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VIZE 97 Prize in memoriam for Professor Petrusek

This year’s laureate of the Dagmar and Václav Havel Foundation VIZE 97 Prize is the significant Czech sociologist and university lecturer Professor Miloslav Petrusek. In spite of the sad event, the departure of Professor Petrusek at the age of nearly 76 years old, the Prize will be awarded to him in memoriam. On behalf of Professor Petrusek, his grandson Jan Holub will accept the Prize from Mrs. Havel.

In spite of all of the unfortunate events of the end of last year and the passing of the Prize laureate, the tradition will be preserved and this year, the 5th of October will be the day the VIZE 97 Prize will be awarded. Based on the wishes of Alena Miltova, wife of the deceased Professor, the elder grandson of Professor Miloslav Petrusek, Jan Holub, will accept the Prize on his behalf from Dagmar Havel at the Prague Crossroads. The VIZE 97 Foundation managed to complete the traditional laureate’s memorial volume with Professor Petrusek, called Society and Culture. It officially goes on sale on 5th October.

Professor Petrusek was an acclaimed sociologist and very popular lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University in Prague. In 1991-1997 he was the dean and in 1997-2000 he was also the vice-rector of Charles University. Professor Petrusek is the author or co-author of a number of significant works, dozens of textbooks, professional and popular science articles and texts on sociology. Among his most famous works are undoubtedly the Small Sociological Dictionary from the end of the 1960s and then the double volume Large Sociological Dictionary from the first half of the 1990s. Both dictionaries have become irreplaceable manuals on sociology in Czech language.

The traditional midmorning discussion of the VIZE 97 Prize with a number of interesting guests, which will be freely accessible to the general public, will take place at the Prague Crossroads – the former church of St. Anne in Prague 1 – on Friday 5th October 2012 from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., followed by the award’s ceremony which begins at 4:00 p.m. here.

Laureates of the Dagmar and Václav Havel VIZE 97 Prize:

  • 1999 Karl H. Pribram – American neurosurgeon and thinker

  • 2000 Umberto Eco – World-famous semiotician and writer

  • 2001 Zdeněk Neubauer – Czech scientist and philosopher

  • 2002 Joseph Weizenbaum – American computer scientist and thinker of German origin

  • 2003 Robert B. Reich – American economist and ex-Member of Bill Clinton Administration

  • 2004 Petr Vopěnka – World-famous Czech mathematician and ex-Minister of Education

  • 2005 Philip G. Zimbardo – World-famous American psychologist

  • 2006 Zygmunt Bauman – Distinguished Polish sociologist

  • 2007 Stanislav Grof – World-famous psychologist and psychiatrist of Czech origin

  • 2008 Julia Kristeva – Distinguished writer, linguist and psychoanalyst

  • 2009 Václav Cílek – Distinguished Czech geologist, writer, philosopher and populariser of science

  • 2010 Konrad Paul Liessmann – Significant Austrian philosopher, essayist and literary critic

  • 2011 Iva Mojžišová – important Slovak art theorist and philosopher

  • 2012 Miloslav Petrusek – significant Czech sociologist and university lecturer