Modern Czech Literature 1
- Course unit code:
- 311MCZL1
- Course unit title:
- Modern Czech Literature 1
- Mode of delivery:
- zkouška
- Range:
- 2/T
- Type of course unit:
- Study plan Cinema and Digital Media - Screenwriting – compulsory subject
Study plan Cinema and Digital Media - Directing – compulsory subject - Level of course unit:
- Year of study
- Study plan Cinema and Digital Media - Screenwriting – 1st year
Study plan Cinema and Digital Media - Directing – 1st year - Semester when the course unit is delivered
- zimní
- Number of ECTS credits allocated:
- 2
- 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
-
No
- 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
-
No
- 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:
-
No
- Schedule for winter semester 2011/2012:
-
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 Thu Fri Datum Den Čas Tutor Místo Notes Č. paralelky Fri 18:10–19:45 MATONOHA J. Učebna 3
Lažanský palácpřednášková par. 1 - Schedule for summer semester 2011/2012:
- The schedule has not yet been prepared
- The subject is a part of the following study plans:
-
- Cinema and Digital Media - Screenwriting (qualification subject)
- Cinema and Digital Media - Directing (qualification subject)