Dominik Želinský
Biographic Data
| ID | 264933 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dominik Želinský |
| GIVEN NAMES | Dominik |
| FAMILY NAME | Želinský |
| SIGNATURE | ŽELINSKÝ D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Slovak Academy of Sciences |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0069-4316 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 42 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The reinvention of tradition: Charismatic leadership, legitimacy crisis, and traditionalist routinization in Silicon Valley capitalism
This article offers a cultural sociological analysis of the ongoing transformation of authority in Silicon Valley capitalism. Building on a cultural reading of Max Weber’s work on authority, I argue that Silicon Valley culture is shifting from an emphasis on charismatic leadership in business towards more traditionalist forms of authority. I theorize this process as resulting from a legitimacy crisis of the charismatic ideal, which leads to a cul…
Never again: Collective trauma and populism in Slovakia’s debate about the US Defence Cooperation Agreement
This article investigates the public debate surrounding Slovakia’s ratification of the Defence Cooperation Agreement with the United States in Winter 2021–2022. In particular, I focus on the crucial role of collective memory and cultural trauma, especially the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact forces in the August 1968, in the social and political conflict sparked by the treaty. To understand the problem, I draw on the cultural sociol…
Countering conspiracy theories: A cultural sociological analysis of counter-conspiracy discourse in the case of Slovakia
The study of conspiracy theories is a rapidly expanding field. Much less research, however, addresses how and why conspiracy theories have been publicly identified as one of the key social problems of the 20th and 21st centuries, one which requires collective effort and institutional solutions. Taking a cultural sociological lens informed by the Strong Program school and the study of collective memory, this paper investigates counter-conspiracy d…
To the moon: Elon Musk, Dogecoin, and the political economy of charismatic leadership
This article investigates a neglected aspect of charismatic authority: the problem of economic practices of charismatic leaders and their communities. Drawing on Weber’s classical theory of charisma, I argue that charismatic communities and their ideologies economically operate on principles of gift and bounty. I demonstrate the value of this analysis on a contemporary case of Elon Musk’s charisma and his involvement with the Dogecoin cryptocurre…
Experience, Subjectivity, Selfhood: Beyond a Meadian Sociology of the Self
Sociologists tend to see G. H. Mead's conceptualization of self as fundamentally correct. In this paper, we develop a critique of Mead's notion of the self as constituted through social interactions. Our focus will be on Mead's categorial distinction between the socially constructed self and subjective experience, as well as on the tendency of post‐Meadian sociologists to push Mead's position in ever more radical directions. Drawing inspiration f…
Charisma and social phenomenology: Gerda Walther, Herman Schmalenbach and Aron Gurwitsch
This paper explores the contribution of early social phenomenologists working in the 1920s and 1930s in Germany to charisma theory. Specifically, I focus on the works of Gerda Walther, Herman Schmalenbach and Aron Gurwitsch, whose work is now being re-appreciated in the field of social philosophy. Living in the interbellum German-speaking space, these authors were keenly interested in the issue of charismatic authority and leadership introduced i…
Charismatic Mimicry: Innovation and Imitation in the Case of Volodymyr Zelensky
Moving beyond frameworks of charisma scholarship that stress antagonism between charisma and establishment society, this article discerns and theoretically accounts for more mutualistic forms of influence between charismatic leaders and elite representatives of traditional or rational-legal institutions. Specifically, we combine contemporary work in the cultural sociology of charisma with Girard's notion of mimesis to provide a theory of charisma…
How Intellectuals Perform: Meaning Making and Community in the Czechoslovak Philosophical Underground
This article moves beyond the conventional strictures of the sociology of intellectuals, which is preoccupied with intellectuals' texts, power struggles and institutional trajectories. Instead, I propose to focus on intellectuals' situated performances as a way into analysis of the dynamics of their relations and mutual influences. Drawing on theoretical resources from the Strong Program in cultural sociology, I argue that their performances have…
Berserk: Anger and the Charismatic Populism of Donald Trump
This paper explores the role anger plays in charismatic movements. Although scholars have long recognized the importance of emotions to the etiology of charisma, they tend to focus on mutual affection among leaders and followers, paying less attention to how anger-and particularly its subspecies, ressentiment-patterns charismatic power. Drawing on literature from political science, populism research, and the cultural sociology of charisma, we arg…
From artistic consecration to degradation: The case of Sven Hassel
Sociologists often neglect aesthetic and moral factors in explaining the rise and fall of artists' reputations. Their focus has often been on more ostentatiously 'sociological' variables such as politics, networks, organizations, and power. In this study we make central a pollution dynamic and explore the overlooked phenomenon of 'literary degradation.' We identify two pathways-the downward aesthetic and downward moral classification. We exemplif…
The music of the dying class: Jazz as the impure sacred in Stalinist Czechoslovakia
Level up your money game: An Analysis of Gamification Discourse in Financial Services
The idea of gamification, or implementation of game-like elements and mechanisms in non-game contexts, has, throughout the past decade, swept the fields of healthcare and fitness as well as education. More recently, various tech writers, bloggers, and consultants have begun proposing gamification as a solution also in financial services, where gamification has already made headway, for instance, with day trading apps that simplify trading and tur…
Ascent to Glory: How One Hundred Years of Solitude Was Written and Became a Global Classic
The sociology of intellectuals in the 20th and 21st century
Sociologists have treated intellectuals and their ideas for a long time as mere products of external social structures. Recently, however, researchers shifted their focus to cultural explanations, appreciating more fully the role cultural structures play in shaping their biographical trajectories and success. At the same time, I argue that these theories do not fully integrate the insight of performance theories and focus usually on textual self‐…
Mythogenesis
The phenomena of myth and mythogenesis (the process of myth creation) have been a perennial moot point for humanities, theology, and the social sciences. Why do people demonstrate an inexhaustible capacity to create stories that have little relation to everyday life and conventional physics, stories which feature gods, demigods, demons, and other unreal figures struggling with exceptional and unexceptional human beings over the control of their w…
Becoming Socrates: Five elements of the consecration process and the case of Jan Patočka
This article explores the phenomenon of consecration, which, so far, has been neglected by sociologists of intellectuals. Contrary to the common Bourdieusian approach to consecration, which conflates it with legitimization, consecration is conceptualized as a process of the symbolic elevation of a figure, or an object, to the level of sacred symbols relevant to a particular community. Five analytically distinctive elements are identified that con…
Level up your money game: An Analysis of Gamification Discourse in Financial Services
The idea of gamification, or implementation of game-like elements and mechanisms in non-game contexts, has, throughout the past decade, swept the fields of healthcare and fitness as well as education. More recently, various tech writers, bloggers, and consultants have begun proposing gamification as a solution also in financial services, where gamification has already made headway, for instance, with day trading apps that simplify trading and tur…
Berserk: Anger and the Charismatic Populism of Donald Trump
This paper explores the role anger plays in charismatic movements. Although scholars have long recognized the importance of emotions to the etiology of charisma, they tend to focus on mutual affection among leaders and followers, paying less attention to how anger-and particularly its subspecies, ressentiment-patterns charismatic power. Drawing on literature from political science, populism research, and the cultural sociology of charisma, we arg…
To the moon: Elon Musk, Dogecoin, and the political economy of charismatic leadership
This article investigates a neglected aspect of charismatic authority: the problem of economic practices of charismatic leaders and their communities. Drawing on Weber’s classical theory of charisma, I argue that charismatic communities and their ideologies economically operate on principles of gift and bounty. I demonstrate the value of this analysis on a contemporary case of Elon Musk’s charisma and his involvement with the Dogecoin cryptocurre…
Charismatic Mimicry: Innovation and Imitation in the Case of Volodymyr Zelensky
Moving beyond frameworks of charisma scholarship that stress antagonism between charisma and establishment society, this article discerns and theoretically accounts for more mutualistic forms of influence between charismatic leaders and elite representatives of traditional or rational-legal institutions. Specifically, we combine contemporary work in the cultural sociology of charisma with Girard's notion of mimesis to provide a theory of charisma…
From artistic consecration to degradation: The case of Sven Hassel
Sociologists often neglect aesthetic and moral factors in explaining the rise and fall of artists' reputations. Their focus has often been on more ostentatiously 'sociological' variables such as politics, networks, organizations, and power. In this study we make central a pollution dynamic and explore the overlooked phenomenon of 'literary degradation.' We identify two pathways-the downward aesthetic and downward moral classification. We exemplif…
Experience, Subjectivity, Selfhood: Beyond a Meadian Sociology of the Self
Sociologists tend to see G. H. Mead's conceptualization of self as fundamentally correct. In this paper, we develop a critique of Mead's notion of the self as constituted through social interactions. Our focus will be on Mead's categorial distinction between the socially constructed self and subjective experience, as well as on the tendency of post‐Meadian sociologists to push Mead's position in ever more radical directions. Drawing inspiration f…
The sociology of intellectuals in the 20th and 21st century
Sociologists have treated intellectuals and their ideas for a long time as mere products of external social structures. Recently, however, researchers shifted their focus to cultural explanations, appreciating more fully the role cultural structures play in shaping their biographical trajectories and success. At the same time, I argue that these theories do not fully integrate the insight of performance theories and focus usually on textual self‐…
Charisma and social phenomenology: Gerda Walther, Herman Schmalenbach and Aron Gurwitsch
This paper explores the contribution of early social phenomenologists working in the 1920s and 1930s in Germany to charisma theory. Specifically, I focus on the works of Gerda Walther, Herman Schmalenbach and Aron Gurwitsch, whose work is now being re-appreciated in the field of social philosophy. Living in the interbellum German-speaking space, these authors were keenly interested in the issue of charismatic authority and leadership introduced i…
How Intellectuals Perform: Meaning Making and Community in the Czechoslovak Philosophical Underground
This article moves beyond the conventional strictures of the sociology of intellectuals, which is preoccupied with intellectuals' texts, power struggles and institutional trajectories. Instead, I propose to focus on intellectuals' situated performances as a way into analysis of the dynamics of their relations and mutual influences. Drawing on theoretical resources from the Strong Program in cultural sociology, I argue that their performances have…
Ascent to Glory: How One Hundred Years of Solitude Was Written and Became a Global Classic
The sociology of intellectuals in the 20th and 21st century
Sociologists have treated intellectuals and their ideas for a long time as mere products of external social structures. Recently, however, researchers shifted their focus to cultural explanations, appreciating more fully the role cultural structures play in shaping their biographical trajectories and success. At the same time, I argue that these theories do not fully integrate the insight of performance theories and focus usually on textual self‐…
Mythogenesis
The phenomena of myth and mythogenesis (the process of myth creation) have been a perennial moot point for humanities, theology, and the social sciences. Why do people demonstrate an inexhaustible capacity to create stories that have little relation to everyday life and conventional physics, stories which feature gods, demigods, demons, and other unreal figures struggling with exceptional and unexceptional human beings over the control of their w…
Becoming Socrates: Five elements of the consecration process and the case of Jan Patočka
This article explores the phenomenon of consecration, which, so far, has been neglected by sociologists of intellectuals. Contrary to the common Bourdieusian approach to consecration, which conflates it with legitimization, consecration is conceptualized as a process of the symbolic elevation of a figure, or an object, to the level of sacred symbols relevant to a particular community. Five analytically distinctive elements are identified that con…
The music of the dying class: Jazz as the impure sacred in Stalinist Czechoslovakia
Level up your money game: An Analysis of Gamification Discourse in Financial Services
The idea of gamification, or implementation of game-like elements and mechanisms in non-game contexts, has, throughout the past decade, swept the fields of healthcare and fitness as well as education. More recently, various tech writers, bloggers, and consultants have begun proposing gamification as a solution also in financial services, where gamification has already made headway, for instance, with day trading apps that simplify trading and tur…
Berserk: Anger and the Charismatic Populism of Donald Trump
This paper explores the role anger plays in charismatic movements. Although scholars have long recognized the importance of emotions to the etiology of charisma, they tend to focus on mutual affection among leaders and followers, paying less attention to how anger-and particularly its subspecies, ressentiment-patterns charismatic power. Drawing on literature from political science, populism research, and the cultural sociology of charisma, we arg…
From artistic consecration to degradation: The case of Sven Hassel
Sociologists often neglect aesthetic and moral factors in explaining the rise and fall of artists' reputations. Their focus has often been on more ostentatiously 'sociological' variables such as politics, networks, organizations, and power. In this study we make central a pollution dynamic and explore the overlooked phenomenon of 'literary degradation.' We identify two pathways-the downward aesthetic and downward moral classification. We exemplif…
Experience, Subjectivity, Selfhood: Beyond a Meadian Sociology of the Self
Sociologists tend to see G. H. Mead's conceptualization of self as fundamentally correct. In this paper, we develop a critique of Mead's notion of the self as constituted through social interactions. Our focus will be on Mead's categorial distinction between the socially constructed self and subjective experience, as well as on the tendency of post‐Meadian sociologists to push Mead's position in ever more radical directions. Drawing inspiration f…
Charisma and social phenomenology: Gerda Walther, Herman Schmalenbach and Aron Gurwitsch
This paper explores the contribution of early social phenomenologists working in the 1920s and 1930s in Germany to charisma theory. Specifically, I focus on the works of Gerda Walther, Herman Schmalenbach and Aron Gurwitsch, whose work is now being re-appreciated in the field of social philosophy. Living in the interbellum German-speaking space, these authors were keenly interested in the issue of charismatic authority and leadership introduced i…
Charismatic Mimicry: Innovation and Imitation in the Case of Volodymyr Zelensky
Moving beyond frameworks of charisma scholarship that stress antagonism between charisma and establishment society, this article discerns and theoretically accounts for more mutualistic forms of influence between charismatic leaders and elite representatives of traditional or rational-legal institutions. Specifically, we combine contemporary work in the cultural sociology of charisma with Girard's notion of mimesis to provide a theory of charisma…
How Intellectuals Perform: Meaning Making and Community in the Czechoslovak Philosophical Underground
This article moves beyond the conventional strictures of the sociology of intellectuals, which is preoccupied with intellectuals' texts, power struggles and institutional trajectories. Instead, I propose to focus on intellectuals' situated performances as a way into analysis of the dynamics of their relations and mutual influences. Drawing on theoretical resources from the Strong Program in cultural sociology, I argue that their performances have…
To the moon: Elon Musk, Dogecoin, and the political economy of charismatic leadership
This article investigates a neglected aspect of charismatic authority: the problem of economic practices of charismatic leaders and their communities. Drawing on Weber’s classical theory of charisma, I argue that charismatic communities and their ideologies economically operate on principles of gift and bounty. I demonstrate the value of this analysis on a contemporary case of Elon Musk’s charisma and his involvement with the Dogecoin cryptocurre…
Never again: Collective trauma and populism in Slovakia’s debate about the US Defence Cooperation Agreement
This article investigates the public debate surrounding Slovakia’s ratification of the Defence Cooperation Agreement with the United States in Winter 2021–2022. In particular, I focus on the crucial role of collective memory and cultural trauma, especially the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact forces in the August 1968, in the social and political conflict sparked by the treaty. To understand the problem, I draw on the cultural sociol…
Countering conspiracy theories: A cultural sociological analysis of counter-conspiracy discourse in the case of Slovakia
The study of conspiracy theories is a rapidly expanding field. Much less research, however, addresses how and why conspiracy theories have been publicly identified as one of the key social problems of the 20th and 21st centuries, one which requires collective effort and institutional solutions. Taking a cultural sociological lens informed by the Strong Program school and the study of collective memory, this paper investigates counter-conspiracy d…
The reinvention of tradition: Charismatic leadership, legitimacy crisis, and traditionalist routinization in Silicon Valley capitalism
This article offers a cultural sociological analysis of the ongoing transformation of authority in Silicon Valley capitalism. Building on a cultural reading of Max Weber’s work on authority, I argue that Silicon Valley culture is shifting from an emphasis on charismatic leadership in business towards more traditionalist forms of authority. I theorize this process as resulting from a legitimacy crisis of the charismatic ideal, which leads to a cul…
Sociology (10 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Political science (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Charisma (5 works) · Art (4 works) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice (4 works)