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The course focuses modern authors of Central and Eastern Europe, with a special respect to writers who were active in the Czech lands and Vienna. A particular attention is given to the problems of modernity and the Jewish identity representing a specific margin, a limit of the “human condition” of Central Europe and in this sense acquires a universal meaning (“Who made Vienna 1900 the capital of modern culture?”). Following a relative historical chronology, the course-topics cover a changing concept of individual and collective identity before World War I referencing the move from a symbolist conception of a multidimensional world towards the avant-garde revolutionary perspectivism (Vítězslav Nezval, Jaroslav Seifert, Karel Teige) and the irony of the parable of vanishing and dialogical meaning in the works of Prague and Viennese writers (A. Schnitzler, H. von Hofmannsthal, K. Hlaváček, P. Leppin, G. Meyrink, F. Kafka, Karel and Josef Čapek), possibilities of coexistence and ideological stereotypes as forms of anti-knowledge – “the world of yesterday” and its collapse (J. Roth, R. Musil, J. Hašek), the situation of breaking-up of European value-systems and forms (H. Ungar, H. Broch, B. Schulz, J. Langer, K. Poláček), representations of the city and the body, notions of decline to chaos, fundamental reduction of existence, social determination in contrast to tradition and memory as a resource of understanding the other. Literary traditions of Central Europe become also the palimpsest of reading and writing in the work of more contemporary writers from the countries of the former Habsburg empire and provide an insight into their post-Holocaust histories (J. Weil, H. Grynberg, D. Kis). Poslední úprava: Vojtěch Daniel, doc. PhDr., Ph.D. (11.12.2025)
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· Basic knowledge of the situation of Central European modern culture · Reading of literary modernism both in terms of understanding the means of figurative language, and representation, and as a specific type of knowledge expressing the path of identity-quest · Understanding the (Jewish) experience of Central Europe related to historical bonds of politics and its institutions, arts and literature, ideology, science and religion Poslední úprava: Vojtěch Daniel, doc. PhDr., Ph.D. (11.12.2025)
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Participation (including one oral presentations – introductions into the discussion of a given text –, and activity in class) – 35 % 3 short response papers (reader’s response type of a paper, 1-2 pages double spaced) – 30 % Final paper (analytical paper, preferably focusing a specific aspect of a text with a discussion of reference materials /where possible/ max. 10 pages double spaced) – 35 % Poslední úprava: Vojtěch Daniel, doc. PhDr., Ph.D. (11.12.2025)
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Required Reading – Books: Hermann Broch: The Sleepwalkers. Vintage International Press, 1996. ISBN: 0679764062 Henryk Grynberg: The Jewish War and The Victory (Northwestern, Evanston, Ill. 2001) Jaroslav Hašek: The Good Soldier Švejk. London: Penguin Books, 1973. Karel Hlaváček: The Vengeful Cantilena (1898 – available in photocopies). Franz Kafka: Collected Short Stories. New York: Shocken, 1996 Franz Kafka: A Hunger Artist. Prague: TSP, 1997 Ladislav Klíma: The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch. Prague: TSP, 2000. Jiří Mordechaj Langer: Nine Gates to the Chasidic mysteries, translated by Stephen Jolly, Northvale, N. J.: Jason Aronson, 1993 [1937] (available in photocopies, CET library) Gustav Meyrink: The Golem (1995) Joseph Roth: The Radetzky March (1995) Joseph Roth: The Wandering Jews (2001) Arthur Schnitzler: Professor Bernhardi. In: A. Schnitzler: Round Dance and Other Plays. Transl. by J. M. Q. Davies. Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN 0192804596 (available in photocopies, CET library) Arthur Schnitzler: Lieutenant Gustl Hermann Ungar: The Maimed. Prague: Twisted Spoon Press, 2005
General Reference: Ernst Gellner: Nations and Nationalism. Cornell University Press, 1983, 2006 William M. Johnston: The Austrian Mind – An Intellectual and Social History 1848-1938. University of California Press, 1972 (CET library) William O. McCagg Jr.: A History of Habsburg Jews 1670-1918. Bloomington-Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992 (CET library) Steven Beller: A Concise History of Austria. Cambridge University Press, 2007 Steven Beller: Antisemitism. A Very Short Introduction. Cambridge University Press, Robert B. Pynsent: Questions of Identity. Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality. Oxfor University Press, 1994
Course pack 1
Literature on the work of Franz Kafka (Course pack 2): Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund: “Notes On Kafka”, in T. W. A.: Prisms, transl. by Samuel and Shiery Weber, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1983 Anderson, Mark M.: “The Traffic of Clothes: Meditation and Description of a Struggle” + “‘Jewish’ Music? Otto Weininger and ‘Josephine the Singer’”, in M. M. A.: Kafka‘s Clothes. Ornament and Aestheticism ind the Habsburg Fin-de-siècle, Oxford University Press, New York, 1994, p. 19–49, 194–216 Benjamin, Walter: “Franz Kafka” + “Some Reflections on Kafka”, in W. B.: Illuminations, Schocken Books, New York, 1969, p. 111–145 The Cambridge Companion to Kafka (2002) Deleuze, Gilles, Guattari, Félix: chapters 1 – 3 from Kafka. Toward Minor Literature, University Of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1986 Gilman, Sander L.: “On Difference, Language, and Mice”, in S. L. G.: Franz Kafka, the Jewish Patient, Routledge, New York – London, 1995, p. 1–40 Kahl, Frederick Robert: Franz Kafka, A Representative Man (1991) Pawel, Ernst: The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka (1984) Politzer, Heinz: “Juvenilia: The Artist As a Bachelor” + “The Breakthrough: 1912”, in H. P.: Franz Kafka. Parable And Paradox, second, revised edition, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1966, p. 23-82 Robertson, Ritchie: Kafka: Judaism, Politics and Literature (1985) Salfellner, Harold: Franz Kafka and Prag (2002) Spector, Scott: Prague Territories. National Conflict and Cultural Innovation in Franz Kafka Fin-de-Siècle. Los Angeles-Berkeley-London: The University of California Press (2000) Poslední úprava: Vojtěch Daniel, doc. PhDr., Ph.D. (11.12.2025)
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The course is designed as a series of discussions with a support of brief lecture-based introductions into the context of the discussed reading. Amount of reading – around 150 pages per week.
Poslední úprava: Vojtěch Daniel, doc. PhDr., Ph.D. (11.12.2025)
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Course Schedule:
Poslední úprava: Vojtěch Daniel, doc. PhDr., Ph.D. (11.12.2025)
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