translator for forthcoming Brill companion to the Hussites.

2014-2018
Research assistant to Professor Matthias Riedl, including editing Brill Companion to Joachim of Fiore, and Central European University Press Publication The Apocalyptic Complex

Scholarships

2018
PhD fellow, Centre français de rechercheen sciences sociales (Prague, Czech Republic)

2017
Associate PhD fellow, Centre français de rechercheen sciences sociales (Prague, Czech Republic)

Josef Dobrovský Fellowship for foreign researchers (Prague, Czech Republic)

2015
Research Stipend at Leibniz-Institut für Europäische Geschichte (Mainz, Germany)

2013–2016
Full Doctoral Fellowship from Central European University

Projects

January 2019-present
Team member and researcher at the Centre for Medieval Studies (Prague, Czech Republic) on Projekt EXPRO 19-28415X "From Performativity to Institutionalization: Handling Conflict in the Late Middle Ages (Strategies, Agents, Communication)"

Ocenění

2015

Academic Achievement Award for First-Year Doctoral Students (Central European University, department of History)

2012
Péter Hanák Award (Central European University, department of History)
Annual recognition of the year's best thesis in the History department.

University Courses Taught

September – December 2022

"Theo-Political visions and experiments: Europe from early Christianity to the Age of Revolution", Department of History, Central European University (Vienna, Austria).

February – May 2018

"Religious Discord & Dissent in the Medieval West", Faculty of Humanities (FHS), Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic).

January – April 2017 
Teaching Assistant for CEU Master's level course "Interdisciplinary Methods of Comparative History"

September 2016 – January 2017
Teaching Assistant for CEU Master's level course "Historiography: Themes in its History and Approaches to its Theory"

List of Publications

"Táborite Revolutionary Apocalypticism: Mapping Influences and Divergences", in Damien Tricoire and Lionel Laborie (eds.), Apocalypse Now: Connected Histories of Eschatological Movements from Moscow to Cusco, 15th-18th Centuries (London, 2022), 31-59.

Thomas A. Fudge (ed.), "Origins of the Hussite Uprising: The Chronicle of Laurence of Březová" (Book Review) Studia Mediaevalia Bohemica 13, no. 1-2 (2021): 110-114.

"Hussite Eschatological Texts (1412-1421): Introduction and Translations", in Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon (eds.), Early Modern Prophecies in Transnational, National and Regional Contexts 1: Continental Europe (Leiden, 2021), 23-83.

"Táborite apocalyptic violence and its intellectual inspirations (1410-1415)"Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice 11 (2018), 76-97.

Editorial assistant for Matthias Riedl (ed.), A Companion to Joachim of Fiore (Brill, 2018)

Editorial assistant for Nadia Al-Bagdadi, David Marno, Matthias Riedl (eds.), The Apocalyptic Complex: Perspectives, Histories, Persistence (CEU Press, 2018).

Translation and commentary on Hussite apocalyptic prophecies in a collection of early modern prophetic literature, under the organization of Dr. Lionel Laborie (University of London). Publisher: Brill.

"The Changing Perception of the Hussites in the Thoughts and Works of Johannes Nider", in Vojtěch Bažant and Věra Vejrychová (eds.), Kacíři, barbaři, nepřátelé. Odlišnost a stereotypy v pozdním středověku [Heretics, barbarians, enemies: Difference and stereotypes in the late middle ages] (Prague, 2016), 181-218.

"Spreading Faith and Vengeance: Human Agency and the 'Offensive Shift' in the Hussite Discourses on Warfare", The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice 10 (2015): 158-184.

"The Christian Rejection of Animal Sacrifice by Daniel C. Ullucci" (Book Review) International Political Anthropology vol. 7, no. 1 (2014): 115-123.

 

Forthcoming Publications

Theo-Politics of the Hussite Movement: From Reform to Revolution (Brill, 2024).

(Edited Conference Proceedings with Pavel Soukup and Pavlína Cermanová) Radical Religious Communities in Premodern Societies (Brill, 2024).

(With Pavel Soukup and Pavlína Cermanová), "Introduction: Concepts and Historiography", in Radical Religious Communities in Premodern Societies (Brill, 2024).

(With Matthias Riedl), "Knowing the elect from the damned: Politics of discernment and segregation in the Táborites and Thomas Müntzer", in Radical Religious Communities in Premodern Societies (Brill, 2024).

"Imagined geographies in action: The early Táborite communities as heterotopias" in La fabrique de l'espace religieux en Europe centrale, edited by Olivier Marin and Marie-Magdalene de Cevins (Garnier Flammarion, 2024).

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