Academic CV

Mgr. Vojtěch Kaše, Ph.D.

(Last updated on January May 9, 2024)

Identification, Contact Information and links

Mgr. Vojtěch Kaše, Ph.D. (b. 1986 in Plzeň, Czech Republic)
Position: Assistant Professor (University of West Bohemia) & Postdoctoral Researcher (Czech Academy of Sciences) &
Email: vojtech.kase@gmail.com
Personal profile on academia.edu, containing a majority of both published and unpublished papers and presentations
Github profile
ORCID: 0000-0002-6601-1605
ResearcherID: T-7283-2018

Personal website: www.vojtechkase.cz

Research Interests

theoretical frameworks: Cultural Evolution; Cognitive Science; Philosophy of Science
domain expertise: Ancient Mediterranean, Early Christianity
academic communities: Computational Humanities, Digital History, Cognitive Science of Religion, Cultural Evolution, Historical Networks Research, Early Christian Studies
computational methods: Natural Language Processing (esp. Distributional Semantic Modeling), Formal Network Analysis, GIS, Agent-Based Modeling, Modeling Temporal Uncertainty

Academic Employment

2023/9-present: Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences (Jilská 361/1, 110 00 Praha, CZECH REPUBLIC)
2019/3-present: Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of West Bohemia (responsibility for activities in the field of Digital Humanities) (Sedláčkova 19, 30614 Plzeň, CZECH REPUBLIC)
2019/9-2022/2: Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of History and Classical Studies, School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University (Jens Chr. Skous Vej 5, building 1463-528, 8000 Aarhus C, DENMARK) (remotely since 2021/7)
2017/9-2019/3: Assistant at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of West Bohemia
2014/1-2017/8: Doctoral Student employed at the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki (Vuorikatu 3, P.O. Box 4, 00014 Helsinki, FINLAND)

Projects

2023/9-present: Researcher (leader of the computational group) at the project “The Origins of Modern Encyclopaedism (TOME): Launching Evolutionary Metaphorology” [TOME project website]; funded (2023-2025) by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, funding scheme ERC CZ, grant no. LL 2320; affiliation: Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences; PI: Petr Pavlas
2021/2-present: Director of CCS-Lab (Computing Culture & Society Laboratory), affiliation Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of West Bohemia
2020/1-present: Co-PI (with Tomáš Glomb) of the research project “CEMRAM: The Cultural Evolution of Moralizing Religions in the Ancient Mediterranean: A Distant Reading Approach”, funded by the The Czech Science Foundation (GAČR); affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of West Bohemia
2019-present: Research Associate at “CEDRR: Centre for the Digital Research of Religion”; address: Department for the Study of Religions, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University
2019/9-present: Researcher/Postdoctoral Fellow in the project “SDAM: Social Dynamics in the Ancient Mediterranean” [SDAM project website]; funded by the Aarhus University Research Foundation; affiliation: Department of History and Classical Studies, School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University (since 2022/3 as a research partner at UWB); PI: Adéla Sobotková
2018/1-2019/12: PI of the student research project “DiRECT: Distant Reading of Early Christian Texts: Explorations in Socio-Cognitive Interpretation”, funded by the Grant Agency of the University of West Bohemia; affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of West Bohemia
2015/4-2017/12: Researcher at Masaryk University internal interdisciplinary project “GEHIR: Generative Historiography of Religion” [GEHIR project website]; affiliation: Department for the Study of Religions, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University; PI: Aleš Chalupa)
2014/1-2017/8: Researcher at the Academy of Finland research project “REECR: A Nordic project on Ritual and the Emergence of Early Christian Religion: A Socio-Cognitive Analysis” [REECR project website]; funded by the Academy of Finland; affiliation: Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki; PI Risto Uro

Education

Degrees

2015-2019/3: Doctoral studies at the University of Helsinki and Masaryk University coordinated by means of a cotutelle agreement on joint supervision of doctoral thesis between the two universities (Thesis title: Tracing the Origins of Eucharistic Magic: On the Role of Cognitive Attraction in the Cultural Transmission of Collective Rituals [link]; Supervisors: Risto Uro (University of Helsinki, main supervisor), Dalibor Papoušek (Masaryk University) and István Czachesz (University of Tromsø [docent at the University of Helsinki]); thesis publicly defended on March 15, 2019.
2011/9-2013/9: Master studies: Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts, Department for the Study of Religions, master degree in the study of religions (Thesis Title: Vzkříšená dívka, mluvící pes a jeden Kristus Ježíš: Vybrané pasáže z apokryfních Skutků apoštolů v evolučně behaviorální perspective [English title: Resurrected Girl, Speaking Dog, and the One Christ Jesus: Selected Passages from the Apocryphal Acts of Apostles in Evolutionary Behavioral Perspective]; supervisor: Dalibor Papoušek; defended successfully on September 12, 2013, the thesis has been Awarded the grade A (excellent) [link].
2008/7-2011/9: Bachelor studies: Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts, bachelor degree in philosophy and the study of religions (Thesis title: Počátky křesťanského rituálního stolování a současná religionistika [English title: Origins of Christian Ritual Meals and the Contemporary Study of Religions], supervisor: Iva Doležalová; defended successfully on September 14, 2011; the thesis has been Awarded the grade A (excellent) [link].

Internships

2022: 1-month stay as a visiting researcher at the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki (research collaboration with Nina Nikki).
2020: 1-month internship at Institute Jean Nicod (team Evolution & Social Cognition), Paris, France; funded by a stipend from French Embassy in the Czech Republic, on the basis of the 2nd prize in the “Jacques Derrida Prize” (competition for the best PhD research work in all fields of social sciences and humanities) (February 2020)
2012: Summer university course: “Experimental Methods in the Study of Cognition and Culture”, Aarhus, Denmark (Aarhus University, July 31 – August 24) [link to the course description

2011-2012: Erasmus exchange program, Leipzig, Germany (Institute for the Study of Religions, University of Leipzig, October 1 – February 21)

2010: Erasmus intensive program: “Religious Transformations in the Contemporary European Societies”, Szeged, Hungary (Department for the Study of Religions, University of Szeged, August 16 – 29)

Computational Competences

Python 3 usage of various libraries & packages, e.g. Pandas, Beautiful Soup, Plotly, Matplotlib, nltk, gensim, ScikitLearn, transformers, TensorFlow, NetworkX; development of own libraries: sddk, tempun
NetLogo: skills for building, running and modifying agent-based models and analyzing them via BehaviourSpace
QGis: skills for importing, creating, exporting, manipulating, comparing visualizing and analyzing both vector and raster data layers
Spark: basics
R and Rstudio: statistical modeling and programming,
Java: basics of object programming

Language Competences

Czech: native
English: B2 (TOEFL certificate from March 2014)
German: ability to read academic texts and advanced conversation skills (to be revived)
Classical Greek (two years, further self-taught):
Latin (self-taught)
Biblical Hebrew (one year)

Publications and Research Activities

Journal articles and Book Chapters

Submitted/Forthcoming

Kaše, V. (2024). Quantifying Early Christianity in its Urban Context (submitted). [pdf]
Kaše, V. & Glomb, T. (2024). A Distributional Semantic Approach to the Religious and Moral Dynamics in the Ancient Greek Texts (submitted). [pdf]
Kaše, V. & Glomb, T. (2024). The History of Graeco-Roman Religions in the Light of Cultural Evolution: A computational text analysis of ancient Greek inscriptions (submitted). [pdf]

Published

Kaše, V., Sobotková, A., & Heřmánková, P. (2023). Modeling Temporal Uncertainty in Historical Datasets. Proceedings of the Computational Humanities Research Conference 2023, 3558, 413–425. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3558/paper5123.pdf [pdf]
Kaše, V., Glomb, T., & Fousek, J. (2023). Networks and Religious Transformations. In M. A. Peeples, J. Munson, B. J. Mills, & T. Brughmans (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Network Research (1st ed., pp. 413–426). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198854265.013.33
Naxera, V., Kaše, V., & Stulík, O. (2023). ‘The more populism types you know, the better political scientist you are?’ Machine-learning based meta-analysis of populism types in the political science literature. Journal of Contemporary European Studies 10.1080/14782804.2023.2244911 [link]
Glomb, T. & Kaše, V. (2023). Iconographic trends in Roman imperial coinage in the context of societal changes in the 2nd and 3rd century CE: A small-scale test of the Affluence hypothesis. Open Archaeology 9/1, 20220308. https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2022-0308 [link]
Linka, V., & Kaše, V. (2023). Pain in Classical Greek Texts. Digital Classics Online, 9, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.11588/DCO.2023.9.93792 [link]
Kaše, V. & Glomb, T. (2023). Affluence, Agricultural Productivity and the Rise of Moralizing Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean. Religion, Brain & Behavior 13/2, 202-206. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2022.2065350 [link]
Nikki, N, Špiclová, P, & Kaše, V. (2022). The Cultural Evolution of Prototypical Paul in the First Five Centuries: A Distributional Semantic Analysis of Greek Christian Texts. Journal of Ethics in Antiquity and Christianity 4, 52-76. https://doi.org/10.25784/jeac.v4i0.1012 [link]
Kaše, V. (2022). Kookurenční sítě mezi historickým vyprávěním a kulturně evolučním vysvětlením. In R. Hladík (Ed.), Digitální obrat v českých humanitních vědách (pp. 133–157). Karolinum. [pdf]
Kaše, V., Nikki, N., & Glomb, T. (2022). Righteousness in Early Christian Literature: Distant Reading and Textual Networks. Annali di storia dell’esegesi 39/2, 87-120. [pdf]
Kaše, V., Heřmánková, P., & Sobotková, A. (2022). Division of labor, specialization and diversity in the ancient Roman cities: A quantitative approach to Latin epigraphy. PLOS ONE . https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269869 [link].
Glomb, T., Kaše, V., Glomb, T. (2022). Popularity of the cult of Asclepius in the times of the Antonine Plague: temporal modeling of epigraphic evidence. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 43, 103466. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103466 [link].

Heřmánková, P., Kaše, V., & Sobotkova, A. (2022). Inscriptions as data: digital epigraphy in macro-historical perspective. Journal of Digital History, jdh001. https://journalofdigitalhistory.org/en/article/WBqfZzfi7nHK [link]
Kaše, V., Heřmánková, P, & Sobotková, A. (2021). Classifying Latin Inscriptions of the Roman Empire: A machine-learning approach. Proceedings of the Conference on Computational Humanities Research 2021. CEUR 2989, 123-135. [pdf].
Linka, V. & Kaše, V. (2021). Is There a Theory of Pain in Corpus Hippocraticum? A Distributional Semantic Analysis. Digital Classics Online, 7, 54-71. https://doi.org/10.11588/dco.2021.7.81212 [link]
Kaše, V. (2021). Ritualization of Early Christian Meals and the Tradition of the Lord’s Supper: A Cognitive Approach. In N. Nikki & K. Valkama (Eds.), Magic in the Eastern Ancient Mediterranean: Cognitive, Historical, and Material Perspectives on the Bible and Its Contexts (pp. 137–156). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Špiclová, Z. & V. Kaše. (2020). Distant Reading of the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of John: Reflection of Methodological Aspects of the Use of Digital Technologies in the Research of Biblical Texts. Open Theology, 6(1), 423-439. http://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2020-0111 [link].
Kaše, V. (2018). The Emergence of Big Gods in the Ancient Mediterranean. SocArXiv (preprint) http://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/3tjb7 [link].
Fousek, J., Kaše, V., Mertel, A., Výtvarová, E., & Chalupa, A. (2018). Spatial constraints on the diffusion of religious innovations: The case of early Christianity in the Roman Empire. PLOS ONE, 13(12), e0208744. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208744
Kaše, V., Hampejs, T., & Pospíšil, Z. (2018). Modeling Cultural Transmission of Rituals in Silico: The Advantages and Pitfalls of Agent-Based vs. System Dynamics Models. Journal of Cognition & Culture, 18(5), 483–507. http://doi.org/10.1163/15685373-12340041
Kaše, V. (2018). Meal Practices. In R. Uro, R. E. Demaris, J. Day, & R. Roitto (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual (pp. 409–425). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kaše, V. (2016). Ekklesiologiaa, kristologiaa ja magiaa: Paavalin ehtoollistradition kognitiiven uudelleenarviointi. In K. Valkama, H. von Weissenberg, & N. Nikki (Eds.), Raamattu ja magia (pp. 238–264). Helsinki: Suomen eksegeettinen seura. [English Title: Ecclesiology, Christology and Magic: Cognitive Reconsideration of the Pauline Meal Tradition] [link]
Kaše, V. (2014). Experimenty dějin: Kognitivní historiografie mezi dějepisectvím a kognitivní vědou. Pantheon, 9(1), 93–112. [English Title: Experiments of History: Cognitive Historiography between Historiography and Cognitive Science] [link]
Kaše, V. (2014). Mluvící pes ve Skutcích Petrových a hypotéza o zapamatovatelnosti minimálně kontraintutivních reprezentací. In Z. Vozár (Ed.), Mezinárodní religionistická studentská vědecká konference Kutná hora 2012: Sborník prací (pp. 10–33). Praha: Karolinum. [English title: Speaking Dog in the Apocryphal Acts of Peter and the Hypothesis on Memorability of Minimal Contraintuitive Representations] [link]
Kaše, V. (2013). Didaché 9-10: Problémy a perspektivy současného bádání. Religio: Revue pro religionistiku, 21(1), 73–94. [English title: Didache 9-10: Problems and perspectives of contemporary research] [link ]
Lang, M., & Kaše, V. (2012). Proč je potřeba si špinit ruce. Sacra, 10(2), 56–68. [English title: Why is needed to make hands dirty] [link to the PDF version]
Kaše, V. (2011). Kam se poděla ryba? Dějiny jedné (možné) křesťanské reprezentace. Sacra, 9(1), 5–21. [English title: Where Did the Fish Disappeared? History of One (Possible) Christian Representation] [link to the PDF version]
Kaše, V. (2010). Apologie o sobě samé vědoucí religionistiky aneb kritika vakuované jednotné vědy (polemika s Evou Klocovou). Sacra, 8(2), 54–60. [English title: Apology of Selfconfident Study of Religions, i.e. Critique of United Science (Polemic with Eva Klocová) [link to the PDF version]
Kaše, V. (2009). Proč “Pomazaný”? problém s nemesianistickými konotacemi termínu christos v nejstarší křesťanské literature. Sacra, 7(1), 25–38. [English title: Why ‘Anointed’? Problem with the non-messianic connotations of the term christos in the earliest Christian literature] [link to the PDF version]

Book Reviews and Reports

Kaše, V. (2017). Maturana, H. R. & Varela, F. J. Strom poznání: Biologické základy lidského rozumu (review). Biograf: Časopis pro Kvalitativní Výzkum, 65-66, 117-121.
Kaše, V. (2016). Czachesz, I. Uro, R. (Eds.). Mind, Morality and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies (review). Journal of Cognitive Historiography, 1–2(2016), 219–221. http://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1558/jch.33931
Kaše, V. (2014). Talmont-Kaminski, K. Religion as Magical Ideology: How the Supernatural Reflects Rationality (review). Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, 2(2), 178-181. [link to the PDF version]
Kaše, V. (2012). Váně, J. Komunita jako nová naděje? Náboženské (ne)institucionalizované komunity z pohledu sociologie náboženství (recenzce). Religio: Revue pro religionistiku, 20(2), 302–304. [Reviewed book’s title: Community as a New Hope: Religious (non-)institutionalized communities from the point of view of sociology of religion (review)] [link to the PDF version]
Kaše, V. (2012). Mysl, společnost a tradice: Zpráva z konference Společnosti pro biblickou literature (report). Sacra, 10(2), 69–70. [English title: Mind, Society, and Tradition: Report from the Society of Biblical Literature International Meeting] [link to the PDF version]
Kaše, V. (2011). Další pravda o Erasmu... (studijní pobyt v Lipsku) (zpráva). Sacra, 9(2), 76–79. [English title: Another True about Erasmus… (internship in Leipzig) (report)] [link to the PDF version]
Kaše, V. (2010). Rukopisy z Nag Hammádí v češtině (review). Sacra, 8(1), 110–113. (Nag Hammadi Codices in Czech (review)] [link to the PDF version]
Kaše, V. (2009). Hazlett, I. (Ed.). Rané křesťanství: Počátky a vývoj církve do roku 600 (review). Sacra, 7(2), 103–107. [Original English title: Early Christianity: Origin and evolution to AD 600: In honour of W. H. C. Frend] [link to the PDF version]
Kaše, V. (2009). Loose ends in the cognitive study of religion and culture (6.–7. listopadu 2009, Brno) (report) [November 6 – 7 (report)]. Sacra, 7(2), 97–99. [link to the PDF version]

Datasets and software

Datasets

Kaše, V. (2024). LAGT (v3.0) [dataset]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.10684841
Kaše, V., Heřmánková, P, & Sobotková, A. (2024). LIST (v1.2) [dataset]. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.10473706
Kaše, V., Heřmánková, P., & Sobotková, A. (2023). LIRE (v3.0) [dataset]. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.8431452
Kaše, V., Heřmánková, P., & Sobotková, A. (2023a). GIST (v1.1) [dataset]. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.10139110
Kaše, V., Heřmánková, P., & Sobotková, A. (2022). GIRE (v0.3) [dataset]. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.6840361

Software Packages (Python)

Kaše, V. (2023). Tempun (v0.2.2) [Computer software]. https://pypi.org/project/tempun/
Kaše, V. (2023). sddk (v3.9) [Computer software]. https://pypi.org/project/sddk/

Conference and workshop presentations and Posters

Kaše, V. (2023). Quantifying Early Christianity in its Urban Context („Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense LXXII: Early Christianity in Civic Space“), Leuven (July 18-20). [slides]
Kaše, V. (2023). Measuring Cultural Evolution of Moralizing Religions in the Ancient Mediterranean by Means of Distributional Semantics („Sixth Annual Conference of European Academy of Religion“), St Andrews (June 19-23). [slides]
Nikki, N. & Kaše, V. (2023). 120 years of Pauline scholarship under a digital “macroscope”: A distributional semantic analysis of 25,000 academic articles (workshop „Workshop on Social Identity and Religious Studies Scholars in Dialogue“), Helsinki (May 10-12, 2023). [slides]
Kaše, V. (2023). Distribuční sémantika a analýza významu ve filozofických korpusech (workshop “Strojové modelování filozofického textu”, Plzeň (March 17, 2023). [slides]
Kaše, V. (2023). A Distributional Semantic Approach to the Religious and Moral Dynamics in the Ancient Greek Texts (“Days of Computational Approaches to AncientGreek and Latin”), Groningen (March 14-15). [slides]
Kaše, V. (2022). Computing the Past: conference opening (conference „Computing the Past: Computational approaches to the dynamics human cultures & societies“), Plzeň (October 6-8, 2022). [slides]
Kaše, V. & Glomb, T. (2022). The Cultural Evolution of Graeco-Roman Religions in the Light of Epigraphic Evidence: A computational approach (Cultural Evolution Society Conference), Aarhus (September 21-23). [slides]
Kaše, V. (2022). Word Co-Occurrence Networks, Word-Embeddings and the Religious Dynamics of the Ancient Mediterranean (Religious Networks in Antiquity: A topical workshop in The Connected Past series of events), Bergen (June 7-8, 2022). [slides]
Heřmánková, P. & Kaše, V. (2021). Of texts and meanings: challenges of lemmatization of incomplete epigraphic texts (conference “Connected Past”), Aarhus (September 29-30).
Kaše, V. & Glomb, T. (2021). Social Complexity, Affluence, and the Emergence of Moralizing Gods in the Ancient Mediterranean (Cultural Evolution Society Conference), Sapporo (June 9-11). [video+slides]
Glomb, T. & Kaše, V. (2021). The Cultural Evolution of Moralizing Religions in the Ancient Mediterranean Project (CEMRAM): A Distant Reading Approach (“ISORECEA conference: Religion on the Periphery”), Olomouc (April 15-17).
Kaše, V. (2020). Modelling temporal uncertainty in archaeological & historical datasets: The case of ancient Greek & Latin inscriptions (conference “Nordic Computational Applications in Archaeology”), Oslo (October 9). [slides] [video]
Kaše, V. (2019). Social Dynamics in the Ancient Mediterranean and the Cultural Evolution of Moralizing Religions: A text-mining approach (workshop Digital Approaches to Research in Humanities and Social Sciences), Aarhus (October 30). [slides]
Kaše, V. (2019). Text-Mining Ancient Greek Texts and Cultural Evolution of Religion (conference New Media Inspiration: Digital Humanities), Prague (October 19). [slides, scripts and data]
Kaše, V. (2019). The Early Christian Texts, Computational Methods and Cultural Evolution (European Association of Biblical Studies Conference), Warsaw (August 11-13). [slides, draft].
Kaše, V. (2019). Distanční čtení a kulturní evoluce náboženství v antickém Středomoří (workshop Evoluce lidského psychiky, chování a kultury v interdisciplinární perspektivě), Brno (February 6).
Kaše, V. (2018). Text jako síť: Potenciál formální analýzy sítí pro distanční čtení historických textů. (workshop “‘Síť’ (network, Netzwerk) jako perspektiva historického výzkumu”), Praha (September 25)
Kaše, V. (2018). Word Co-Occurrence Networks from Ancient Greek Texts and the Cultural Evolution of Prosocial Religions (conference Historical Network Research), Brno (September 11-13).
Kaše, V. (2018). Distant Reading of Early Christian Texts for Socio-Cognitive Interpretation: Introducing the DiRECT Project (International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature), Helsinki (July 30 – August 3, 2018).
Kaše, V. (2018). Metody distanční čtení a studium kulturní evoluce: Příklad z oblasti antických náboženství (Komunikace, vědění a nové technologie: Studentská conference, 2. ročník), Plzeň, May 3 2018).
Kaše, V., Glomb, T., & Papoušek, D. (2017). The Role of Texts in the Stabilization of Pan-Mediterranean Religious Networks: A Case Study in Geospatial Computational Modeling of Ancient Religious History (Inaugural Cultural Evolution Society Conference), Jena (Sep 13-15 2017). [link]
Kaše, V. (2017). Role rituálu při formování raného křesťanství prizmatem kognitivních teorií: Příklad počátků křesťanského rituálního stolování (Internation Conference for Postgraduate Students in Biblical Studies), Prague (February 23-24). [link]
Kaše, V. (2016). Re-Growing Transportation Network of the Roman Empire and the Spread of Christianity: An Agent-based Model (conference presentation). In The 5th PeClA 2016 International Postgraduate Conference (Perspectives on Classical Archaeology) (conference topic “New Directions in Classical Archaeology”, organized by Charles University in Prague), Prague (December 1-2). [link]
Kaše, V. (2016). CHRISTROME: Christianization of the Roman Empire: Historical Background and Sources (presentation). In Network Theory and Computer Modeling in the Study of Religion (workshop organized by Tamás Biró and István Czachesz), Budapest (August 29 – September 4).
Kaše V. & Hampejs T. (2016). Modelling Cultural Transmission of Rituals: An Agent-Based Model Contrasting Social Function and Cognitive Attraction (conference presentation). In 6th biennial meeting of the International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion (session “Hacking the mind: Using computer models to study religious minds in silico”), Vancouver (August 22-24).
Kaše, V. & Hampejs T. (2016). From Communal Meals to Religion: Networking Social and Cognitive in Agent-Based Simulation (conference presentation). In EASR Conference 2016 Helsinki “Relocating Religion” (session “Religions as Networks of Concepts, Practices, Artefacts and Minds: Case Studies from Ancient Mediterranean”), Helsinki (June 28 – July 1).
Kaše, V., Mertel, A., Výtvarová, E., Fousek, J., Hampejs, T., & Chalupa, A. (2016). Extending Transportation Network of the Roman Empire by Means of Demographic and Economic Proxies (conference presentation). In Second European Conference on Social Networks (session “Historical and Archaeological Network Research”), Paris (June 14-17). [link to the abstract]
Výtvarová, E., Fousek, J., Kaše, V., Chalupa, A. (2016). Trade Network of Ancient Mediterranean and Christianity. In NetSci-X Conference, Wrocław (January 11–13).
Kaše, V. (2015). Quantifying Christianization of the Roman Empire: A Computational Replication and Extension (conference presentation). In Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (session “Mind, Society, and Religion in the Biblical World”), Atlanta (Nov. 21-25). [link]
Kaše, V., Výtvarová, E., & Fousek, J. (2015). Christianization of the Roman Empire: Diffusion on a Settlement Network (poster). In Bridging the Gaps: (Ancient) History from the Perspective of Mathematical and Computational Modelling and Network Analysis (workshop organized by GEHIR: Generative Historiography of Religion Project), Brno (Nov. 13-14). [link]
Kaše, V. (2015). Modelling Ritual Dynamics against the Data: Early Christian Meal Practices as a Test Case (conference paper). In XXI IAHR World Congress (session “Modeling and Simulating Past Minds and Networks: Dynamics of Religious Beliefs and Practices in the Graeco-Roman World”), Erfurt (August 23 – 29). [link]
Kaše, V. (2014): Ecclesiology, Christology, or Magic? A Cognitive Reconsideration of Paul's Lord Supper Discourse (workshop paper). In Cultural Evolution of Religion and Morality (REECR and CERC/DRH joint meeting), Vancouver (November 26 – 27). [link to the presentation]
Kaše, V. (2014). Consuming Jesus – Receiving Eternity: Meal Elements of Special Quality in Johannine Communities (conference paper). In Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (session “Meals in the Greco-Roman World Section: The Meal in John 6”), San Diego (November 21 – 25). [link to the handout]
Kaše. V. (2014). Early Christians in the Machine: How Does Emerge a Belief in Supernatural Efficacy of a Ritual. In 5th biennial IACSR meeting and General Assembly (conference title “Religion Explained? The Cognitive Science of Religion after Twenty-five Years), Brno (June 20 – 22). [link to the poster]
Kaše, V. (2014). Ritualization of Early Christian Meal Practices and the Formation of Beliefs in Supernatural Efficacy of the Meal Elements. In Neutestamentliche Sozietät der Theologischen Fakultät Heidelberg (as a part od presentation of the project “Ritual and Emergence of Early Christian Religion: A Socio-Cognitive Analysis”), Heidelberg, Germany (May 15). [link]
Kaše, V. (2014). Ritualization of Early Christian Meal Practices. In Socio-Cognitive Perspectives on Early Judaism and Early Christianity (as a part of presentation of the project “Ritual and Emergence of Early Christian Religion: A Socio-Cognitive Analysis”), Helsinki, Finland (January 9).
Kaše, V. (2013). Did Early Christians Believe in Their Miracle Stories? The Case of Speaking Animals in the Apocryphal Acts of Apostles. In Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (session “Mind, Society and Religion in Biblical World”), Baltimore (November 23 – 26). [link]
Kaše, V. (2013). Ritual, Extended Mind, and Overimitation: Towards a Naturalistic Cognitive Theory of Ritual Transmission. In EASR Conference 2013 Liverpool “Religion, Migration and Mutation”, Liverpool, Great Britain (September 3 – 6). [link]
Kaše, V. (2013). Rituál, kognice, imitace: Historická religionistika v evoluční perspective” [English title: Ritual, Cognition, Imitation: Historical study of religions in the evolutionary perspective. In Student scientific conference (Czech-Slovak student papers competition in the study of religions, organized by the Department of Comparative Religion, Comenius University Bratislava), Štúrovo (May 24 – 26). [link to the presentation (in Czech)]
Kaše, V., Hampejs, T. (2012). What Humanities Offer the Science? Towards Tymmetrical Approach in the Cognitive Science of Religion. In Towards a Symmetrical Approach: The Study of Religions After Postmodern and Postcolonial Criticism (workshop organized by the Department for the Study of Religions, Masaryk University), Brno (November 29 – December 1). [link]
Kaše, V. (2012). Why Is Institution Narrative ‘Better’ than Didache 9-10? On Cognitive Attraction of Authorized Eucharist. In Society of Biblical Literature International Meeting (session “Mind, Society and Religion in Biblical World”), Amsterdam, Netherlands (July 22 – 26). [link]
Kaše, V. (2012). Why Is Institution Narrative ‘Better’ than Didache 9-10? On Cognitive Attraction of Authorized Eucharist. In Past, Present, and Future in the Scientific Study of Religion (workshop organized by LEVYNA), Brno (March 1 – 3).
Kaše, V. (2012). Létající Šimon, mluvící pes a apoštol Petr: Kontraintuitivní reprezentace ve Skutcích Petrových a literární imaginace pozdní antiky [English title: Flying Simon, Speaking Dog, and Apostle Peter: Contraintuitive Representations in the Acts of Peter and the Literary Imagination of Late Antiquity]. In Student scientific conference (Czech-Slovak student papers competition in the study of religions, organized by the Institute of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Charles University in Prague), Kutná hora (May 4 – 6). [link to the presentation (in Czech)]

Kaše, V. (2011). Kam se poděla ryba? Dějiny jedné (možné) křesťanské reprezentace [English title: Where Did the Fish Disappear? History of One (Possible) Christian Representation]. In Student scientific conference (Czech-Slovak student papers competition in the study of religions, organized by the Department for the Study of Religions, Masaryk University), Telč (May 24 – 26).
Kaše, V. (2010). Global Ethic Foundation of Hans Küng - The Ethical Project or Religious Phenomenon? (workshop presentation). In Religious Transformations in the Contemporary European Societies (ERASMUS Intensive Programme organized by the Department for the Study of Religions, University od Szeged), Szeged, Hungary (August 16 – 29).
Kaše, V. (2010). Didaché 9-10: Problémy a perspektivy současného bádání [English title: Didache 9-10: Problems and Perspectives of Contemporary Research]. In Student scientific conference (Czech-Slovak student papers competition in the study of religions organized by the Department for the Study of Religions, Masaryk Unversity), Štoky u Jihlavy (May 24 – 26) [link to the presentation (in Czech)].
Kaše, V. (2009). Proč ‘Pomazaný’? Problém s nemesianistickými konotacemi termínu christos v nejstarší křesťanské literature [English title: Why ‘Anointed’? Problem with the Non-Messianic Connotations of the Term Christos in the Earliest Christian Literature] (conference presentation). In Student scientific conference (Czech-Slovak student papers competition in the study of religions, organized by the Department of Comparative Religion, Comenius University), Modra (Bratislava, May 18-20).

invited lectures, papers and workshops

2023 - Invited paper: Quantifying Early Christianity in its Urban Context (Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense LXXII: Early Christianity in Civic Space), Leuven (July 18-20).
2022 - Invited workshop: “Computational approaches to semantic change” (CEDRR: Centre for the Digital Research of Religion), Brno (December 9).
2022 - Invited paper: “Word Co-Occurrence Networks, Word-Embeddings and the Religious Dynamics of the Ancient Mediterranean” (Religious Networks in Antiquity: A topical workshop in The Connected Past series of events), Bergen (June 7-8).
2020 - Invited workshop: “Computational Text Analysis in Python” (CEDRR: Centre for the Digital Research of Religion), Brno (March 31).
2019 - Invited paper: “Text-Mining Ancient Greek Texts and Cultural Evolution of Religion” (New Media Inspiration: Digital Humanities), Prague (October 19).
2019 - Invited lecture: “Kulturní evoluce náboženství: současné přístupy [english title: Cultural Evolution of Religion: Contemporary approaches] (invited lecture at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Southern Bohemia), České Budějovice (May 3).

2019 - Invited lecture: “The Emergence of Moralistic Religions in the Ancient Mediterranean (invited talk at a meeting of the Social Cognition group at the Institut Jean Nicod; invited by Nicolas Baumard), Paris (January, 22).
2017 - Invited lecture: “Poiesis náboženských světů: Univerzália lidské mysli a dynamika náboženských představ” [English title: “A Religious Worlds’ Poiesis: Universalia of the Human Mind and the Dynamics of Religious Representations] as a part of the course “Anthropology of Religion” at the Faculty of Social Studies, Charles University in Prague; invited by Barbora Spalová, Prague (November 27);
2017 - Invited lecture: “The Rise of Christianity: Social-Scientific and Cognitive Perspective” as a part of the course “Economy of Religion” at the University of Economics Prague; invited by Lubomír Cingl, Prague (November 14);
2017 - Invited lecture: “Rituální efektivita, magické myšlení a placebo: Náčrt kognitivního modelu” [English title: “Ritual Efficacy, Magical Thinking and Placebo: A Sketch of a Cognitive Model”] as a part of the course “Brain as a Symbol” at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague; invited by Martin Švantner, Prague (April 26);
2016 - Invited lecture: “Univerzália lidské mysli a dynamika náboženských představ” [English title: “Universalia of the Human Mind and the Dynamics of Religious Representations] as a part of the course “Anthropology of Religion” at the Faculty of Social Studies, Charles University in Prague; invited by Barbora Spalová), Prague (November 20);

2013 - Invited lecture: “’Kognice je nejvíce’: Koncepce ‘4E-Cognition’ v kontextu religionistiky jako ‘vědy o životě’” [English title: ‘Cognition is the Most’: Conception of ‘4E-cognition’ in the Context of Religious Studies as a ‘Life Science’] (invitation by Prague Association for Religious Studies), Prague (April 3).

Attended workshops and special courses (without a paper)

2019: NLP workshop @IMC, Fall 2019 (workshop on natural language processing hosted by the Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus November 6-7).
2019: Workshop “Teaching Digital History” (hosted by “CEDHAR: Center for Digital History Aarhus”, Aarhus, October 23).
2017: Workshop “History goes Digital – Reichweite und Grenzen digitaler historischer Forschung” (München, July 21)
2017: Workshop “Cultural Evolution of Religion” (Helsinki, May 23-24)
2016: Workshop “Network Theory and Computer Modeling in the Study of Religion” (Budapest, Aug 29 – Sep 4) [link]
2016: Workshop “Extracting Social Networks from Literary Texts” (Paris, June 14).
2016: Workshop “Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience (CAARE)” (Aarhus, March 14–15).
2016: Winter school “Write Now!” (Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies winter School on academic writing), certified: 3 ETCS (Helsinki, January 26-29) [link]
2015: Workshop “Bridging the Gaps: (Ancient) History from the Perspective of Mathematical and Computational Modelling and Network Analysis” (organized by GEHIR: Generative Historiography of Religion Project), Brno (Nov. 13-14).
2014: Workshop “Network Theory, Cognitive Science, and Historiography” (Brno, Oct 23–25, organized by the Department for the Study of Religions MU, Czech Association for the Study of Religions and The Institute for Advanced Studies of Religion, Toronto)
2014: Workshop on “Transmission” of the project “Ancient Religions and Cognition”, London, Great Britain (organized by the Department of Classics, The University of Nottingham, Jan 13 – 14).
2013: Workshop on “Authority” of the project “Ancient Religions and Cognition”, London, Great Britain (Department of Classics, The University of Nottingham, July 23 – 24).

Teaching Experience

Teaching

UWB, Spring 2024, “Cultural Heritage in the Digital Age (lectures & hands-on sessions, main lecturer)
UWB, Fall 2023, a series of lectures on “Data”, “Open Science”, and “Computational Methods in SSH” as part of a Winter School for PhD Students from all PhD programmes at the Faculty of Arts
UWB, Spring 2023, “Evolution, Cognition, Culture” (lectures/seminars, main lecturer)
UWB, from Fall 2022 annually, guest lecture on “Mathematical Models in History” as part of the course “Mathematical Modelling” (Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Applied Sciences, main lecturer Marek Brandner)
UWB, from Fall 2021 annually, guest lecture on “Agent-Based Modelling in History” as part of the course “Agent Technologies” (Department of Cybernetics, Faculty of Applied Sciences, main lecturer Pavel Ircing)
UWB, from Spring 2019 almost every year, “Religion, Science, and the Future of the Humanities (lectures & seminars, in English, for international students with highly diverse background)
UWB, from Spring 2019 every year, “Introduction to Digital Humanities” (lectures & hands-on sessions, main lecturer)
AU, Fall 2020, teaching a series of seminars in the course “Cultural Data Science” (main lecturer Adéla Sobotková)
AU, Fall 2019. showcase lecture “Historical Research between Data Exploration and Hypothesis-Testing: A case study” as a part of the course “Digital Methods in Humanities & Social Sciences” (main lecturer Adéla Sobotková)
UWB, Fall 2017 and 2018: teaching all seminars of the bachelor course “Religious Studies”
UWB, Fall 2017: teaching two seminars on the topic “Digital Humanities” in the course “Analysis and Interpretation of Texts”
MU, Spring 2017: teaching several seminar classes of the course “Early Christianity in the Perspective of Social and Natural Sciences” (other teachers: Dalibor Papoušek and Iva Doležalová)
UH, Fall 2016: seminar “How to Do Research on Early Christian Rituals” (Dec. 8; 1 hour) as a part of Risto Uro’s master thesis seminar
UH, Spring 2016: lecture “Ritualization of Early Christian Meal Practices: ‘In the Beginning Was the Meal’” (Feb 4; 1,5 hour) as a part of the course “Ritual Studies” (main lecturer Risto Uro)
UH, Spring 2015: main lecturer of the course “Ritual and Early Christian Religion”
MU, Fall 2014: teaching few classes of the course “Early Christianity in the Perspective of Social and Cognitive Sciences” (other teachers: Dalibor Papoušek and Iva Doležalová)
MU, Fall 2014: lecture “Christian Origins” (September 24; 1,5 hour, in Czech) as a part of the course “Christianity I” (main lecturer: David Zbíral)
MU, Spring 2014: seminar “Computational Modelling in Social Sciences” (April 10; 1,5 hour, in Czech), as a part of the course “Current Theories in the Study of Religions II”
MU, Fall 2013: lecture “Christian Origins” (September 23; 1,5 hour, in Czech) as a part of the course “Christianity I” (main lecturer: David Zbíral)
MU, Spring 2013: lecture “In the Beginning Was the Meal” (February 27; 1,5 hour, in Czech) as a part of the course “The Christian Cult in the Context of Hellenistic Religions” (main lecturer: Iva Doležalová)

Thesis supervision

2 master thesis
3 bachelor thesis

Other Academic Activities

Editorial Boards and Membership in Academic Associations

2021/12-present: Member of the Executive Board of the Czech Association for Digital Humanities
2021-present: Member of the Cultural Evolution Society
2017/8-present: Member of the Control Committee of the Czech Association for Digital Humanities
2013-present: Member of the Czech Association for the Study of Religions
2012-2014: Member of Society of Biblical Literature
2013/5-2013/12: Executive editor of Sacra (ISSN 1214-5351) [link to the journal English webpage]
2009-2019: Member of the editorial board of Sacra (ISSN 1214-5351)

Awards

2022: Award of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of West Bohemia, for organizing of interdisciplinary activities at the University of West Bohemia (CCS-Lab)
2019: 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.
2013: 2nd prize in the Czech-Slovak student papers competition in the study of religions, Štúrovo (Department of Comparative Religion, Comenius University Bratislava, May 24-26) and 1st prize in the faculty student papers competition in the study of religions, Brno (Department for the Study of Religions, Masaryk University, April 30)

Awarded paper: “Rituál, kognice, imitace: Historická religionistika v evoluční perspective” [English title: Ritual, Cognition, Imitation: Historical study of religions in the evolutionary perspective]

2012: 3rd prize in the Czech-Slovak student papers competition in the study of religions, Kutná hora (Institute of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Charles University, May 4-6) and 2nd prize the faculty student papers competition in the study of religions, Brno (Department for the Study of Religions, Masaryk University, April 17)

Awarded paper: “Létající Šimon, mluvící pes a apoštol Petr: Kontraintuitivní reprezentace ve Skutcích Petrových a literární imaginace pozdní antiky” [English title: Flying Simon, Speaking Dog, and Apostle Peter: Contraintuitive representations in the Acts of Peter and the literary imagination of late antiquity]

2011: 1st prize in the Czech-Slovak student papers competition in the study of religions, Telč (Department for the Study of Religions, Masaryk University, May 24-26) and 1st prize in the faculty student papers competition in the study of religions, Brno (Department for the Study of Religions, Masaryk University, April 12)

Awarded paper: “Kam se poděla ryba? Dějiny jedné (možné) křesťanské reprezentace” [English title: Why Is not Fish on the Menu? History of the one (possible) Christian Representation]

2010: 2nd prize in the Czech-Slovak student papers competition in the study of religions), Štoky u Jihlavy (Department for the Study of Religions, Masaryk University, May 24-26) and 1st prize in the faculty student papers competition in the study of religions, Brno (Department for the Study of Religions, Masaryk University, April 7)

Awarded paper: “Didaché 9-10: Problémy a perspektivy současného bádání” [English title: Didache 9-10: Problems and Perspectives of Contemporary Research]

2009: 2nd prize in the Czech-Slovak student papers competition in the study of religions), Modra (Department of Comparative Religion, Comenius University Bratislava, May 18-20) and 2nd prize in the faculty student papers competition in the study of religions, Brno (Department for the Study of Religions, Masaryk University, April)

Awarded paper: “Proč ‘Pomazaný’? Problém s nemesianistickými konotacemi termínu christos v nejstarší křesťanské literature” [English title: Why ‘Anointed’? Problem with the non-messianic connotations of the term christos in the earliest Christian Literature]