Contextual Awareness 2

Subject guarantor:

Name of lecturer(s):

Learning outcomes of the course unit:

The course arose from a number of needs to expand forms of direct contact with important world intellectuals and artists for the Production Dept and should:

1. cultivate and reinforce „contextual awareness“, as said by Vladislav Vančura, as an „awareness of pro and con relationships, awareness of concurrent events, awareness of tradition and view which is able to span a wide spectrum.“

2. provide primacy of independent critical considerations based on essential comparisons of various viewpoints and opinions.

3. assess the potential how prominent persons present spiritual culture for the interpretation of their development, concept of culture, connections and links between arts and for building cultural and historical memory, among others, in the relationship to the recent but also history of the 20th century.

4. to maintain the mission and experience of selected figures in the immediate and durative experience of DAMU Production Dept. students as future potential initiators and organizers of events in Czech theatre and Czech culture in the wide scale.

Mode of study:

8-10 approx. three-hour structured moderated discussions on presented profiles different pairs of „compatible“ persons according to need and potential for fulfilling the visual documentation. A course in which CD sound recordings are acquired, prepared and moderated by one of the three instructors-writers of the projects.

Prerequisites and co-requisites:

No requirements.

Recommended optional programme components:

none

Course contents:

So called oral history in the form of personal witness and statement, today in the academic and professional fields has been established as important sources of discovery, secondarily such as the speakers statement and the ability to see, follow and interpret historical phenomena, of current societal processes and facts in context.

The aim of the course is to invite student to discussing figures who in a decisive manner have influenced culture and therefore the societal climate in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic in the post-war period, sometimes across the Czechoslovak and Czech Republic borders. Discussions with figure should be the basically guided based on the number of similar questions which will be posed such that the answer uncovers and analyses the most diverse spectrum of issues from cultural relations to those affecting societal-political movements in the given period, of course with the required subjective coloring.

So called oral history in the case of cultural contexts is an essential supplement to exact structured historical research which can analyse and compare cultural climates and their „movements“ in those areas only in parts - purely subjective viewpoints are often their basic cause. The views of various figures can result in desired conflicts or differences in the assessment of those issues. The course should present the subjective judgement of the invited figures who necessarily come to certain incitements of conflicts with objective facts.

This course implemented into the study program is linked through the school to a number of important figures of the cultural sphere. The content ,expressed in the title „Contextual Awareness“ will be implemented in individual classes and their cross-section and content. The is proposed, primarily, for the master's program at the DAMU Production Dept. and is open to all the students and other interested parties.

Interest in making sound recordings and their use may encroach upon the territory of not only the dept but also DAMU.

Recommended or required reading:

Study materials will be announced, recommended in relations to topics and guests. They will be gradually supplemented in class.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods:

Class (structured moderated discussions)

Assessment methods and criteria:

Class participation.

Course web page:

Note:

The „Context Awareness“ course dates and program will be announced to the students (and other interested parties) prior to the course either by email or on DAMU notice boards.

Further information:

Course may be repeated

No schedule has been prepared for this course

The subject is a part of the following study plans:

• Arts Management (B.A.) (compulsory optional subject)
• Arts Management (M.A.) (compulsory optional subject)
• Arts Management in English (M.A.) (compulsory optional subject)