UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
DEPARTMENT OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES
Fall 2006
SLA 215 F ASPECTS OF CZECH AND SLOVAK CULTURES
Instructor: Veronika Ambros, e-mail: veronika.ambros@utoronto.ca
Phone: 926 – 1300 ext. 3200
Office hours: Mo. 1-2121 St. Joseph Street, Alumni Hall R. 405, Tr. 2-3 Comparative Literatures Isabell Bader third floor
Course Description:
Situated in the Centre of Europe, the territories inhabited today mostly by Czechs and Slovaks have been exposed to a variety of trends. This class that is suggested as an introduction to the Czech and Slovak program discusses some of te most relevant aspects of both cultures beginning with the formation of a small nation as presented by anthropologists who draw their material from the region. Other topics reflect the cultural diversity and pay attention to authors, composers, artists such as Antonín Dvořák, Leoš Janáček, Franz Kafka, Alfons Mucha, Toyen, Milan Kundera and Václav Havel who while contributing to Czech and Slovak cultures also gained considerable acclaim abroad.
Course Requirements:
Students are expected to give an oral presentation of a topic – 10 minutes i.e. ca. 3 pages (10% each), write a brief book review on a work on the reading list (3pages). The topic of the term essay (30%) has to be discussed with the instructor. The essay (ten pages long) presents one aspect of the class more in depth. A regular attendance (10%) and active participation (10%) is a condition for a successful completion of the class.
Many of the relevant topics are covered in Derek Sayer’s book The Coasts of Bohemia that is an essential reading accompanying the course textbook. For historical background please consult Hugh LeCaine Agnew The Czechs and the lands of the Bohemian crown Stanford, Calif. : Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 2004.
SUGGESTED TOPICS
Readings: Jirásek, Alois, Old Czech Legends 1992; Sláma, Jiří. „Boiohaemum-Čechy“ In: Bohemia in History, Teich, Mikuláš (ed.,) Cambridge UK, Cambridge UP, 1998:25-38. Ernest Gellner “What is a Nation?” In Nations and Nationalism, London, Basil Blackwell, 1983,53-61.
Readings: Spinka, Matthew, Trans. The Letters of John Hus. Rowman: Manchester UP, 1972. Readings Kavka, F." Politics and culture under Charles IV" In: Bohemia in History, Teich, Mikuláš (ed.,) Cambridge UK, Cambridge UP, 1998:59-78. Šmahel, František. "The Hussite movement an anomaly of European history?" In: Bohemia in History, Teich, Mikuláš (ed.,) Cambridge UK, Cambridge UP, 1998:79-97,
Readings: Válka, Josef. "Rudolfine culture" In: Teich, Mikuláš (ed.,) Bohemia in History, Cambridge UK, Cambridge UP, 1998: 117-142. Jan Amos Komenský, The Labyrint of the World, in Harkins, Czech Prose, 65-113; Milada Součková „The Czech concepts of Literary Baroque" in Baroque in Bohemia, 1-12.
Readings: Hrbata, Zdeněk & Procházka, Martin, (eds). Český romantismus v evropském kontextu. Praha: Mlejnek: Ursus, Sv. 7, 1993. 203-225 Vladimír Macura „Problems and Paradoxes of the National Revival" In: Teich, Mikuláš (ed.,) Bohemia in History, Cambridge UK, Cambridge UP, 1998:182-197;
Brock, Peter, The Slovak National Awakening: An Essay in the Intellectual History of East Central Europe. Toronto: U of Toronto, 1976.
Readings: Kimball, Stanley Buchholz. Czech Nationalism: A Study of the National Theatre Movement, 1845-83. Illinois Studies in the Social sciences, 54. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1964: 1-24. Ernest Gellner "Typology of Nationalisms"Nations and Nationalism, London, Basil Blackwell, 1983, 88-122
Readings: Kosík, Karel. "Hašek and Kafka, or, the World of the Grotesque"in The Crisis of Modernity. Essays and Observations From the 1968 Era. James H. Satterwhite. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995: 77- 86.
Readings: Masaryk, T. G. M. The Meaning of Czech History. Ed. René Wellek. Trans. Peter Kussi. Chapel Hill: The University of Northern Carolina Press, 1974. Kundera, Milan. "Janáček." Cross-Currents. 1983. 371-80.
Readings: Levinger, Esther. "Czech Avant-Garde Art: Poetry for the Five Senses" In: The Art Bulletin, September 1999, vol. LXXXI, Nr. 3,513-552. Wellek, R. The Literary Theory and Aesthetics of the Prague School. Michigan: Ann Arbor, 1969, 1-33.
Readings: French, Alfred. The Poets of Prague, London Oxford Press, 1969
Readings: Ernest Gellner "Nationalism and Ideology"Nations and Nationalism, London, Basil Blackwell, 1983, 123-136; Petro, Peter. Dominik Tatarka: An Introduction to a Rebel. Cross Currents (1987): 281-283.Tatarka, Dominik. "The Demon of Conformism." Cross Currents (1987): 285-97. Rorty, Richard. "The Seer of Prague." The New Republic July (1991): 35-40.
Hrabal, Bohumil. "Total Fears." Ed. Ferdinand Mount. Communism. London: Harvill, 1992. 202-93.
13. REVIEW
Selected Bibliography
Agnew Hugh LeCaine. The Czechs and the lands of the Bohemian Crown Stanford, Calif. : Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 2004.
Barraclough, G., ed. Eastern and Western Europe in the Middle Ages. London: Thames and Hudson, 1970.
Benson, Timothy et al. Central European Avantgarde[s]. Cambridge Ma,MIT, 2003.
Brock, Peter, ed. The Czech Renascence of the Nineteenth Century. Toronto: U of Toronto, 1970.
---. The Slovak National Awakening: An Essay in the Intellectual History of East Central Europe. Toronto: U of Toronto, 1976.
Burian, Jarka. Modern Czech Theatre. Reflector and Conscience of a Nation. Iowa: University Press, 2000.
Chalupecký, Jindřich. "Art in Bohemia." Cross Currents (1990): 147-62.
---. "The Lessons of Prague." Cross Currents (1985): 323-26.
---. "The Tragic Comedy of Jaroslav Hasek" Cross Currents [Volume 2(1983), pp. 137-153]
Čapek, Karel.
Demetz, Peter. Prague in Black and Gold. Scenes from the Life of a European City. New York: Hill and Wang, 1997.
Doležel, Lubomír. Narrative Modes in Czech Literature. Toronto: University of Toronto, 1973.
Epstein, Helen. Where She Came From. A Daugter’s Search for Her Mother’s History. Boston: Little, Brown, 1997.
Ewans, R. Rudolf II and His World. A Study in Intellectual History 1576-1612. Oxford: Clarendon, 1973.
French, Alfred. Czech Writers and Politics 1945-1969. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1982.
Gellner, Arnošt. Nation and Nationalism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983.
Goetz-Stankiewicz, M. "Ethics at the Crossroads: The Czech `Dissident Writer' as Dramatic Character." Modern Drama (1984): 112-23.
---. The Silenced Thatre: Czech Playwrights Without a Stage. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1979.
Harkins William E. (translated and ed) Czech prose. Ann Arbor [Mich.] : Michigan Slavic Publications, Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan, 1983.
Havel, Václav. The Art of the Impossible. Politics as Morality in Practice. Speeches and Writings, 1990-1996. Alfred Knopf: New York; Toronto, 1997.
---. The Garden Party and Other Plays. Grove Press: New York, 1993.
---. Open Letters. Faber and Faber: London, 1991.
Hermann, A. A History of the Czechs. London: Allen Lane, 1975.
Hobsbawm, E. J. and Ranger, Terence, eds. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983.
Holý, Ladislav. The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Hrbata, Zdeněk & Procházka, Martin, ed. Český Romantismus V Evropském Kontextu. Praha: Mlejnek: Ursus, Sv. 7, 1993.
Hroch, Miroslav. V národním zájmu. Praha, LN, 1999.
Jakobson, Roman. "Remarks on the Poetry of the Hussite Era." Early Slavic Paths & Crossroads, Part II. Selected Writings. Berlin and New York: Mouton, 1985. 704-37.
Karbusický, Vladimír. Báje, Mýty, Dějiny. Olomouc: Mladá Fronta, 1995.
Kimball, Stanley Buchholz. Czech Nationalism: A Study of the National Theatre Movement, 1845-83. Illinois Studies in the Social sciences, 54. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1964.
Kosík, Karel. The Crisis of Modernity. Essays and Observations From the 1968 Era. James H. Satterwhite. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995.
Kundera, Milan. The Art of the Novel. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
Lass, Andrew. "From Memory to History." Memory, History, and Opposition Under State Socialism. Rubie S. Watson. Santa Fe: School of American Research, 1994.
Levinger, Ester "Czech Avant-Garde Art: Poetry for the Five Sense"s in: The Art Bulletin September 1999, Vol. LXXXI, Number 3, 513-532.
Macura, Vladimír. Znamení Zrodu. České Obrození Jako Kulturní Typ. Praha: Československý Spisovatel, 1983.
Masaryk, T. G. M. The Meaning of Czech History. Ed. René Wellek. Trans. Peter Kussi. Chapel Hill: The University of Northern Carolina Press, 1974.
Patočka, Jan. Co jsou Češi. Praha: Panorama, 1992.
Pawel, Ernst. The Nightmare of Reason. A Life of Franz Kafka. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1984.
Pynsent, R. B. Questions of Identity. Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality. Budapest: Central European UP, 1994.
Rechcígl, Miloslav Jr. Czechoslovakia Past and Present. The Hague: Mouton, 1968.
Ripellino, Angelo Mario. Magic Prague. Trans. David Newton Marinelli. Ed. M.H.Heim. Berkeley: U of California P, 1994.
Sayer, Derek. The Coasts of Bohemia. A Czech History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Seton-Watson, R. History of Czechs and Slovaks. London: Hutchinson, 1942.
Skilling, Gordon, H. Czechoslovakia 1918-88: Seventy Years from Independence. Houndsmills: Macmillan, 1991.
---. Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1976.
---. T.G.Masaryk. Houndsmills: Macmillan, 1994.
---. Charter 77 and Human Rights in Czechoslovakia. London: Gordon Allen & Unwin, 1981.
Škvorecký, Josef. Talkin' Moscow Blues. Essays About Literature, Politics, Movies, and Jazz. Sam Solecki {ed.}. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1988.
Sláma, Jiří. „Boiohaemum-Čechy“ In: Bohemia in History, Teich, Mikuláš (ed.,) Cambridge UK, Cambridge UP, 1998:25-38.
Součková, Milada. The Czech Romantics. sGravenhage: Mouton, 1958.
---. A Literature in Crisis: Czech Literature 1938-1950. New York: Mid-European Studies Centre. National Committee for a Free Europe, 1954.
---. Baroque in Bohemia Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Materials; no. 17, 1980.
Spafford, Peter, ed & comp. Interference. The Story of Czechoslovakia in the Words of Its Writers. Cheltenham: New Clarion, 1992.
Špetko, Jozef. "Slovak Soil and the Legendary Rebel." Cross Currents (1987): 275-80.
Spinka, Matthew, trans. The Letters of John Hus. Rowman: Manchester UP, 1972.
Stern, J.P. The Heart of Europe. Essays on Literature and Ideology. Oxford:Blackwell, 1992.
Tatarka, Dominik. "The Demon of Conformism." Cross Currents (1987): 285-97.
Teich, Mikuláš (ed.,) Bohemia in History, Cambridge UK, Cambridge UP, 1998.
Thomas, Alfred. The Labyrinth of the Word. Truth and Representation in Czech Literature. München: Oldenbourg, 1995.
---. Anne’s Bohemia. Czech Literature and Society, 1310-1420. David Wallace (Foreword) University of Minnesota Press, Chicago, 1998.
Vladislav, Jan, ed. Václav Havel. Living in Truth. London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1986.
Wellek, René. "Czech Literature at the Crossroads of Europe." Lecture Delivered at the General Meeting of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences at Toronto, Ontaario, on September 7, 1963. Toronto: SVU, 1963.
---. Essays on Czech Literature. The Hague: Mouton, 1963.