Modern Czech Literature 1

Course unit code:

311MCL1

Course unit title:

Mode of delivery:

zápočet

Range:

2/T

Type of course unit:

Study plan Fotografie EN - bakalář – optional subject
Study plan Fotografie EN - magistr – optional subject
Study plan Cinema and Digital Media - Cinematography – optional subject
Study plan Cinema and Digital Media - Screenwriting – compulsory subject
Study plan Cinema and Digital Media - Directing – optional subject
Study plan Fotografie EN - magistr: restaurování – optional subject

Level of course unit:

Year of study

Study plan Cinema and Digital Media - Screenwriting – 1st year

Semester when the course unit is delivered

zimní

Number of ECTS credits allocated:

Garant předmětu:

Jan MATONOHA

Name of lecturer(s):

Jan MATONOHA

Study Objectives:

Students should gain structured notion of Czech literature.

Mode of delivery:

Lecture, seminar, discussion.

Prerequisites and co-requisites:

The ability to read and discuss texts of fiction in English.

Recommended optional programme components

Course contents:

Subversive Subjections - Injuring Identities and Dispositives of Subjectivity in Modern Czech Literature

Content and Outline

Week 1-2. The Concentric Spaces for Locating the Self and the Self de-centered.

Introductory notes: The national spaces. The land without a history? Constructions and re-constructions of the national identity. The local spaces. Reading Prague. The semiotic and textual dimensions of the city. Prague as a setting, a text, a living organism and a community. The Self and the city, otherness and cultural protectionism, dynamics of communication in the local community.

Assigned reading

Extracts from the Czech revival ideological writings

Alois Jirásek: (from) Old Czech Legends

Ján Kollár: The Prelude to The Daughter of Slavs

Gustav Meyrink GM

Jan Neruda How Mr. Vorel Broke in His Meerschaum

Paul Leppin: The Ghost of the Jewish Quarter,

Franz Kafka: The City Coat of Arms, Franz Kafka: The Description of the Struggle

Week 3. Realities of „Unheimlich“, The Stranger Within the Self

Introductory notes: The Self in the Paradigms of Decadence and Modernity: Identity as Difference and Negativity Within.

Assigned reading

Jan Neruda: At the Three Lillies

Jaul Leppin: Severin´s Journey into the Dark

Gustav Meyrink: The Golem

Franz Kafka: Description of a Struggle, The Cares of a Family Man, An Old Manuscript, The New Advocate

Week 5-6. Dispositives of Modernity and Technologies of the Self: between Resistance and Complicity

Introductory notes: The Self in the history, state apparatus, the tensions and intersections of local and global contexts. The different possibilities, means and strategies of resistance.

Assigned reading

Franz Kafka: The Great Wall of China, In the Penal Colony, The Burrow; The Trial

Jaroslav Hašek: (excerpts from) The Good Soldier Švejk

Bohumil Hrabal: Closely Watched Trains

Week 7-8. Subjectivity as Subjection

Introductory notes: Livable Subjectivities, passionate attachments, interpellations and the gaze of the other. Subjectivity as an inhabitable space, as a wound, as void.

Assigned reading

Karel Čapek: The Footprint, Footprints

Heda Margolius-Kovály: (from) Under a Cruel Star

Bohumil Hrabal: I Served the King of England

Week: 9-10. Language and Power. The Self as a Cultural Convention

Introductory notes: (Im)possibilities of maintaining one?s individuality. Language games and the Western Myth of a unique and original Self.

Assigned reading

Milan Kundera: The Joke

Václav Havel: The Garden Party

Václav Havel: Audience

Franz Kafka: The Judgement, A Hunger Artist

Week 11-12. Work of Othering: The Self as an Abject and an Animal

Introductory notes: The Crisis of the Self, Words and Selves Misunderstood.

Seminar Discussion: What are the chances and options of a Self that relates to the world?

Assigned reading:

Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis

Bohumil Hrabal: Too Loud a Solitude

Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Study materials:

Students should make themselves familiar with the excerpts from the following books beforehand. All assigned texts will be available in the course reading pack. (Alternatively, students also can either purchase them - they are widely available in Prague bookshops such is The Globe, Anagram etc. - or have them on loan from The Municipal or The National Library (Klementinum). Any edition of those titles is O.K.

- Gustav Meyrink: The Golem

- Franz Kafka: The Trial

- Franz Kafka: Collected Short Stories

- Bohumil Hrabal: Closely Watched Trains

- Bohumil Hrabal: I Served the King of England

- Bohumil Hrabal: Too Loud a Solitude

- Milan Kundera: The Joke

- Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Assessment methods and criteria

Requirements: The reading assignments comprises 8 novels and fiction texts in the Course Pack (approx. 20-30 pages a week).

Assessment. Active class participation (reading and discussion): 30% of the final grade. Final paper (submitted in the last but one week of the course): 70% of the final grade.

Attendance Policy. Classroom attendance is a part of the final grade. This attendance policy applies to all courses: Absence of 2 sessions is tolerated. 3 and more absences lower the grade automatically (A to A-, A to B+ etc.).

Language of instruction:

English

Work placement(s):

Pracovní stáž není u tohoto předmětu zavedena.

Course web page:

Note:

Schedule for winter semester 2010/2011:

	06:00–08:0008:00–10:0010:00–12:0012:00–14:0014:00–16:0016:00–18:0018:00–20:0020:00–22:0022:00–24:00
Mon
Tue
Fri	místnost 241 Učebna 3 (Lažanský palác) MATONOHA J. 18:10–19:45 (přednášková par. 1)
Thu
Fri

Schedule for summer semester 2010/2011:

The schedule has not yet been prepared

The subject is a part of the following study plans:

Fotografie EN - bakalář (optional subject)
Fotografie EN - magistr (optional subject)
Cinema and Digital Media - Cinematography (optional subject)
Cinema and Digital Media - Screenwriting (qualification subject, optional subject)
Cinema and Digital Media - Directing (optional subject)
Fotografie EN - magistr: restaurování (optional subject)