Interpretation Seminar 4
Subject is not scheduled Display Schedule
| Code | Completion | Credits | Range | Language of instruction | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 202ENS4 | exam | 3 | 2 hours (45 min) of instruction per week, 57 to 72 hours of self-study | English | winter |
Subject guarantor
Name of lecturer(s)
Martin PŠENIČKA, Michaela RAISOVÁ
Department
The subject provides Department of Authorial Creativity and Pedagogy
Contents
Interpretation Seminar Syllabus (Winter Semester 2026-27): we start 12. 10. 2026
Lecturers: doc. Mgr. MgA. Mish Rais, PhD. and doc. Mgr. Martin Pšenička, PhD.
Modern and Contemporary Anglophone Drama
Monday: 11:30-13:00
Room: R407 (DAMU, Karlova 26)
In the winter semester, we will read texts from modern and contemporary Irish, British, Canadian and American drama. The seminar seeks to engage the students in close and interpretative reading of dramatic texts, with particular focus on intertextuality, meta-theatricality and various topics such as identity, gender, politics and language. The seminar will touch on theatre as a topic on its own, while engaging with comparisons to various adaptations (theatre, film, comics, pop culture etc.) and ways of characterization. Topics will also adapt according to students and their inputs (cultural background, previous studies and experience, interests etc.). The aim is to cultivate precise reading and interpretation, critical thinking and ability to work with secondary material into oral presentation of a topic strengthened by arguments based on close reading of primary literature and secondary literature.
Key words: Intertextuality, modern and post-modern plays, coolness drama, in-yer-face theatre, comparative reading, original works reinvented, national identity, gender, representation of sex and violence on the stage, language, feminism, colonialism and post-colonial theories.
Assessment: Attendance 80% and active engagement is required. Students are asked to read plays for each class and present 3-5min their own reading of the material. Every class, students prepare short oral presentations based on secondary literature.
During the final session in December all students are required to prepare a 15 minute oral presentation. The presentation must focus on plays and/or adaptations discussed in the seminar and should incorporate secondary sources to support arguments. Second year MA students are also required to hand a written essay using secondary sources at the end of the winter semester. Scope of the essay is 3000 words, the deadline is in January, to be specified in the seminar. BA students hand in a written essay at the end of the summer semester.
Harmonogram of the seminar:
12.10./Mish Rais/ intro to the seminar and J. M. Synge: Playboy of the Western World
Pilný, Ondřej. Irony and Identity in Modern Irish Drama. Praha: Litteraria Pragensia, 2006.
S. Sontag “Against Interpretation”, R. Barthes “The Death of the Author”
19.10./Martin Pšenička/ Sam Shepard: True West
Secondary literature TBS
26.10./Mish Rais/ Martin McDonagh: The Lonesome West
Roche, Anthony. Contemporary Irish Drama. Palgrave, 2009
Lonergan, Patrick. The Theatre and Films of Martin McDonagh. London: Methuen, 2012.
2.11./Mish Rais/ Marina Carr: By the Bog of Cats + Medea (Euripides)
M. Procházka: Feminism and Psychoanalitical Criticism (pdf)
Euripides: Medea
Roche, Anthony. Contemporary Irish Drama. Palgrave, 2009.
9.11./M. Pšenička/ Brad Fraser: Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature Love
Secondary literature TBS
16.11./ DEAN’S FREE DAY – NO SCHOOL
23.11./ Martin Pšenička/ Djanet Sears: Harlem Duet
Secondary literature TBS
30.11./ Martin Pšenička/ Hannah Moscovitch: Post-Democracy
Secondary literature TBS
7.12./ Mish Rais/ Sarah Kane: Phaedra´s Love + Seneca: Phaedra
Aleks Sierz: In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today (introductory chapter)
(Seneca’s play in: A Treasury of the Theatre: An Anthology of Great Plays from Aeschylus to Eugene O'Neill)
Saunders, Graham. Love Me or Kill me: Sarah Kane and the Theatre of Extremes
Ken Urban: Towards a Theory of Cruel Britannia: Coolness, Cruelty, and the 'Nineties
14.12. and 8.1. (11-12:30) Mish Rais + Martin Pšenička //Student Presentations
Learning outcomes
Instructing students to read carefully, make reading a need in life, that is, to demonstrate its sense. Considering the study focus, it is a training to read dramatic texts. Drama is not the summation of all lines and stage knowledge. To read a dramatic text is to decipher its structure. The interpretation course teaches this specific type of reading. It also shows how the structure of a dramatic text (today more often, post-dramatic) changed throughout the history of theatre. Different adaptations of the same dramatic texts are compared and other influences, contexts and media (film, Theatre, visual culture) are explored.
Prerequisites and other requirements
None.
Literature
Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Mansfield Centee, CT: Martino Publishing, 2014 [1950].
Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. London: Methuen, 2001.
Aristotle. Poetics. Mineola: Dover Publications, 1997.
Kott, Jan. Shakespeare Our Contemporary. Translated by Boleslaw Taborski. London: Methuen, 1967.
De Garcia, Magreta and Wells, Stanley, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Sontag, Susan. An essay „Against Interpretation“ distributed as a printed document in the class.
Barthes, Roland. „The Death of the Author“ In Image, Music, Text. Translated by Stephan Heath. New York: Hill and Want, 1978.
Selected plays by William Shakespeare (King Lear, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Richard III., Coriolanus, Midsummer Night‘s Dream, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo a Julie, Measure for Measure, The Tempest and other, depending on the group focus).
Selected plays by Tom Stoppard, J. M. Synge, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Marina Carr, Martin McDonagh, Patrick Marber, Sarah Kane, Joe Penhall, Edward Albee, Sam Shepard, David Mamet and other playwrights according to group’s interest.
Other essays and texts are distributed in the class according to the need and focus of the group.
Evaluation methods and criteria
Students gain credits after the first semester and do an exam after the second semester. Part of the exam is an oral presentation on a selected topic. Aside from active participation during the whole course, students are evaluated according to their ability to communicate their thoughts based on thorough reading. In the winter semester, students write seminary papers on selected topic based on the reading list.
Schedule for winter semester 2026/2027:
The schedule has not yet been prepared
Schedule for summer semester 2026/2027:
The schedule has not yet been prepared
The subject is a part of the following study plans
- Authorial Acting in English (B.A.) (Required subjects)