Institute of Contemporary History

Research interests:

• social and cultural history of technology
• history of infrastructures
• environmental history
• Central Europe in 19th and 20th centuries

Education:

• 2007–2012: PhD program The Hidden Integration in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe supported by the Foundation for the History of Technology. Thesis European Coasts of Bohemia. Negotiating the Danube-Oder-Elbe Canal in a Troubled Twentieth Century was developed under double supervision (TUE Eindhoven, NL + Charles University, Prague, CZE) and defended cum laude at the  Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, the Netherlands,  December 10, 2012.
• 1997–2005: MA in History and Geography, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, Thesis: Historic-geographical Interpretation of Land Use Changes in the Kolín District 1850–2005

Employment:

• since 2020: Head of the The General and Comparative History Seminar, nstitute of Global History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
• since 2018: Institute of Global History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic – assistant professor
• since 2014: Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic – post-doc researcher
• since 2012: Institute of Global History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic – part-time lecturer
• 2012–2014: Foundation for the History of Technology, research assistant to prof. Johan Schot, project Making Europe (www.makingeurope.eu), research in central European archives
• 2006–2007: National Heritage Institute (NPÚ), Prague, Czech republic  – department of methodology

Reasearch projects:

• 2023–2025: Technokratický environmentalismus v období studené války: Českoslovenští experti v EHK OSN (1950s-1980s), The Czech Science Foundation, main investigator
• 2022–2024: Věda a emoce: Promýšlet environmentální hnutí za komunismu v Československu v 70.-80. letech 20. století, The Czech Science Foundation, team member
• 2022–2024: Hledání postmoderního města. Proměna Prahy a Bratislavy 1970-2000 (myšlení – vyjednávání – výstavba), The Czech Science Foundation, team member
• 2018–2021: Vodní socialismus: Voda, životní prostředí a socialistické panství v Československu, The Czech Science Foundation, principal investigator
• 2015–2017: Stalinský plán přetvoření přírody v Československu (1948–1964), The Czech Science Foundatin, team member
• 2019–2022: Teaching European History in the 21st Century (TEH21)  – Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership in Higher Education – teaching, co-authorship of several chapters of the open access textbook of European History (e.g. Schouwenburg, H., Janáč, J., Lange, S., Pan-Montojo, J., Understanding and Controlling the Environment in Modern History (ca. 1800-1900), The European Experience: A Multi-Perspective History of Modern Europe (2023) , pp. 539-548 etc).
• 2017–2020: Team member in the international project REACH: Re-designing access to CH for a wider participation in preservation, (re)use and management of European culture (program HORIZON2020, ID 769827). reach-culture.eu.

Academic Monographs:

• Olšáková, Doubravka – Janáč, Jiří. Kult jednoty: stalinský plán přetvoření přírody v Československu 1948-1964. Praha : Academia, 2018. (English language translation: The Cult of Unity – The Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature in Czechoslovakia 1948-1964, Praha: Academia (2020).
• European Coasts of Bohemia. Negotiating the Danube-Oder-Elbe Canal in a Troubled Twentieth Century. Amsterdam – Amsterdam University Press (2012).

Academic papers:

• Albuquerque, P. – Fernández, F. J. G. – Janáč, J. – Krajíček, J.: National Peripheries and Cultural Heritage: Community Building on the European Margins, (2022) Architecture, City and Environment, 17 (50), art. no. 11380.
• Kaucká, K. – Janáč, J.: Participace místního obyvatelstva na plánování vodního díla Nové Mlýny. Časopis Matice moravské. 140:1 (2021), 107–122.
• Janáč, J.: Building Hydrosocialism in Czechoslovakia. Global Environment 13 :3 (2020) 610-633.
• Janáč, J. – Olšáková, D.: On the road to Stockholm: A case study of the failure of Cold War international environmental initiatives (Prague Symposium, 1971) Centaurus 63:1 132-149.
• Janáč, J.: Sociální a kulturní dějiny techniky: Ke konceptualizaci techniky v anglosaské historické vědě I. (do 1970). Dějiny vědy a techniky 52:2 (2019) 79-94.
• Janáč, J.: Století regulace. Proměny vodního režimu ve 20. století jako symbol pokroku. Era 21 19 :5 (2019) 20-23.
• Janáč, J.: Od přírody k sítím: mobilizace vody v období socialismu. Geografické rozhledy, 28:5 (2019), 16-19.
• Janáč, J.: „Haben wir nur das Wasser, das vom Himmel fällt?“ Kontinuitäten technokratischen Denkens in der sozialistichen Tschechoslowakei am Beispiel des Donau-Oder-Elbe-Kanalprojekts, Bohemia: Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der böhmischen Länder. A Journal of History and Civilisation in East Central Europe, München : Collegium Carolinum, Roč. 57, č. 1 (2017), s. 115-147.
• Spurný, M. – Olšáková, D. – Sommer, V. – Janáč, J.: Technokratischer Sozialismus in der Tschechoslowakei: was ist technokratischer Sozialismus?, Bohemia : Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der böhmischen Länder. A Journal of History and Civilisation in East Central Europe, München : Collegium Carolinum, Roč. 57, č. 1 (2017), s. 12-24.
• Janáč, J.: Hydrokraté a česká vodohospodářská mise ve dvacátém století (1930-1960). Soudobé dějiny, Roč. 24, č. 1-2 (2017), s. 19-53.
• Janáč, J. – van der Vleuten, E.: Transnational system building through geopolitical shifts: The Danube-Oder-Elbe canal, 1901-2015. Water Alternatives 9 (2), 2016, 272-291.
• Janáč, J.: Transnacionální obrat? Nové trendy v konceptu světových/evropských dějin a jejich aplikace při studiu dějin technologií. Dějiny vědy a techniky 44, , no. 2, 2011, 98-116. Rés. angl. s. 116; Transnational turn? New trends in the concept of world/European history and their application at the history of technology studies.
• Janáč, J. – Jeleček, L. –  Chromý, P.: LUCC in East Central and Southeast Europe post-communist countries from 1960s to the end of the 20th century and its historic-geographical roots. Acta Universitatis Carolinae: Geographica, no . 2, 2010,  19–30.

Chapters in edited volumes:

• Janáč, J.: From Nature to National Networks: Hydraulic Bureaucracy and the Modernization of Waters in Czechia, 1890s–1960s, in Dorondel, S. – Serban, S.: A New Ecological Order: Development and the Transformation of Nature in Eastern Europe, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 130-155, ISBN: 978-0-8229-4717-2.
• Janáč, J.: Navigating the Middle: Integration of Inland Navigation in Central Europe and the Second World War, in: Aldebert, V. – Henrich-Franke, Ch. – Laborie, L. – Proschmann, S. – Thiemeyer, G. (ed.): Conflict in Cooperation. Crossborder Infrastructures in Europe facing the Second World War, Baden Baden, Nomos 2022, 161-192, ISBN: 978-3-8487-8885-9.
• Janáč, J.: Building community resilience through heritage in small towns: Case study of Vysoké nad Jizerou , in Klusáková, L. – Espino H. B. del.: Small Towns Resilience and Heritage Commodification. Bruxelles: Peter Lang AG  (2021) 171-198.
• Janáč, J.: Planned Environment in a Socialist Dictatorship: Complex Water Management and Soil Improvement in Moravia, in Brain, S. – Pál, V.: Environmentalism Under Authoritarian Regimes: Myth Propaganda, Reality. S.l.: Routledge (2018), 125-144.
• Janáč, J. – Ira, J.: Materializing Identities in (Post) Socialist Cities, in Ira, J. – Janáč, J.: Materializing Identities in (Post) Socialist Cities. Prague: Karolinum, (2017) 11-29.
• Janáč, J.: History of Technology on the Issues of Borders and Identities, in Klusáková, L. – Moll, M. – Ira, J. – Larguèche, A. – Kalivodová, E. – Sargent, A.(eds.): Crossing  Frontiers, Resisting Identities. Pisa: Edizioni Plus – Pisa University Press (2011), 57–75.
• Janáč, J.: Resistance to Sovietization in Technology, in Klusáková, L. – Moll, M. – Ira, J. – Larguèche, A. – Kalivodová, E. – Sargent, A.(eds.): Crossing  Frontiers, Resisting Identities. Edizioni Plus – Pisa University Press, Pisa,( 2011),  217–221.

Edited volumes:

• Ira, J. – Janáč, J.: Materializing Identities in (Post) Socialist Cities. Prague: Karolinum, 2018.