Charles University, Faculty of Arts
East and Central European Studies
Summer 2016 – extension
Contemporary Czech Novel and the Historical Context
CUFA LIT 315
Instructor:
Hynek Zykmund
Email:
[email protected]
Office hours:
by appointment
Class Days/Time:
Classroom:
Prerequisites
None. The proposed course is complementary with Reading Prague: Literature, Architecture,
and Cultural History (CUFA LIT 314), but the completion of Reading Prague is not a
prerequisite of enrollment in Contemporary Czech Novel and the Historical Context.
Course Description
Literary texts are not created, nor do they circulate, in a vacuum. They tend to express a
concern for the world we inhabit and an urge to comment on it, albeit often in an oblique way.
They insist on preserving memory of that which, in times of political oppression, is to be
obliterated, and they – more often than not – present a history alternative to the one canonized
by the powers that be. Their capacity to flesh out before our inner eyes specific scenes in all
their individual detail, unparalleled by the generalizing discourse of politics or historical
analysis, conjures up sentiments of sympathy and empathy and moves the reader in a way no
other discourse can. Therein lies the power of literature.
Yet, literary works are verbal artifacts and, as such, they are made of the thin air of our
imagination. What, then, is the relation between the fictional world of a novel and the actual
world of our lives? How does the realm of history enter the world of fiction? What kind of
truth can we expect to find in a fictional text? These questions should be asked lest we
demand of literature something it cannot deliver or, even worse, lest we succumb to its power
oblivious of the consequences of the surrender.
The work of Milan Kundera, Bohumil Hrabal, and Jaroslav Škvorecký, the three most
prominent Czech novelist of the second half of the twentieth century, is emblematic of both
the afore-mentioned concerns: it is, on the one hand, intimately linked to the historical world,
making it the very stage on which the individual protagonists have to navigate the path of
their lives; on the other one, there is always a degree of awareness of one’s “literariness”,
often heightened to a point of its dramatization. The work of the three novelists, aside from
being a tremendous read, is thus always educative on more than just one level, offering unique
insights about both, the actual and fictional worlds we inhabit.
Course Goals and Student Learning Objectives
The aim of the course is three-fold. Firstly, it introduces the student to the work of three major
Czech novelist of the second half of the twentieth century; the course will address not only the
thematic concerns expressed in the individual texts, but also the poetics of the respective
authors and the narrative strategy deployed in their novels. Secondly, through the work of the
three novelists, the student gains access to the turbulent history of the Czech people in the
twentieth century – an access that, due to its specificity or concreteness, is not interchangeable
with the access provided by the discourse of historical analysis. Lastly, and arguably most
importantly, the course shall thematize the very nature of the relation between a fictional text
and the actual world in which it is created and which it aspires to depict.
Although all three afore-mentioned aspects will be equally treated in the class proper, the
student has the option of choosing his or her specific path of specialization based on his or her
academic background and preferences.
Required Readings
Bohumil Hrabal: I Served the King of England. Translated by Paul Wilson. New York:
Penguin, 2006.
Milan Kundera: The Joke. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992.
Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Translated by Michael Henry Heim.
New York: HarperPerennial, 1999.
Jaroslav Škvorecký: The Miracle Game. Translated by Paul Wilson. New York: Norton,
1992.
Course Package (selections from Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Poetics, Milan Kundera’s The
Book of Laughter and Forgetting and Immortality, and Jan Mukařovský’s The Word
and Verbal Art)
Recommended Readings
Lubomír Doležel: Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds. Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1998.
Milan Kundera: The Courtain: An Essay in Seven Parts. Translated by Linda Asher. New
York: HarperCollins, 2006.
Thomas Pavel: Fictional Worlds. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986.
Derek Sayer: The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1998.
Classroom Procedures
Active participation, regular attendance, and timely arrivals are considered a necessary
prerequisite for successful completion of the course. Students are asked to keep their cell
phones off during the class.
Assignments and Grading Policy
Grades based on letters A through F will be given.
Participation
Précis (2 pages)
Minor in-class presentation (15 minutes)
Major in-class presentation (45 minutes)
Position Paper (4 pages)
15 %
15 %
15%
25 %
30 %
Attendance
Regular and punctual class attendance during all lectures is mandatory for all students. No
unexcused absences will be tolerated. Only medical note or approval from the Executive
Director of the program will be taken as an excuse for missed class. Each 45 minutes of
unexcused absence will lower the grade automatically for one third (A to A-, A to B+ in case
of 2 absences etc.).
Presentation Policy: Missing the final presentation will result in letter grade F for the entire
course. If the student wants to switch the date, he/she must find someone to do it and both
students must confirm the change in e-mails to the professor in advance.
For further details, please see the Attendance Policy at the ECES website under “Academic
Policies and Procedures”: http://eces.ff.cuni.cz/.
Student Responsibility and Code of Conduct
Standards of study and conduct in the ECES Program are set and maintained. You are subject
to the general standards and requirements of Charles University in regard to attendance,
examinations, and conduct, as well as to specific requirements of the program. The student is
expected to assume the initiative in completing all requirements at the time specified.
It is the responsibility of the student to be informed concerning all regulations and procedures
required. In no case will a regulation be waived or an exception granted because a student
pleads ignorance of the regulation or asserts that he/she was not informed by an advisor or
other authority.
Charles University expects all students to adhere to the highest standards of ethics and
academic integrity. Students certify that all work (whether an examination, research paper,
research project, form of creative expression, or any other academic undertaking) submitted
for evaluation, presentation, or publication meets these standards.
All forms of academic fraud are strictly prohibited. An automatic grade of F will result for
the entire course if a student is found guilty of academic misconduct. These include, but are
not limited to:
•
Plagiarism
•
•
•
•
Cheating
Falsification
Violation of professional ethics
Misrepresentation or research data
Schedule
Day 1 Two kinds of mimesis; the fictional world as a reflection or a model of the actual
world. The ontological nature of a verbal universe and its entities. Actual world immigrants in
the fictional universe. Radical incompleteness of fictional worlds and filling of the gaps in the
process of interpretation.
Required reading:
Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Poetics (selection in Course package)
Recommended reading:
Lubomír Doležel: Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds. Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1998.
Thomas Pavel: Fictional Worlds. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986.
Day 2 An irreverent history: 30 years of Czech history from an unorthodox perspective.
Stream of narration as ontic substratum in Bohumil Hrabal’s prose. Indiscriminating attention
in Hrabal’s work and its ethical implications for interpretation.
Required reading:
Bohumil Hrabal: I Served the King of England. Translated by Paul Wilson. New York:
Penguin, 2006.
Day 3 The multiple jokes in The Joke and their irony. Dramatization of communication and
the issue of literary communication. Discourse and metadiscourse in The Joke and the
perspective of the God’s eye – its relevance for the structure of a literary text and its ethical
implications. Minor oral presentations.
Required reading:
Milan Kundera: The Joke. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992.
Recommended reading:
Milan Kundera: The Courtain: An Essay in Seven Parts. Translated by Linda Asher. New
York: HarperCollins, 2006.
Day 4 The Unbearable Lightness of Being as an encyclopedia of postmodern poetics. The
plot and narrative closure in the plot-less narrative. Monsters in the realm of kitch and a text
turned on itself. Supratextual variations as a means of signification.
Required reading:
Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Translated by Michael Henry Heim.
New York: HarperPerennial, 1999.
Recommended reading:
Milan Kundera: The Courtain: An Essay in Seven Parts. Translated by Linda Asher. New
York: HarperCollins, 2006.
Assignments: Précis due on Day 4
Day 5 An irreverent history, part 2. What’s below the threshold of history in Hrabal,
Kundera, and Škvorecký. Intentionality and unintentionality in the work of art and the ethic of
interpretation.
Required reading:
Jaroslav Škvorecký: The Miracle Game. Translated by Paul Wilson. New York: Norton,
1992.
Jan Mukařovský: The Word and Verbal Art (selections in the Course package)
Day 6 Conclusions; major oral presentations.
Assignments: Position papers due on Day 6