David Zbíral

David Zbíral is Professor and Deputy Head of the Department of Religious Studies at Masaryk University's Faculty of Arts, where he leads research initiatives through the Center for Digital Research on Religion. His academic position involves both administrative leadership and advanced research in medieval religious history with computational methodologies.

His research focuses on applying digital humanities approaches to medieval inquisition records, particularly through:

• Computational analysis of religious dissent and heresy prosecutions
• Network modeling of social and religious relationships
• Gender studies in medieval religious contexts
• Digital reconstruction of historical judicial processes
• Semantic text modeling of historical documents

Zbíral's recent publications demonstrate a strong emphasis on computational methods in historical research, particularly using network analysis, natural language processing, and quantitative approaches to study medieval inquisition records across Europe. His work frequently examines social dynamics, gender patterns, and spatial relationships in religious dissent cases from the 11th to 15th centuries.

He leads the DISSINET project (Networks of Dissent), which develops computational models of dissident and inquisitorial cultures in medieval Europe. This interdisciplinary initiative combines historical research with cutting-edge digital methodologies to analyze patterns of religious nonconformism.