Our Team
Each of the following team members contribute significantly to our interdisciplinary team and we are pleased to introduce them individually.
Tomáš Bouška
tomas.bouska (at) politicalprisoners.eu
Tomáš is a lecturer and freelance project director. He gained his Ph.D. at the Charles University in Prague, Department of Political Science. Member of steering committee of the International Oral History Association Conference in Prague in 2010. Since 2003, his main field of his interest is oral histories of political prisoners who survived jailing in the 1950s in forced labour camps of so called Jachymov district (former Czechoslovakia) and survivors of genocides around the Globe. Founder and chairperson of the volunteer civic organisation Political Prisoners.eu / Političtí vězni.cz and co-author of this website. He is a board member of the Czech Oral History Association (COHA). Tomáš is a co-author of the book “Czechoslovak Political Prisoners. Oral Histories of Victims of Communism” and director of the documentary portrait of a female political prisoner “K.Ch.”. In 2008-2010 he served as spokesman of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. He also worked as Deputy-Director of the College of Media and Journalism in Prague. Before joining Shoah Memorial Prague where he coordinated the organization´s development he worked as Strategy and Development Manager at the Aspen Institute Prague. Among his most recent projects belongs the Airbnb Experience called Political Prisoners´ Prague.
Kristýna Bušková
kbuskova (at) gmail.com
Kristýna Bušková holds an MPhil degree in Social and Developmental Psychology from the University of Cambridge and an MSc degree in Psychological Studies from the University of Glasgow. During her MSc studies she developed passion for historical trauma and reconciliation of traumatic memories while working on her dissertation on topic 'Second-generation survivors of Stalinist political violence in Czechoslovakia.' She then started to co-operate with the Political Prisoners.eu Initiative. She is gong to do a Ph.D. on the processes of reconciliation of traumatic memories aminy Stalinist survivors of political violence at the University of Nottingham starting in Oct 2010 She hopes her work will help survivors reconcile thein past and contribute towards peaceful future of Europe and successful reconciliation with its past.
Petra Loučová
pet.cas (at) seznam.cz
Petra Čáslavová is a PhD. student at Institute of Czech Literature and Library Sciences at the Faculty of Philosophy of Masaryk University in Brno. She is interested in prisoners´ poetry and samizdat prison literature from the times of communist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia. In her dissertation thesis, she will discuss the space of prison between the years 1948 and 1989 as a specific place for literary communication. She is also a member of Literary Lexicography Department at Institute of Czech Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic; she contributes to The Dictionary of Czech Literature After 1945 with keywords concerning Czechoslovak samizdat editions.
Tereza Kupková
kupkovat (at) gmail.com
Ing. arch. Tereza Kupková graduated at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University in Prague. She wrote her master thesis on the topic of „The Memorial for the Political Prisoners from the Area of Jáchymov“. She works at the Architectural office DaM spol. s r.o.
Michal Louč
michal.louc (at) politicalprisoners.eu
Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pardubice. He holds a master's degree in social anthropology from the University of Pardubice, the Czech Republic. He is in the field since 2006. Author of the article "Life Stories of the Political Prisoners from the Pardubice Locality" based on his fieldwork. Member of the Czech Oral History Association. Volunteer of the initiative Political Prisoners.eu.
Klára Pinerová
klara.pinerova (at) politicalprisoners.eu
Ph.D. candidate at the Charles University in Prague, Institute for Economic and Social History. Scientific specialization is prison service in the 20th century. Theme of her MA thesis was "Development of the Penitentiary Subcultures in Czechoslovakia in Years 1948 - 1960". Participated on the project"Prague Faculty of Arts in Years 1969 - 1989". Member of the Society for Economic and Social History and the Czech Oral History Association. Co-founder of the initiative Political Prisoners.eu.
Peter Luschen – AEGEE (Utrecht & Tallinn)
Peter Luschen used to work as a Political Assistant in the Dutch Parliament (House of Representatives) and was a MA student of European Law at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Active member of AEGEE and supporter of the initiative politicalprisoners.eu.
Jaroslav Vaňous
Ph.D. candidate at the Oral History and Contemporary History at Faculty of Humanities of Charles University in Prague, Jaroslav is also a 2010 Political Science alumni (Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University). Interested in theoretical and practical aspects of non-democratic political regimes, political geography, language policy, relationships between political elites and organized crime etc. From 2011 onwards, Jaroslav is a member of the Czech Oral History Association.
Ivana Vránková
Ivana holds a bachelor´s degree in humanity studies from the Charles University in Prague. At present she studies a master´s program of Oral history at the Charles University in Prague. Ivana is in the field from 2009. She writes her Master thesis on the following topic: "The life „after". Difficulties of Czechoslovak political prisoners returning into the society" based on her fieldwork research. Ivana is a volunteer of the initiative Political Prisoners.eu.
Olivia Webb
Olivia is a volunteer proofreader and past intern for Political Prisoners.eu. After studying as in Prague via New York University’s NYU study abroad program, she returned to New York to continue studying oral history as a strong influence for her undergraduate Concentration in Politics and Communication.
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