Transnationalism and Cold War Poetry I - AAA500363

• Title: Transnationalism and Cold War Poetry I
• Guaranteed by: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Faculty: Faculty of Arts
• Actual: from 2013
• Semester: winter
• Points: 0
• E-Credits: 5
• Examination process: winter s.:
• Hours per week, examination: winter s.:0/2, C [HT]
• Capacity: unknown / unknown (unknown)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: not taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Is provided by: AAALB005A
• Guarantor: doc. Justin Quinn, Ph.D.
• Interchangeability : AAALB005A

Annotation

How did the Cold War - as theme, translation practice and hermeneutic activity - affect the reading of literature, in particular poetry? How did those particular historical circumstances change the nature of World Literature? Can literature, or more particularly poetry, survive as an autonomous space, irreducible to historical or ideological circumstances? What does such transmission tell us about the way that anglophone culture absorbs new models, during the Cold War, and beyond?

In the first semester we will consideration the theoretical discourses of both World Literature (Casanova, Damrosch, Prendergast) and Transnationalism (Ramazani, Hitchcock, Hart, Lionnet and Shih), then testing these theoretical patterns against cultural praxis in the Cold War, first by considering the Czech context of the 1950s, with especial reference to the Czech poet and translator, Jan Zábrana. Such a standpoint allows us to re-examine British and American poetry in this period. Knowledge of Czech is required for the course.

Although this course stretches over two semesters, students may take only one component if they wish.

American Literature Specialization
Irish Studies Specialization
English Literature Specialization
Students from Comparative Literature and Czech Literature also welcome.

Last update: Znojemská Helena, Mgr., Ph.D. (26.09.2013)

Course completion requirements

Essay of 3000 words to be submitted no later than 1 month after completion of the seminar, 70% attendance and active engagement in the seminar.

Last update: Znojemská Helena, Mgr., Ph.D. (26.09.2013)

Literature

Brousek, Antonín, ed. Podivuhodní kouzelníci: čítanka českého stalinismu v řeči vázané z let 1945-55. Purley, Surrey: Rozmluvy, 1987.

Casanova, Pascale. The World Republic of Letters. Trans. M. B. Debevoise. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.

Damrosch, David. What Is World Literature? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Filreis, Alan. "Modern Poetry and Anticommunism." A Concise Companion to Twentieth-Century American Poetry. Ed. Stephen Fredman. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. 173-190.

Khagram, Sanjeev, and Peggy Levitt, eds. The Transnational Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 2008.

Kosatík, Pavel. Fenomén Kohout. Prague: Paseka, 2001.

McGrath, Thomas. Selected Poems, 1938-1988. Ed. Sam Hamill. Port Townsend WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1988.

Moretti, Franco. "Conjectures on World Literature". New Left Review. (Jan-Feb 2000). newleftreview.org

Nelson, Nelson. "From the Great Depression to the Red Scare: The Poetry of Edwin Rolfe." Revolutionary Memory: Recovering the Poetry of the American Left. London: Routledge, 2001.

Piette, Adam. The Literary Cold War: 1945 to Vietnam. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009.

Prendergast, Christopher, ed. Debating World Literature. London: Verso, 2004.

Ramazani, Jahan. A Transnational Poetics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Stonor-Saunders, Frances. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Letters. New York: New Press, 2000.

Veselá, Pavla. "Literature." Encyclopedia of the Cold War. Ed. Ruud Van Dijk. New York: Routledge, 2008. 545-548.

Zábrana, Jan. Stránky z deníku. Prague: Československý spisovatel, 1968.

Zábrana, Jan, ed. Pátá roční doba: americká radikální poezie. Prague: Mladá fronta, 1959.

Last update: Znojemská Helena, Mgr., Ph.D. (26.09.2013)

Syllabus

1. Introduction

 

2. Methods of Transmission I: World Literature

Pascale Casanova, from The World Republic of Letters, chapter 1, "Principles of a World Literature History"; passages from the rest of the book.
Christopher Prendergast, Introduction and "The World Republic of Letters" from Debating World Literature
David Damrosch, What is World Literature? Introduction & Conclusion
Franco Moretti, "Conjectures on World Literature"

 

3. Methods of Transmission II: Transnationalism

Khagram, Sanjeev, and Peggy Levitt, eds. The Transnational Studies Reader (2008), ch. 1
Jahan Ramazani, A Transnational Poetics (2009), ch. 1 and 2

 

4. Cold War

Cold War Politics and Culture Timeline
George Kennan, Long Telegram

 

5. Cold War Culture

Pavla Veselá, "Literature in the Cold War"
David Monod, "‘He is a Cripple an’ Needs my Love’: Porgy and Bess as Cold War Propaganda". In The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe, 1945-1960. Eds Hans Krabbendam and Giles Scott-Smith (2003), 252-62.
Adam Piette, The Literary Cold War: 1945 to Vietnam (2009). Introduction and ch. 3
Frances Stonor-Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Letters (2000), Introduction and ch. 15

 

6. Poetry: Czech Context

Antonín Brousek, ed. Podivuhodní kouzelníci: čítanka českého stalinismu v řeči vázané z let 1945-55 (1987), Afterword
Pavel Kosatík. Fenomén Kohout. Chapters "Poezie", "Trefulka". 111-22.
Selections from Brousek anthology

 

7. The View from Prague: Zábrana’s America

Jan Zábrana, ed. Pátá roční doba: americká radikální poezie (1959)
Justin Quinn, ‘Between Two Fires: Poetry and Cold War Translation’

 

8. Poetry of the American Left

Alan Filreis. "Modern Poetry and Anticommunism" (2005)
Cary Nelson, "From the Great Depression to the Red Scare: The Poetry of Edwin Rolfe" (2001)
Thomas McGrath, selection from Movie at the End of the World
Thomas McGrath Links:
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/mcgrath/mcgrath.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfqI_6lx7tA
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/thomas-mcgrath

 

9. Jan Zábrana’s Cold War Poetry

Stránky z deníku (1968)

Last update: Znojemská Helena, Mgr., Ph.D. (26.09.2013)