“And Seek for Truth in the Garden of Academus”: British Campus Novel in the 20th Century

• Thesis title in Czech: “And Seek for Truth in the Garden of Academus”: Britský Univerzitní Román Dvacátého Století.
• Thesis title in English: “And Seek for Truth in the Garden of Academus”: British Campus Novel in the 20th Century
• Key words: univerzitní román|Charles Percy Snow|Malcolm Bradbury|David Lodge|Profesoři|Bořitel dějin|Svět je malý
• English key words: academic novel|campus novel|The Masters|Charles Percy Snow|Malcolm Bradbury|The History Man|Small World: An Academic Romance|David Lodge
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2021/2022
• Thesis type: Bachelor's thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Supervisor: PhDr. Zdeněk Beran, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 03.11.2021
• Date of assignment: 03.11.2021
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 05.11.2021
• Date and time of defence: 05.09.2022 00:00
• Date of electronic submission: 10.08.2022
• Date of proceeded defence: 05.09.2022
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: Mgr. Miroslava Horová, Ph.D.

Guidelines

There is nothing so suspenseful as an academic committee.
— Charles Percy Snow
The campus or academic novel is an undeservedly forgotten literary genre that is believed to have its origins in the Anglo-American world in the early 1950s. Ironically enough, there is a lack of due attention to the genre even in many of the English literature-focused programmes, while the ambience, the characterization and the plot of academic novels are directly interrelated with university life. The bachelor’s thesis would focus particularly on the British campus novel and its features, attempting to understand the essential characteristics of a classic academic novel.
The earliest the thesis will focus on is The Masters by Charles Percy Snow, a rather ambiguous representative of the genre, written in 1951. Some scholars do not even consider this work an academic novel. The campus novel, as we know it today, is not just a matter of setting; it is a very complex term that includes satire, irony and critique of academia. The Masters portrays rather a solemn and elegiac university life, though I believe it to be a multi-layered writing that is not afraid of bringing up serious political subjects of academic world. By contrast, Malcolm Bradbury’s The History Man (1975) and Small World: An Academic Romance (1984) by David Lodge are much more controversial, satirical and open about internal aspects of academia. As such, The History Man is a brilliant example of dark satire, focusing on criticism of the society and its absurdity; Small World, as the title suggests, is a more facetious one, comic and farcical, describing the world of English literature fully in terms of sexual life and relationships.
Although the above books may seem very different regarding style and central themes, there is still one common feature that connects them. All three texts are prominent examples of campus novels, and in this thesis I would try to examine and compare them, establishing the literary norms, frames for campus novels, identifying its characteristic features and describing the ways in which each author applies them in order to create a unique description of university life.

References

Bibliography
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Dalton‐Brown, Sally. “Is There Life Outside of (the Genre of) the Campus Novel? The Academic Struggles to Find a Place in Today's World.” The Journal of Popular Culture 41, (2008): 591 - 600. 10.1111/j.1540-5931.2008.00538.x.
Edemariam, Aida. “Who's afraid of the campus novel? ” The Guardian, Sat 2 Oct 2004. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/oct/02/featuresreviews.guardianreview37.
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