‘Wildlife’: Ecstatic practices of hardcore football and music fans during Czech and Slovak post-socialism

Zum Vortrag:
This lecture aims to fill the relative gap in research into ecstatic practices in subcultural scenes. To this end, it focuses on two more hardcore groups of football supporters (ultras and hooligans) and two extreme music scenes (black metal and crust punk). Its research methodology relies mainly on participant observation. It considers the ecstatic states of hardcore football supporters and extreme music fans with an emphasis on key contexts, practices and meanings. The paper proposes to apply a model of Dionysiac ritual to interpret all these practices and discusses them in relation to the transgression of social norms and commodification in the context of late capitalism.

Zum Vortragenden:
Ondřej Daniel earned his PhD from the Institute of World History (Faculty of Arts) at Charles University in Prague in 2012, having specialised in post-socialism, nationalism, migration and popular culture. Besides two single-authored and three co-authored monographs, he has published over 25 academic articles and book chapters in Czech, English, French and Polish on the cultural impact of labour migration, minority issues and subcultures.