COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF IDEAS AND CULTURES
Doctoral Study (3rd level)
SLOVENE STUDIES - TRADITION AND MODERNITY
Slovene Studies Module
Module Coordinator:
Assoc. Prof. Marjetka Golež Kaučič, PhD
General elective courses
Music and Musical Life in Slovenia: Selected Topics
Programme: Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures (3rd level)
Module: Slovene Studies - tradition and modernity
Course code: 38
Year of study: Brez letnika
Course principal: Assist. prof. Metoda Kokole, PhD
ECTS: 6
Workload: lectures 60 hours, seminar 30 hours
Course type: general elective
Languages: Slovene
Learning and teaching methods: lectures, seminar
Objectives and competences
A comprehensive understanding of selected material in the history of Slovenian musical culture in
connection with general cultural trends. Learning about the development of music in Slovenia and
influences on it. Understanding the social and historical movements in the creation and performance
of music in Slovenia. Supplementing a basic understanding of the role of music in national culture,
and placing Slovenian music trends within a wider European context. Developing the ability to apply
general and cultural-historical concepts to music history. Developing the ability to reach conclusions,
conduct analyses, and find appropriate answers to selected specific questions independently. The
ability to apply what is learned within a wider context.
Prerequisites
None required.
Content (Syllabus outline)
Interest in historical musicology has spread to encompass musical life along with all the factors and
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rules that have constituted it. In addition to who created which works and who performed them,
questions such as what audiences they were meant for and how the public received them are also
important. How a certain piece was understood and what meaning was ascribed to it – or, in other
words, how it functioned as a sign and obtained a specific meaning – depended on the context of
time and space; that is, on the space of culture and its tradition, or the social, political, cultural, and
historical space.
Although the findings of professional studies have confirmed and continue to confirm that the musics
of peripheral areas followed the example of the music of large nations and that they are thus similar
in terms of development, they cannot be equated. The fact is that Slovenian music was both broadly
“European” and specific or idiosyncratic. The study of the Slovenian musical past thus includes two
aspects:
1. the establishment of similarities, possible role models, and influences, and
2. above all the identification of its special features.
This course is taught in six thematic sections:
1. Introduction
 Specific features of music-history research and work methodology
 Presentation of the historical and systematic part of musicology as a discipline that studies
music
 Learning about various approaches to studying musical culture, as well as sources and
literature for studying music in Slovenia
 Music tradition, music identity, national music, and national elements in music in general
and in Slovenia
2. Music and musical life in Slovenia until the end of the seventeenth century: Between German
and Italian influences
 German influences from the north: music life in ethnically Slovenian lands until the
Protestant Reformation
 Religious music and its creators until the end of the sixteenth century
 Iacobus Handl Gallus (1550–1591): creativity and importance
 The first heralds of Italian influence: music in the second half of the sixteenth century
 Predominance of Italian stylistic currents in the seventeenth century: the period of
Counter-Reformation influence in music
 Instrumental music and the beginnings of opera performance in Slovenia
3. The eighteenth century: Musical activities of the Upper Carniola nobility and the beginnings of
institutionalized music
 Religious music in Slovenia in the first half of the eighteenth century
 The first music society in Slovenia and beyond: The Academia Philharmonicorum
Labacensium (Ljubljana Philharmonic Society, 1701–ca. 1769)
 Music repertoire and works of the members of the Academia Philharmonicorum
(Philharmonic Society)
 The first theatre in Slovenia (founded in 1764) and guest performances by traveling opera
ensembles in the eighteenth century
 Early musical classicism in Slovenian performance practice
4. Until 1848: Music and society
 Social and institutional changes at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the
nineteenth centuries
 Programme, operation, and developmental significance of the Philharmonische Gesellschaft
(Philharmonic Society)
 Overview of the repertoire of the Theatre of the Estates
 Performance and creative levels of Slovenian musical work
 Popular music and hymnals in Slovenian
5. From 1848 to the end of the First World War: Music and politics
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Political and institutional changes in the mid-nineteenth century
The role of music in attaining national goals; musical work performed by the reading
societies and the Drama Society
 Institutionalization of Slovenian music and art: the establishment of the Music Society
 The importance of folk songs in shaping national musical identity, and the features of
Slovenian choral singing
 Starting points, tasks, and goals of the Cecilian movement in Slovenia
6. After 1918: Tradition and the present
 New music and esthetic initiatives at the turn of the century
 Music in the interwar period: tradition and the present as creative options
 A wide variety of content, forms, and means of music expression
 Opportunities and initiatives for creative and performing work after the Second World War
 Slovenian music in the twenty-first century
Readings
Basic literature
 Barbo, Matjaž. 2002. Pro musica viva, Ljubljana.
 Cvetko, Dragotin. 1991. Slovenska glasba v evropskem okviru, Ljubljana.
 Snoj, Jurij in Gregor Pompe. 2003. Pisna podoba glasbe na Slovenskem, Ljubljana.
 Rijavec, Andrej. 1979. Slovenska glasbena dela, Ljubljana.
 Höfler, Janez. 1978. Glasbena umetnost pozne renesanse in baroka na Slovenskem, Ljubljana.
 Klemenčič, Ivan. 1988. Slovenski glasbeni ekspresionizem, Ljubljana.
 Sivec, Jože. 1971. Opera v Stanovskem gledališču v Ljubljani od leta 1790 do 1865, Ljubljana.
 Kuret, Primož. 2001. Slovenska filharmonija. Academia philharmnonicorum 1701–2001,
Ljubljana.
Selected articles in Slovenian journals (by arrangement)
 Muzikološki zbornik (od 1965).
 De musica disserenda (od 2005).
 Simpozijski zborniki, ki obravnavajo glasbo na Slovenskem.
Optional or additional literature
 Barbo, Matjaž. 2004. Obča muzikologija, Ljubljana.
 Stefanija, Leon. 2004. Metode analize glasbe: zgodovinsko-teoretski oris, Ljubljana.
Additional references (sheet music and audio recordings)
 Notne izdaje zbirke Monumenta artis musicae Sloveniae, Ljubljana od 1983.
 Notne izdaje Društva slovenskih skladateljev.
 Musica noster amor, ur. I. Klemenčič, Maribor 2000.
 Glasbena dediščina Slovenije, Ljubljana: Edition Bizjak, 1987–1997 (note in zvočni posnetki).
Assessment
 Students must complete a term project in order to take the exam.
 Students then take an oral or written exam covering the overall material discussed.
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The Language of Objects: Topics in Slovenian Material Culture
Programme: Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures (3rd level)
Module: Slovene Studies - tradition and modernity
Course code: 39
Year of study: Brez letnika
Lecturer: Assoc. Prof. Maja Godina Golija, PhD
ECTS: 6
Workload: lectures 60 hours, seminar 30 hours
Course type: general elective
Languages: Slovene
Learning and teaching methods: lectures, discussion classes
Objectives and competences
This course’s goal is to familiarize students with the basic features of Slovenian material culture from
the end of the eighteenth century to the present, and to build on what they have learned so far.
Students become familiar with the basic Slovenian and comparative international literature on this
topic, and are introduced to individual research in this area. Special attention is dedicated to
discussing specific areas of material culture: economic activities and the folk economy, architecture,
residential culture, and food culture. Material culture is discussed as an indicator of general
economic, social, and cultural developments.
Prerequisites
None required.
Content (Syllabus outline)
1. Material culture: Methodological research premises
 Material culture as one of the three components of ethnological classification
 Methodological premises of material culture research: historical and regional classification
 Analysis of objects: origin, creation, and development of an object, its extension,
acceptance, adaptation, transfer, and further development
 The object as an indicator of the general historical, social, and symbolic dimension of
culture
2. Economic activities in Slovenia
 Major industries in Slovenia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
 Economic activities in agriculture and livestock farming
 Economic activities in crafts, trade, and transport
 Development of industry and urbanization of the countryside
3. Food and food culture
 Food as a cultural artefact
 Theoretical concepts of studying eating habits as developed in ethnology, historiography,
and sociology
 The most important innovations and milestones in the history of eating habits in Europe
and Slovenia
 Regional and social characteristics of Slovenian eating habits
4. Eating out
 Forms of eating out: from table d’hôte to fast-food restaurants
 Inns and cafes in Slovenia
 Contemporary forms of eating out
 Culinary expertise
5. Residential culture
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Major types of buildings in Slovenia; the number, naming, and organization of buildings
Modern housing construction and its history and typology
Home furnishing and wall decoration as an indicator of an individual’s socioeconomic and
socio-cultural status
Readings
General:
 Bausinger, Herman in Konrad Köstlin. Hrsg. 1981. Umgang mit Sachen. Zur Kulturgeschichte des
Dinnggebrauches, Regensburg.
 Cevc, Tone. 1978. Etnološka pričevalnost materialne kulture, Pogledi na etnologijo, Ljubljana:
161-196.
 Kuntz, Andreas. 1990. Erinnerungsgegenstände. Ein Diskussionsbeitrag zur volkskundlichen
Erforschung rezenter Sachkultur. Ethnologia Europaea 20: 61-81.
 Meiners, Uwe. 1990. Research into the History of Material Culture. Ethnologia Europaea 20: 1535.
 Štuhec, Marko. 1995. Rdeča postelja, ščurki in solze vdove Prešeren. Ljubljana: Studia
Humanitais, Apes: 9-43.
 Schippers, Thomas K. 2002. Od predmetov do simbolov. Spreminjajoče se perspektive pri
proučevanju materialne kulture v Evropi. Etnolog 12(63): 125-136.
 Köstlin, Konrad. 2005. Novi smisao stvari u muzeju. Heimatmuseum: zavičajni muzej – osnovati
ili spaliti? Zagreb: Zajednica Nijemaca u Hrvatskoj.
Economic activities:
 Ložar, Rajko. 1944. Pridobivanje hrane in gospodarstvo. v: Narodopisje Slovencev I. Ljubljana:
Klas: 98-191.
 Gospodarska in družbena zgodovina Slovencev. 1970. Zgodovina agrarnih panog. I. zvezek
Agrarno gospodarstvo. Ljubljana: Državna založba: 251-272.
 Bogataj, Janez. 1980. Promet, transport in komunikacijska sredstva. v: Slovensko ljudsko izročilo,
Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba: 84-91.
 Bras, Ljudmila. 1991. Rokodelstvo in obrt. Slovenski etnograf 33-34(1988-1990): 207-246.
 Smerdel, Inja. 1991. Prelomna in druga bistvena gospodarska dogajanja v zgodovini agrarnih
panog v 19. stoletju na Slovenskem. Slovenski etnograf 33-34(1988-1990): 25-61.
 Braudel, Fernand, 1988. Strukture vsakdanjega življenja: mogoče in nemogoče. Materialna
civilizacija, ekonomija in kapitalizem, XV. – XVIII. stoletje. Ljubljana: Studia Humanitatis.
Food and food culture:
 Makarovič, Gorazd. 1991. Prehrana v 19. stoletju na Slovenskem. Slovenski etnograf 33-34(19881990): 127-207.
 Godina Golija, Maja. 1996. Prehrana v Mariboru v dvajsetih in tridesetih letih 20. stoletja.
Maribor: Založba Obzorja.
 Prehrana na Goriškem. Slavica Plahuta (ur.). Nova Gorica: Goriški muzej, 2002: 7-129.
 Food and Celebration. From Fasting to Feasting. Patricia Lysaght (ed.). Ljubljana: Založba ZRC,
2002.
 Norbert, Elias. 2000. O procesu civiliziranja. Ljubljana: Založba/*cf.: 181-245.
 Goody, Jack. 1994. Cooking, Cuisine and Class: A Study in Comparative Sociology. Cambridge.
Eating out
 Tomažič, Tanja. 1978. Gostilne, kakršnih se pri nas spominjamo. Slovenski etnograf 29/1976: 339.
 Mennell, Stephen. 1985. All Menners of Food. Oxford, New York: Basil Blackwell.
 Godina Golija, Maja. 2001. Prehrana v Mariboru v dvajsetih in tridesetih letih 20. stoletja.
Maribor: Založba Obzorja: 97-126.
 Godina Golija, Maja. 2001. Pomen kuharskih knjig za etnološko raziskovanje prehrane.
Traditiones 30/1: 293-303.
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Eating out in Europe. Picnics, Gourmet Dining and Snacks since the Late Eighteenth Century.
Marc Jacobs and Peter Scholliers (eds.). Oxford, New York: Berg, 2003.
Residential culture:
 Smerdel, Inja. 1982. Stensko okrasje – eden razpoznavnih znakov način življenja, v: Problemi 20,
št. 9/10: 48-61.
 Keršič, Irena. 1991. Oris stanovanjske kulture slovenskega kmečkega prebivalstva v 19. stoletju.
Slovenski etnograf 33-34(1988-1990): 329-389.
 Godina Golija, Maja. 1992. Iz mariborskih predmestij. Maribor: Založba Obzorja: 36 -67.
 Studen, Andrej. 1995. Stanovati v Ljubljani. Ljubljana: Studia Humanitatis, Apes.
 Ferlež, Jerneja. 2001. Mariborska dvorišča. Maribor: Mladinski kulturni center.
 Rapoport, Amos. 1991. House Form and Culture. Englewood Cliffs. Prentice-Hall.
Assessment
 In order to take the exam, students must meet all the obligations of their lecture classes and lab
classes.
 Prior to taking the exam, students must present their term papers.
 Students take an oral exam in the overall course content.
Tradition and Ethics
Programme: Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures (3rd
level)
Module: Slovene Studies - tradition and modernity
Course code: 40
Year of study: Brez letnika
Course principal: Prof. Edvard Kovač, PhD
ECTS: 6
Workload: lectures 60 hours, seminar 30 hours
Course type: general elective
Languages: Slovene
Learning and teaching methods: lectures, discussion classes
Objectives and competences
Students should be able to distinguish between two basic concepts: (1) perceiving tradition as
transmission of cultural and natural heritage on the one hand, and as a rediscovery and creative
enrichment of the values of culture and ethics on the other, and (2) distinguishing between the
constant orientation towards the good, which is part of generally applied ethics, and the practical
and changing realization of this ethics in the moral demands of Slovenian tradition, history, and
mentality.
Prerequisites
None required.
Content (Syllabus outline)
1. Tradition:
 General cultural phenomenon of tradition
 Double definition of tradition
 Tradition as transmission of knowledge and values
 Tradition as rediscovering and enriching values
2. Ethics:
 Basic concept of ethics
 Basic distinction between good and evil
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7.
8.
Basic ethical values
Universality of ethical norms
Morality:
 Definition of morality
 Historical awakening and development of morality
 Perspective of moral development in light of basic ethical principles
Connection between tradition and ethics:
 Importance of ethics in shaping tradition
 Tradition as the foundation of ethical stability and obligation
 Importance of tradition for establishing rationalism in shaping ethical culture
 Ethical freedom as evaluating tradition
Ethical values provided by tradition:
 Respecting human autonomy
 Developing mutual responsibility
 Dignity of the human being
 Transfer from a subject’s isolation into an interpersonal relation
Ethics and tradition among Slovenians:
 The origin of ethical rigor among Slovenians
 Influence and presence of Protestant ethics
 Influence of cultural tradition on shaping Slovenian interpersonal ethics
 Influence of cultural landscape on shaping Slovenian tradition and ethics
Ethics and tradition in an overview of postmodernism (according to Paul Ricœur):
 Finding the basic difference reflected in Slovenian tradition
 Confirming one’s own identity in relation to the other
 Relationship towards the image of the other as the basic paradigm of new interpersonal
relations
 From sacral to holy
Future symbols of ethics and tradition (according to Emmanuel Levinas):
 Suffering people and the new ethical pre-consciousness
 The child and the revelation of new responsibility
 Woman and the hospitality of endless dimensions
 Closeness of animals and plants as the language of giftedness
Readings
 Girard, R. 1972. La Violence et Sacré, Paris: Grasset.
 Levi Strauss, Cl. 1962. La Pensée sauvage, Paris: Plon.
 Levinas, E. 1998. Etika in nekončno. Čas in drugi, Ljubljana: Tretji dan – Družina, Ljubljana.
 Ricoeur, P. 1990. Soi-meme comme un autre, Paris: Seuil.
 Vidal, J. 1990. Sacré, Symbole, Creativitée, Louvain-la-neuve: Centre d’hitoire des religions.
 Kovač, E. 1992. Slovenska nacionalna zavest, Ljubljana: Družina.
Assessment
 Attendance and active participation in lecture classes and lab classes.
 Writing and defending a term paper.
 Oral exam in the overall course content.
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The Linguistic Identity of Slovenian Regions (Dialect as the Original
Foundation of Slovenian)
Programme: Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures (3rd level)
Module: Slovene Studies - tradition and modernity
This course is part of the programme:
Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures (Third level)
Course code: 41
Year of study: Brez letnika
Lecturer: Assoc. Prof. Jožica Škofic, PhD
ECTS: 6
Workload: lectures 60 hours, seminar 30 hours
Course type: general elective
Languages: Slovene
Learning and teaching methods: lectures, discussion classes
Objectives and competences
Students learn about the development of Slovenian and its gradual diversification into dialects, the
language-internal and language-external reasons for this, the subsequent problems in shaping a
common standard language, and the existence of regional versions of standard Slovenian. They
familiarize themselves with modern classification of Slovenian dialects, their basic features at all
linguistic levels (with a special emphasis on phonology and vocabulary), and various development
phases as the basis for reconstructing the history of Slovenian and Slavic languages as well as the
nation’s history in general. Dialects are also discussed in terms of social types with attention being
drawn to linguistic differences between dialects (and regional subdialects) versus the informal
standard form. Students learn that, for most Slovenians, dialects (and regional versions of colloquial
language) are their primary native language, on the basis of which an awareness of linguistic,
cultural, and national affiliation can also be built.
Prerequisites
None required.
Content (Syllabus outline)
The material covered in this course is chronologically very extensive (from the end of the sixth
century to the present) and conceptually diverse (i.e., language history, establishment of the
common standard language, and modern dialects), and therefore it is divided into several specific
thematic sections:
1. Introduction:
Various methodological approaches to studying language, its development, and modern dialects
are presented in addition to the basic achievements of (Slovenian) linguistics in this area, and
the inclusion of studies on Slovenian in international geolinguistic studies (especially the Slavic
and European Linguistic Atlases).
2. Overview of the history of Slovenian:
The development of Slovenian from the final phase of Proto-Slavic to modern dialects are
presented.
3. Development of standard Slovenian:
 Dialect bases for the establishment of standard Slovenian in the sixteenth century
 Stabilization of the (central) standard norm in the middle of the nineteenth century
 Further existence of regional versions of the standard (Slovenian) language
4. Classification of Slovenian dialects:
 Division of Slovenian into dialect groups, dialects, and subdialects (criteria and terminology)
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Basic characteristics of individual dialect groups, using authentic dialect texts for
confirmation
5. Dialect differentiation in terms of functional forms:
 Everyday practical communication form
 Artistic prose and verse in literary folklore
 Technical form with dialect terminology
 Journalistic texts
6. Contemporary dialectology issues:
 Existence of traditional dialects
 Emergence of spoken differences between dialect and informal standard language with
different degrees of approximation to one system or another
In addition to the main coordinator, visiting professors will be able to teach this course as well,
especially associates of the ZRC SAZU Fran Ramovš Institute of the Slovenian Language.
Readings
 Logar, Tine. 1993. Slovenska narečja: Besedila. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga (Zbirka Cicero).
 Greenberg, Marc L. 2000. A Historical Phonology of the Slovene Language. Heidelberg.
 Ramovš, Fran. 1935. Historična gramatika slovenskega jezika VII: Dialekti. Ljubljana.
– 1936. Kratka zgodovina slovenskega jezika I. Ljubljana.
 Smole, Vera. 2000. Uvod v slovensko dialektologijo. Ljubljana: Filozofska fakulteta (Skripta).
– 2002. Vokalizem, naglas, konzonantizem. Ljubljana: Filozofska fakulteta (Skripta).
 Cossutta, Rada. 2001. Narečna podoba Križa pri Trstu. Koper: Zgodovinsko društvo za južno
Primorsko: Znanstveno-raziskovalno središče Republike Slovenije.
 Hafner, Stanislaus, Prunč, Erich ur. 1982. Thesaurus der slowenischen Volkssprache in Kaernten
1: A- bis B-. Wien.
 Kenda-Jež, Karmen, Smole, Vera. 1996. Dosedanje delo in bližnji načrti Mednarodne komisije za
sestavo Slovanskega lingvističnega atlasa (OLA). Slavistična revija 44/1, Ljubljana: 94–105
 Karničar, Ludwig. 1990. Der Obir-Dialekt in Kaernten. Wien.
 Koletnik, Mihaela. 2001. Slovenskogoriško narečje. Maribor: Slavistično društvo, Zora 12.
 Logar, Tine. 1996. Dialektološke in jezikovnozgodovinske razprave. (Karmen Kenda-Jež ur.),
Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU.
 Novak, Franc. 1996. Slovar beltinskega prekmurskega govora. Drugo, popravljeno in dopolnjeno
izdajo priredil in uredil
 Vilko Novak, Murska Sobota: Pomurska založba.
 Merše, Majda, Jakopin, Franc, Novak, France. 1992. Fonološki sistem knjižnega jezika slovenskih
protestantov. Slavistična revija 40/1–2, Ljubljana.
 Orožen, Martina. 1988. Narečje in knjižni jezik. Seminar slovenskega jezika, literature in kulture:
Zbornik predavanj 24, Ljubljana: Filozofska fakulteta: 5–17.
– 1990. Konzonantski sklopi v slovenskem jeziku. Zbornik Matice srpske za filologiju i lingvistiku
33, Novi Sad: 345–350.
– 1994. Odvisnost narečnega besedišča in načina upovedovanja (izražanja) od spreminjajočega
se načina življenja. Naš živi jezik = Traditiones: Zbornik Inštituta za slovensko narodopisje 23: 79–
86.
 Ramovš, Fran. 1924. Historična gramatika slovenskega jezika II: Konzonantizem. Ljubljana.
– 1952. Morfologija slovenskega jezika: Skripta, prirejena po predavanjih prof. Fr. Ramovša v l.
1947/48, 48/49. Ljubljana.
 Rigler, Jakob. 1963. Južnonotranjski govori. Ljubljana: SAZU.
– 1968. Začetki slovenskega knjižnega jezika. Ljubljana: SAZU.
– 2001. Zbrani spisi 1: Jezikovnozgodovinske in dialektološke razprave. (Vera Smole ur.),
Ljubljana: Založba ZRC.
 Steenwijk, Han. 1992. The Slovene Dialect of Resia: San Giorgio. Amsterdam – Atlanta.
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Škofic, Jožica. 2001. Govorica jih izdaja: Skica govora kovaške Krope. Kropa: Tomco.
Tominec, Ivan. 1964. Črnovrški dialekt: Kratka monografija in slovar, Ljubljana: SAZU.
Weiss, Peter. 1998. Slovar govorov Zadrečke doline med Gornjim Gradom in Nazarjami: Poskusni
zvezek (A–H). Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU (zbirka Slovarji).
Zorko, Zinka. 1995. Narečna podoba Dravske doline, Maribor: Kulturni forum.
– Haloško narečje in druge dialektološke študije. Maribor: Slavistično društvo, Zora 6.
Zorko, Zinka, Koletnik, Mihaela ur. 1999. Logarjev zbornik: Referati s 1. mednarodnega
dialektološkega simpozija v Mariboru. Maribor: Slavistično društvo, Zora 8.
Assessment
 Active participation in lecture classes and consultations, and ongoing study of literature.
 Students must write a term paper on their (or a selected) dialect and present it in class; they
must also pass an oral exam in the material discussed in the lecture classes and presented in the
required literature.
Folk and Literary: Folklore and Intertextual Aspects
Programme: Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures (3rd level)
Module: Slovene Studies - tradition and modernity
Course code: 42
Year of study: Brez letnika
Course principal: Assoc. Prof. Marjetka Golež Kaučič, PhD
ECTS: 6
Workload: lectures 60 hours, seminar 30 hours
Course type: general elective
Languages: Slovene
Learning and teaching methods: lectures, discussion classes
Objectives and competences
To familiarize students with the features of (Slovenian and European) folk song that clearly
distinguish it from poem, and present both poetic currents from the perspective of folklore and
literary studies through various methodological and theoretical paradigms. To guide students
through the relevant Slovenian and international course literature and provide a research basis for
their individual research work and scholarly products through lecture classes and term papers. The
study process is to help students learn about the basic and mutual relationships between folk songs
and poems, the ballad as a special folk and artistic genre, and to present the use of folk elements in
literary texts by writers from the Enlightenment to Postmodernism.
Prerequisites
None required.
Content (Syllabus outline)
Slovenian folk song is generally a spontaneous improvised activity that differs from poem in its way
of life, style, variability, and close proximity of production and reproduction. It is a syncretic
organism, composed of text (lyrics), texture (melody), accompanying context (a combination of
external factors during performance), and a characteristic bearer. On the other hand, an poem is a
literary fact, which may have an emphatic acoustic quality but no melody. In addition, its context and
performers are different from folk song. Students learn about folk songs and poems in six thematic
sections.
1. Folk and literary: theoretical and methodological points of departure
 Characteristics of folk songs and poems
 Theoretical and methodological premises of folklore studies
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3.
4.
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6.
Levels of folk songs and poems
Processes of forming folk songs and poems
Manners of life, classification, and genres
Mutual influences
Intertextual systems of folk and literary
 Systems of formal and conceptual interactions between folk and literary through different
periods of Slovenian literary history
 An imitative or passive system
 An active or transformative system
 Passive-active contact of folk and literary in Prešeren, Jenko, Slovenian modernism, and
contemporary Slovenian poetry
Popularized song
 The phenomenon of popularized song in Slovenia
 The process of transferring poem to folk song from the end of the eighteenth century to the
first half of the nineteenth century
 The most important popularization aspects
 From poem to folk song: Simon Jenko’s Lenčica (Little Lenka) and Simon Gregorčič’s Njega
ni (He’s Not Here)
Intertextual series of folk and literary
 What is an intertextual series?
 Types of intertextual series that use folk song as their basis
 The process of intertextuality within folk song
 Intertextuality when transferring folk to literary
 Analysis of a strong intertextual series: Lenore
 Analysis of a weak intertextual series: Godec pred peklom (The Fiddler before Hell)
The ballad as a European enigma
 European and American definitions of the ballad, and methodological and theoretical
concepts of the genre (literary history and folklore studies)
 Origin, formation, etymology, meaning, historical development, characteristics, and role in
Europe and Slovenia
 European and American folklore studies and literary history theories of the ballad
(Entwistel, Hustvedt, Buchan, Atkinson, and Seemann)
 Slovenian folklore studies and literary history theories of the ballad (Vodušek, Kumer, Golež
Kaučič, Kos, and Bjelčevič)
 The folk and literary ballad, ballad vs. romance, ballad typology and themes
 Analysis of Slovenian ballads (e.g., Desetnica, Mrtvaška kost, Galjot, Umor iz ljubosumja,
etc.)
 Analysis of European ballads (e.g., Twa sisters, Mioritza, Dona Filomena, Corrido de Juan
Reyna, etc.)
Folk song and contemporary Slovenian poetry
 Intertextual links between folk and literary in the period of contemporary Slovenian poetry
(1958–2005): theories, currents, and processes
 Formal and conceptual links between literary and folk from Dane Zajc, through Veno
Taufer, Gregor Strniša, Svetlana Makarovičev, Milan Jesih, and Milan Vincetič to Jani
Oswald
 Folk antecedents in contemporary poetic texts applied to the code of folk song context
(e.g., citations of structures, stylizations): text analyses
 Folk antecedents in contemporary poetic texts applied to the context of concrete folk songs
(e.g., citations, allusions, and so on): text analyses
 The concepts and musicality of folk elements in contemporary poetry
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Readings
 Brown, Mary Ellen in Rosenberg. Bruce. A. ur. 1998. Encyclopedia of Folklore and Literature,
Santa Barbara, Denver, Oxford: ABC-CLIO, 1998.
 Buchan, David. 1997. The Ballad and the Folk. East Lothian: Tuckwell Press.
 Dundes, Alan. 1980. Interpreting folklore. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, cop.
 ur. 2005. Folklore, Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies. 4 knjige. London and New
York: Routledge, 2005.
 Entwistel, William James. 1939. European balladry. Oxford: The Claredon Press.
 Foley, John Miles. 2002. How to Read an Oral Poem. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois
Press.
 Golež, Marjetka ur. 1998. Ljudske balade med izročilom in sodobnostjo/Ballads beetwen
Tradition and Modern Times, Ljubljana: Založba ZRC.
 Golež Kaučič, Marjetka. 2001. Raziskovalne metode v folkloristiki – med tradicionalnim in
inovativnim. Traditiones 30/I: 279-291.
 2002. The Slovenian Ballad at the Turn of the Millenium. Lied und populäre Kultur/ Song and
Popular Culture/ Jahrbuch des Deutschen Volksliedarchivs. 47: 157-171.
 2003. Ljudsko in umetno – dva obraza ustvarjalnosti. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC SAZU.
 2003. Teorija intertekstualnosti in njena uporaba v folklorističnih raziskavah. SRL 51: 311-331.
 The Slovenian Folk and Literary Ballad. The Flowering Thorn. Thomas A. McKean ed. Utah State
university Press: Logan: 295-307.
 2004. Rošlin in Verjanko. Transformacija ljudske balade v sodobna prozna besedila. Traditiones
33/2: 93-117.
 2005. Folk Song Today: Between Function and Aesthetics. Traditiones 34/1: 177-191.
 Grafenauer, Ivan in Orel, Boris. 1952. Narodopisje Slovencev II. Ljubljana: Državna založba
Slovenije.
 Hribar, Tine. 1984. Sodobna slovenska poezija. Maribor: Obzorja.
 Hustvedt, Sigurd. 1930. Ballad Books and Ballad Men. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press.
 William O. Hendricks. 1990. Folklora in strukturalna analiza teksta, prev M. Kokot, Nova revija
9/IX/104: 1721-1743.
 Juvan, Marko. 2000. Intertekstualnost. Literarni leksikon 45. Ljubljana: DZS.
 Kumer, Zmaga. 1996. Vloga, zgradba, slog slovenske ljudske pesmi. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC.
 2002. Slovenska ljudska pesem. Ljubljana: Slovenska matica:7-47.
 Legiša, Lino. 1938. Slovenska poezija od Vodnikovih Pesmi za pokušino do priprav na Kranjsko
Čbelico (1806-1828). Ljubljana: samozaložba.
 Koruza, Jože. 1991. Slovstvene študije. Ur. Jože Pogačnik. Ljubljana: Filozofska fakulteta,
Znanstveni inštitut.
 Kos, Janko. 1995. Moderna slovenska lirika 1940-1990. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga.
 1995. Postmodernizem. Literarni leksikon 43. Ljubljana: DZS.
 Niles. John D. 1999. The Poetics and Anthropology of Oral Literature. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press.
 Paternu, Boris. 1980. Folklorizacija literature in literarizacija folklore. Glasnik SED 20/2: 71-81.
 1974. Razvoj in tipologija slovenske književnosti. Seminar slovenskega jezika, literature in
kulture. Slovenski jezik, literatura in kultura: 131-144.
 Poniž, Denis. 2001. Slovenska poezija 1950-200. Ljubljana: Slovenska matica.
 Rosenberg, Bruce A. 1991. Folklore and Literature: Rival Siblings. Knoxvill: The University of
Tenesse Press.
 Seemann, Erich. 1955. Ballade und Epos, Zurich: Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde LI/3:147183.
 Stanonik. Marija. 2001. Teoretični oris slovstvene folklore. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC.
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Taufer, Veno. 1975. O rabi rabljenih besed, v: Pesmarica rabljenih besed, Ljubljana: DZS: 43-65.
Terseglav, Marko. 1987. Ljudsko pesništvo: Literarni leksikon 32. Ljubljana: DZS.
Assessment
As part of this course, students write a research paper with citations and a bibliography; in addition,
the course includes reading and interpreting theoretical works, and listening to audio material. The
term paper is presented, and work within this module also includes reading individual sections of the
dissertation, which are critically assessed by the other students. The students’ work is predominantly
oriented towards writing a doctoral dissertation. They also tour the studio and audio archive at the
ZRC SAZU Institute of Ethnomusicology as well as all the collections kept by this institute.
Intertextuality and Cultural Memory
Programme: Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures (3rd level)
Module: Slovene Studies - tradition and modernity
Course code: 43
Year of study: Brez letnika
Course principal: Prof. Marko Juvan, PhD
ECTS: 6
Workload: lectures 60 hours, seminar 30 hours
Course type: general elective
Languages: Slovene
Learning and teaching methods: lectures, discussion classes
Objectives and competences
This course teaches students about two important concepts that form a relationship between the
present and tradition (as the general topic of this programme): intertextuality and cultural memory.
Their history, meaning, subject areas, and roles are described, and their methodological background
(especially poststructuralism, cultural semiotics, and new historicism) are presented; in addition, the
issues are conceptually analysed in greater detail. All along, the mutual dependence of literary
discourse and other cultural practices is at the centre of attention. Students learn how cultural
identities are established through the mechanisms of memory and forgetting, whose medium is
literature. They learn about the factors and institutions as well as genres and forms through which
literature shapes and reshapes cultural memory (from autobiography, diaries, and memoirs to
historical fiction). The main focus is on intertextual devices (e.g., topoi, allusion, citation, variation,
parody, etc.). The role of influences is thematized at the level of intercultural contacts.
Prerequisites
None required.
Content (Syllabus outline)
Literature is a medium of cultural memory because patterns of thought and feelings are preserved
through literary genres, forms, themes, imagery, stories, and motifs over longer historical periods;
this influences the memories and perceptions of individuals as well as the formation of social
identities. On the one hand, this role of literary discourse is ensured by more or less institutionalized
practices (from publishing and criticism through philological and historical disciplines to education),
involved in building the literary canon and producing categories of esthetic-explanatory language. On
the other hand, literary discourse itself developed mechanisms that place it at the intersections of
historically flexible relations to its own past, cultural tradition, and contemporary social discourses.
Among these means, intertextuality is the most important. The concept of intertextuality, which
developed during the late 1960s as a symptom of the transfer of the humanities and art from
modern to postmodern (i.e., poststructuralism and postmodernism), originally denoted three things:
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That every text is actively included in a chain of dialogue and discourse;
That the text subject is established by accepting and reshaping semiotic material from existing
texts and signifying practices;
That historicism and social character are thus incorporated into the text, and that the text then
influences its context.
Further research regarded the visible forms and genres of intertextuality (citationality), such as
citation, imitation, allusion, and parody, primarily as a manner in which literature is systematically
self-regulating within historical-development processes (“literature from literature,” autopoiesis),
and establishes continuity as well as deviations, subversions, and breaks. In lectures and discussion
classes, issues of collective/cultural memory, literary discourse, and intertextuality are discussed
theoretically and by studying examples from Slovenian literary history. The role of topoi in older and
contemporary literature (e.g., the Freising Manuscripts, and the works of Janez Svetokriški, France
Prešeren, and Simon Jenko) are explained in addition to the formation of intertextual series
incorporated in the imagery of national consciousness (e.g., Krst pri Savici and Sonetni venec), and
the procedures and functions of modernist and postmodernist citation revival of Slovenian cultural
tradition. The emergence of Slovenian literature is shown within a comparative context – that is,
within the context of intercultural dialogue and influences.
1. The theory and history of memory and intertextuality concepts:
 Individual and collective memory
 Perceiving memory from ancient to modern times
 Collective and cultural memory
 Literature and cultural memory
 Intertextuality as a medium of cultural memory
 Historical outline of intertextuality
2. The role of topoi in older and contemporary literature:
 The concept of topoi and the European context of topoi
 Topoi in the Freising Manuscripts and Baroque sermons
 Topoi in romantic and post-romantic poetry (Prešeren, Jenko)
3. Formation of intertextual series incorporated into the imagery of national consciousness:
 The concept of intertextual series
 Folklore and artistic intertextual series
 Examples of intertextual series in key texts (e.g., Krst pri Savici and Sonetni venec).
4. Procedures and functions of modernist and postmodernist citation revival of Slovenian cultural
traditio:
 Deconstructive strategies (avant-garde)
 Mythologization, profaning, and play (modernism)
 Creation as recycling (postmodernism)
5. Emergence of Slovenian literature within a comparative context or the context of intercultural
dialogue and influences:
 New perceptions of influence
 The issue of the “national” as a unit of literary historiography
 The semiosphere, geocriticism, and intercultural dialogue
 Interactivity of the “national” literary polysystem, and interliterary centrisms and
communities
In addition to the main instructor, visiting instructors will also teach this course, especially associates
of the ZRC SAZU Institute of Slovenian Literature and Literary Studies.
Readings
 Allen, Graham. 2000. Intertextuality. London – New York: Routledge.
 Assmann, Aleida in Harth, Dietrich, ur. 1991. Mnemosyne: Formen und Funktionen der
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kulturellen Erinnerung. Frankfurt na Majni: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag.
Assmann, Jan. 1992. Theoretische Grundlagen. V: J. Assmann: Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Shrifit,
Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen. München: Beck. 14-160.
Curtius, Ernst Robert. 2002. Evropska literatura in latinski srednji vek. Prev. T. Virk. Ljubljana:
LUD Literatura.
Halbwachs, Maurice. 2001. Kolektivni spomin. Prev. D. Rotar. Spremna beseda T. Kramberger.
Ljubljana: Studia humanitatis.
Juvan, Marko. 1990. Imaginarij Krsta v slovenski literaturi: Medbesedilnost recepcije. Ljubljana:
Literatura.
– 1997. O slovenskem literarnem kanonu. V: M. Juvan: Domači Parnas v narekovajih: Parodija in
slovenska književnost. Ljubljana: LUD Literatura: 197-212.
– 2000. Intertekstualnost. Ljubljana: DZS. (Literarni leksikon 45).
– 2000. Vezi besedila. Ljubljana: Literatura.
– 2006. Literarna veda v rekonstrukciji: Uvod v sodobni študij literature. Ljubljana: LUD
Literatura.
Lachmann, Renate. 1990. Mnemotechnik und Simulakrum. V: R. Lachmann: Gedächtnis und
Literatur: Intertextualität in der russischen Moderne. Frankfurt na Majni: Suhrkamp: 13-50.
Ricoeur, Paul. 2004. Memory, History, Forgetting. Prev. K. Blamey, D. Pellauer. Chicago –
London: Chicago Univ. Press.
Samoyault, Tiphaine. 2001. L’intertextualité: Mémoire de la littérature. Pariz: Nathan.
Škulj, Jola: Literature as a repository of historical consciousness: reinterpreted tales of
Mnemosyne. V: Methods for the Study of Literature as Cultural Memory. Ur. R. Vervliet –A.
Estor. Amsterdam – Atlanta, GA: Rodopi: 411-419.
Vervliet, Raymond – Estor, Annemarie, ur. 2000: Methods for the Study of Literature as Cultural
Memory. Amsterdam – Atlanta, GA: Rodopi.
Assessment
 Active participation in lectures (discussions) and ongoing study of literature;
 After the first year of study: a term paper in the form and following the standards of a scholarly
article, combining the topic of the master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation and the subject
content or issues addressed as part of the course. Oral presentation of the paper (and assessing
broader knowledge of the course content).
Slovenian Emigrants between Tradition and the Present
Programme: Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures (3rd level)
Module: Slovene Studies - tradition and modernity
Course code: 44
Year of study: Brez letnika
Lecturer: Assoc. Prof. Marina Lukšič Hacin, PhD
ECTS: 6
Workload: lectures 60 hours, seminar 30 hours
Course type: general elective
Languages: Slovene
Learning and teaching methods: lectures, discussion classes
Objectives and competences
To familiarize students with the historical, sociological, and ethnological aspects of emigration and
the life of Slovenians in new environments. Special emphasis is placed on their cultural activity,
literary production, preservation of ethnic identity, nurturing Slovenian material and cultural
tradition abroad, and the original contribution of emigrant creativity to the cultural treasury of the
nation of origin on the one hand and multicultural society on the other. Lectures are based on
15
authentic material, primary literature, and the findings of the students’ own empirical studies. In
addition, students learn about the theoretical aspects of migration studies and contemporary
methodology used for studying migration. The interdisciplinary design of the course provides a
comprehensive insight into the issues of Slovenian emigration, which is placed within wider
migration context.
Prerequisites
None required.
Content (Syllabus outline)
The timeframe of the detailed study of Slovenian emigration extends from the first wave of
emigrants leaving Slovenian ethnic territory in the first half of the nineteenth century to the current
process of “brain drain” today. The content is addressed in four thematic sections:
1. Introductory theoretical treatment:
 Learning about the category apparatus, problematization and justification of the basic
concepts, and recognizing the differences in their use in various theories
 Learning about various research and methodological procedures and their application
 Presentation of basic research findings relevant to studying migrations
2. Historical outline of Slovenian emigration:
 Defining migration (theoretical aspect) and overview of sources and literature
 Legal aspects (of emigration and immigration laws)
 Demographic aspects of migration
 Analysis of gender, age, education, and occupational structure of emigrants
 Geographical aspect of emigration (emigration destinations)
 Causes and effects of emigration
 The attitude of the home environment (authorities, the Church, and concerned individuals)
to emigration
 The human and social status of immigrants in new environments
 Organizing life in the new environment (e.g., social organization, publishing activity,
emigrant education, etc.)
 The Slovenian contribution to the new environment (e.g., in professional, cultural,
scholarly, and other spheres); contacts between emigrants and their country of origin
 Inclusion in or comparisons with migration processes around the world
3. Anthropological and sociological aspects of Slovenian emigration and migration:
 Comparative analysis of forming ethic identity and its manifestations in the everyday lives
of the first and subsequent generations of Slovenian emigrants in various continents and
countries from a synchronic and diachronic perspective
 Returning home (problems with adjusting to the original environment)
 Placement in various contexts across all segments of social analysis
4. Slovenian emigrant literature:
 Historical overview starting with early emigrant literary forms in the nineteenth century
 Flourishing of Slovenian emigrant literature in the 1920s and 30s
 Independent development of emigrant literature in the second half of the twentieth
century
 Return of Slovenian literature after 1990
 The problem of ghettoization of emigrant literature in Slovenian literary history
 The issue of literary bilingualism in emigrant authors
 Contemporary issues of literary production among emigrants
Readings
 Castles, S. in M.J. Miller. 1998. The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the
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Modern World. London.
Čebulj Sajko, Breda. 1999. Etnologija in izseljenstvo. Ljubljana.
Čebulj Sajko, Breda. 1992. Med srečo in svobodo. Ljubljana.
Drnovšek Marjan. 1991. Pot slovenskih izseljencev na tuje. Ljubljana.
Drnovšek, Marjan. 1998. Usodna privlačnost Amerike. Ljubljana.
Klemenčič, Matjaž. 1987. Ameriški Slovenci in NOB v Jugoslaviji. Maribor.
Klinar, Peter. 1976. Mednarodne migracije. Ljubljana.
Lukšič – Hacin, Marina. 1995. Ko tujina postane dom, Ljubljana.
Lukšič – Hacin, Marina. 1999. Multikulturalizem in migracije, Ljubljana.
Valenčič, Vlado. 1990. Izseljevanje Slovencev v tujino do druge svetovne vojne. Dve
domovini/Two Homelands, 1.
Žitnik, Janja. 2000. Književno delo slovenskih izseljencev, Slavistična revija, 48/2.
Žitnik, Janja. 2001. Besedna umetnost slovenskih izseljencev in njeno mesto v sodobni slovenski
kulturi, Dve domovini/Two Homelands, 14.
Chmelar, Hans. 1974. Höhepunkte der österreichischen Auswanderung: Die Auswanderung aus
den im Reichsrat vertretenen Königreichen und Ländern in den Jahren 1905-1911. Dunaj.
Čebulj Sajko, Breda. 2000. Razpotja izseljencev. Ljubljana.
Friš, Darko. 1995. Ameriški Slovenci in katoliška cerkev 1871-1924. Celovec-Ljubljana-Dunaj.
Iseljenec: Življenjske zgodbe Slovencev po svetu. Ljubljana 2001
Klemenčič, Matjaž. 1995. Slovenes of Cleveland. Novo mesto.
Klemenčič, Matjaž. 1999. Jurij Trunk med Koroško in Združenimi državami Amerike. CelovecLjubljana-Dunaj.
Kokole, Vladimir. 1986. Migracije v SR Slovenijo iz drugih republik in narodnostna sestava
njenega prebivalstva. Geografski vestnik, 58.
Lukšič – Hacin, Marina. 2001. Zgodbe in pričevanja: Slovenci na Švedskem, Ljubljana.
Malačič, Janez. 1984. Demografske razmere v Sloveniji. Teorija in praksa, 21/7-8.
Šifrer, Živko. 1962. Izseljevanje s slovenskega ozemlja. Prikazi in študije, 8/2, Ljubljana.
Šmitek, Zmago. 1986. Klic daljnih svetov. Ljubljana.
Vogelnik, Dušan. 1965. Razvoj prebivalstva Slovenije zadnjih dvesto let z jugoslovanske in
evropske perspektive. Ekonomski zbornik, 7, Ljubljana.
Vogelnik, Dušan. 1961. Demografska statistika. Ljubljana.
Valenčič, Vlado. 1990. Izseljevanje Slovencev v druge dežele Habsburške monarhije. Zgodovinski
časopis, 44/1.
Zwitter, Fran. 1936. Prebivalstvo na Slovenskem od 18. stoletja do današnjih dni. Ljubljana.
Žigon, Zvone. 2001. Iz spomina v prihodnost: Slovenska politična emigracija v Argentini.
Žitnik, Janja in Helga Glušič ur. 1999. Slovenska izseljenska književnost 1, 2, 3. Ljubljana.
Assessment
Students must actively participate in lectures and in discussion classes. This includes ongoing reading
of (required) course literature, critical assessment of the material read, and writing short essays
based on the literature read. In addition, students write a final paper that they defend in class. The
exam combined active participation in lectures and in discussion classes, and the final paper with a
defence.
Tragedy in Theater, Culture, and Society
Programme: Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures (3rd level)
Module: Slovene Studies - tradition and modernity
Course code: 45
Year of study: Brez letnika
Lecturer: Assoc. Prof. Krištof Jacek Kozak, PhD
ECTS: 6
17
Workload: lectures 60 hours, seminar 30 hours
Course type: general elective
Languages: Slovene
Learning and teaching methods: lectures, seminars
Objectives and competences
The goal of this course is to familiarize students with the concept of tragedy not only within the
theatre, but also beyond. The goal is to elucidate the history and present status of this concept,
which is so omnipresent in today’s world. Students thus learn about the central bases of literary,
theatrical, philosophical, and social-theory discourse on tragedy and the tragic through history up to
the present. Through lectures and discussion classes, this course stimulates students to think about
and study people and their placement in the world and society. Another goal of this course is also to
draw attention to the basic link between this concept and the central concept of new-age
philosophy, the subject. In addition to providing a theoretical basis, the purpose of the lectures is to
analyse the present and apply the concept of tragedy to developments today that are extremely
topical in light of the concept discussed.
Prerequisites
None required.
Content (Syllabus outline)
1. Theoretical background for discussing tragedy:
 Conceptualization and application of the concept of tragedy (Aristotle)
 The Roman relationship to tragic poetics (Horatio)
 Renaissance exegetes (Castelvetro, Scaliger)
 Classicist theoretical assumptions (Corneille, Racine)
 German idealism and the philosophy of tragedy (Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Schlegel)
 The post-idealist perception of tragedy (Hebbel)
 Modernism and tragedy (Jaspers, Lukács)
 The rise and fall of postmodernism (Derrida, Foucault, Barthes, Baudrillard)
 The rehabilitation of tragedy (Lévinas, Williams, Eagleton)
2. The main periods in the development of tragedies:
 The Greek and Roman classical period (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides; Seneca)
 The Renaissance (Elizabethan theater: Johnson, Shakespeare, etc.)
 French Classicism (Corneille, Racine)
 German Classicism (Goethe, Schiller)
 Premodern tragedy (Hebbel)
 Modernism and the theater of the absurd (Beckett)
 Existentialism (Ionesco, Sartre, Genet)
 Postmodernism (syncretic contemporary theater: Koltès, Greig, etc.)
3. Questions and problems connected with the main concepts of tragedy and their application:
 Catharsis
 Peripeteia
 Anagnorisis
 Hubris
4. The role of the protagonist as a philosophical subject in tragedy:
 The state of an individuum in Classical Antiquity
 The development of the concept of a “subject”
 The subject within idealistic philosophical systems
 The modernist turn
 The postrational decomposition of the subject
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The postdeconstructivist process of reinstating the subject
Readings
 Aristotel. 1982. Poetika. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba.
 Badiou, Alain. 1982. Théorie du Sujet. Paris: Seuil.
 Benjamin, Walther. 1977. The Origin of German Tragic Drama. London: NLB.
 Birkenhauer, Theresia. 2004. Tragedija: delo z demokracijo: Izmera razdalje. Theater der Zeit 11.
 Eagleton, Terry. 2003. Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic. Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell: 122, 203-240.
 Hegel, G. W. F. 2001. Predavanja o estetiki : dramska poezija. Ljubljana: Društvo za teoretsko
psihoanalizo.
 Hristić, Jovan. 2001. O tragediji: deset esejev. Ljubljana: MGL.
 Kozak, Krištof J. 2003. O tragičnem danes – iz perspektive subjekta in situacije. Primerjalna
književnost 26/2.
– -. 2004. Privlačna usodnost: subjekt in tragedija. Ljubljana: MGL.
 Lévinas, Emmanuel. 1965, Totalité et Infini: Essai sur l’Extériorité. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
 Lukács, György. 1981. Entwicklungsgeschichte des Modernen Dramas. Ed. Frank Benseler.
Darmstadt: Luchterhand.
– -. 1974. The Metaphysics of Tragedy. Soul and Form. Georg Lukács. London: Merlin Press: 15274.
 Miller, Arthur. 1997. Narava tragedije. Nova revija 16: 232-34.
– -. 1997. Tragedija in navadni človek.” Nova revija 16: 235-37.
 Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1995. Rojstvo tragedije iz duha glasbe. Ljubljana: Karantanija.
 Steiner, George. 1990. A note on Absolute Tragedy. Journal of Literature & Theology 4/2: 14756.
– -. 2002. Smrt tragedije. Ljubljana: Literarno-umetniško društvo Literatura.
 Szondi, Peter. 1964. Versuch über das Tragische. 1961. Frankfurt am Main: Insel.
 Taylor, Charles. 1989. The Surces of Self. The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
 Unamuno, Miguel de. 1983. Tragično občutje življenja. Ljubljana: Slovenska matica.
 Wilkoszewska, Krystyna. 1986. On the Experience of the Tragic. Philosophica 38/2: 27-40.
 Williams, Raymond. 1966. Modern Tragedy. London: Chatto; Windus.
 Zima, Peter. V. 2002. Theorie des Subjekts: Subjektivität und Identität zwischen Moderne und
Postmoderne. Tübingen: Francke.
Assessment
Students must actively participate in lectures and discussion classes – that is, they must read course
literature in parallel with lectures, and contribute to discussions. The final course grade is established
based on students’ activity or participation in discussions and the grade on the final paper (which is a
longer, independently written research paper).
The Role of Woman in Slovenian Society and Culture
Programme: Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures (3rd level)
Module: Slovene Studies - tradition and modernity
Course code: 46
Year of study: Brez letnika
Course principal: Assoc. Prof. Mirjam Milharčič Hladnik, PhD
ECTS: 6
Workload: lectures 60 hours, seminar 30 hours
Course type: general elective
Languages: Slovene
19
Learning and teaching methods: lectures, discussion classes
Objectives and competences
To familiarize students with the role of woman in Slovenian society from the historical, theoretical,
and analytical perspectives within the comparative context of Europe and beyond. To provide
students opportunities for individual research and theoretical projects through the selection of
course literature and work methods in lectures and in discussion classes. To assist in enriching the
still insufficient corpus of knowledge on the role of woman in Slovenia.
Prerequisites
None required.
Content (Syllabus outline)
1. Ideological philosophy of scientists and the policy of knowledge selection:
 Was Marx a Marxist, Darwin a Darwinist, and Virginia Woolf a feminist?
 How to read and analyse the material read and understand the unwritten
 Sources and “sources,” and where is experience?
 What to do with feelings
2. History: where do we come from?
 The social status of women today
 Today originates in yesterday
 There is no women’s issue
 Ideological and political premises of the study
3. Identity or concepts of sex roles:
 Equality and justifications of differences
 From private to public and political
 Battles, retreats, victories, and defeats
4. We need bread and roses, too!
 Doctors, instructors, professors, and directors
 Cleaners, cooks, and housewives
 Universality of rights and cultural relativism
5. What do I want to be?
 Perspectives of observers and perspectives of the observed
 Sex roles as social roles of performance
 Which is the right one?
6. Migration: where are we going?
 The female migrant as a metaphor for woman
 Women with two or more homes, without a home, from nowhere, from here and there,
and from neither here nor there
 Feminization of migrant flows
 Global women
Readings
 A History of Women in the West I-IV. Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
 Vode, Angela. 1998. Spol in upor, (Zbrana dela Angele Vode, knj. 1), (Knjižna zbirka Krt, 109). 1.
izd. Ljubljana: Krtina.
-. 1999. Značaj in usoda, (Zbrana dela Angele Vode, knj. 2), (Knjižna zbirka Krt, 110). 1. izd.
Ljubljana: Krtina.
-. 2000. Spomin in pozaba, (Zbrana dela Angele Vode, knj. 3), (Knjižna zbirka Krt, 111). 1. izd.
Ljubljana: Krtina.
20
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Milharčič Hladnik, Mirjam. 1995. Šolstvo in učiteljice na Slovenskem (Zbirka Sophia 5). Ljubljana:
Znanstveno in publicistično središče.
Milharčič Hladnik, Mirjam, Žagar, Igor Ž. 1996. Nekaj izhodiščnih prizadevanj za odpravo
seksistične rabe jezika. V: Spol: Ž. Ljubljana: KUD France Prešeren: Institutum Studiorum
Humanitatis – ISH.
Žnidaršič, Sabina Ž. 2001. Ora et labora – in molči ženska!, pregled demografije dežele Kranjske
in pridobitnosti žensk v desetletjih 1880-1910. Ljubljana: cf.
Accati, Luisa. 2001. Pošast in lepotica, Oče in mati v katoliški vzgoji čustev. Ljubljana: Studia
Humanitatis.
Vidmar, Ksenija H. ur. 2001. Ženski žanri – spol in množično občinstvo v sodobni kulturi.
Ljubljana: Zbirka Dokumenta, ISH.
Woolf, Virginia. 2001. Tri gvineje. Ljubljana: Lila zbirka, cf.
-. 1999. Lastna soba. Ljubljana: Lila zbirka, cf.
De Beauvoir, Simone. 2000. Drugi spol, 1. in 2. del. Ljubljana: Delta.
Muser, Erna, Zavrl, Vida ur. 1971. FKL Žensko koncentracijsko taborišče Ravensbruck. Ljubljana:
Partizanska knjiga.
Stanley, Liz. 1995. The Auto/biographical I, The theory and practice of feminist auto/biography.
Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press.
Irigaray, Luce. 1995. Jaz, ti, me, mi. Ljubljana: Znanstveno in publicistično središče.
Bahovec, Eva D. ur. 1992. Vzgoja med gospostvom in analizo. Ljubljana: KRT.
-. 1993. Od ženskih študij k feministični teoriji, Ljubljana: Časopis za kritiko znanosti.
Molek, Mary. 1976. Immigrant Woman. Delaware: Dover.
Planinsek Odorizzi, Irene M. 1978. The Footsteps Through Time, Washington: Washington
Landmark Tours.
Drakulić, Slavenka. 2002. Kot da me ni, Ljubljana: Aleph.
Pizan, Christine de. 1999. Mesto dam, Ljubljana: Delta.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. 1992. Zagovor pravic ženske, Ljubljana: Krt.
Zaviršek, Darja ur. 1996. Spolno nasilje. Feministične raziskave za socialno delo, Ljubljana: Visoka
šola za socialno delo.
Assessment
 Students must actively participate in lectures and discussion classes, which are based on parallel
reading of literature and critical assessment of the material read.
 Students must write a paper, which serves as preparation for the final examination paper.
 A final paper (independent research paper) is presented in class.
 The exam comprises active participation in lectures and in discussion classes and oral
presentation of the final paper.
Ecoculture: Studies of Animals and Nature in Folklore, Literature and Culture
Programme: Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures (3rd level)
Module: Slovene Studies - tradition and modernity
Course code: 67
Year of study: Brez letnika
Course principal: Assoc. Prof. Marjetka Golež Kaučič, PhD
ECTS: 6
Workload: lectures 60 hours, seminar 30 hours
Course type: general elective
Languages: Slovene
Learning and teaching methods: lectures, discussion classes
Learning objectives
21
This course introduces students to the new academic disciplines based on studies of animals and
nature in folklore, literature and culture. With help of new theoretical discourses and complex
methodological paradigms to enable insight into human relations towards animals and nature
through different historical periods, and to emphasizes changes of that relationship. Students will be
acquainted with relevant Slovenian and international scientific literature and by lectures and
seminars forming the research ground for student’s individual research. The studying process should
contribute to knowledge about human relations towards animals in folklore, literature and culture.
The multidisciplinary findings of these studies might redefine the relationships between people,
animals, nature, and the environment on a new ecological and ethical basis. Emphasis is on the
relationship between species in folklore and literature.
Skills Acquired
None needed
Content
Due to the new ecological and ethical (bioethical) findings within the wider social and cultural
context and the changed conditions around the world, which ultimately caused the focus to shift
from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism, the Slovenian research environment also requires the studies
of both animals (zoofolklore, ethnozoology, ecocriticism) and nature (ecofolklore, ecopoetics,
ethnobotany, cultural botany), and the human relationships to them as represented in folklore,
literature, and culture. Zoofolkloristics is a new discipline inside the classical folklore studies based on
the view of the animals as a real creature and not as a symbol or metaphor. This discipline tries to
expand the critical view to traditional knowledge about relationship between human and other
animals with exceptional messages about cohabitation of humans and non-humans on one side, and
some relationships and cultural practices, which are not acceptable today, on the other side.
Zoofolkloristics introduces the new theoretical and analytical discourse by giving the insight into
changes and redefintions of human attitudes towards animals both in folklore and within traditional
and contemporary ritual practices, and at the same time exerts influence upon the legal safety of
non-human subjects. Ecofolkloristics studies the world of plants and nature as thematized in folklore
texts, as well as in different cultural practices and in traditions. Ecocriticism is a special form of
literary criticism, which studies the non-human nature and comprehends it in the sense of
autonomous power, giving it a status of a subject. Cultural animal studies researches animal as a
motif, a symbol, a historical abstraction, which can be objectivized and alegorised, mostly without
critical political reflection, but with some doubts about anthropocentric relationship of human
towards other animals. Critical animal studies enable the possibility of a subjectivity of an animal,
surpassing structural hierarchies in the human-animal relationship . Students will be introduced to
different paradigm studies of the relationship between human, other animals, and nature, on the
basis of interdisciplinary network of ecoculture through the following four topical sections:
1. Zoofolkloristics and ekofolkloristics
 theoretical and methodological fundamentals of zoofolkloristics and ekofolkloristics (ideas,
concepts and discourses; in Slovenian and international scope)
 anthropomorphism, zoomorphism, synanthropic and anthropophilic aspects
 characteristics of zoo- and eco- folklore through folk song and narrative
 imagery depictions of animals in folklore – from symbol to object and subject (individuum)
 plants and nature in folklore: ethno- and cultural botany (knowledge about flora), images of
nature in folklore
 positive and negative cultural ritual practices (customs and habits, beliefs) in relations toward
animal and nature – redefinition
2. Ecocriticism
 theoretical and methodological introduction to ecocriticism (anthropocentrism, ecocentrism,
biocentrism, the defence of nature, literary ecology, green literature, literary animal studies)
22

teoretical concepts of the animals/nature/environment in Slovenian and in international
literary works,
 ecocritical echoes from 19th and 20th century prose (Cankar, Kosovel, Geister)
 Detela, Komelj, Coetzee and question of vegetarianism and veganism, as well as relationships
between species
3. Cultural animal studies
 theoretical and methodological introduction into cultural animal studies
 constructions of animals, dichotomy human/animal, culture/nature
 humananimalia (humananimal)
 language and animals
 domestication
 cultural heritage and animals (e.g. Lipizzaner horses)
 animals and nature in film
 ethic and legal protection of animals
4. Critical animal studies
 definition, theoretical and methodological insights into discipline
 speciesism (Ryder and Dunayer)
 about animal question as a political question
 philosophical and anthropological discourse and activism
 conceptualization of animals and discussion of their moral status in various discourses
 effects of representation of animality inside anthropocentric culture
 animal abolitionism and Garrry Francione’s animal-ethical model
 critical approach towards ecological holism
 transformation of the traditional relationship between human and animal, and animal as an
individual and not species
Links to other courses
The course is multidisciplinary oriented and falls under the folklore studies, but in scope relates to
literary science, ethnology, cultural and social anthropology, philosophy, ethics, law and ecology.
Course literature
 Armstrong, Suzane J. and Richard Botzler: The Animal Ethics Reader. London, New York:
Routledge, 2003.
 Berlin, Brent: Ethnobiological Classification: Principles of categorization of plants and animls in
traditional societes. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
 Calarco, Matthew (ed.): Zoographies: The Question of the Animal from Heidegger to Derrida.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
 Cavell, Stanley, Cora Diamond, John McDowell, Ian Hacking in Cary Wolfe: Philosophy & Animal
Life. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
 Clutton-Brock, Juliet: The Unnatural World: Behavioural Aspects of Humans and Animals in the
Process of Domestication. V: Aubrey Manning in James Serpell (ed.), Animals and Human
Society. Changing perspective. London, New York: Routledge, 2006: 23‒36.
 Čeh Steger, Jožica. Ekokritika in literarne upodobitve narave. Maribor: Založba Litera, 2015.
 Derrida, Jacques: ' Eating Well' or the Calculation of the Subject: An Interview with Jacques
Derrida. In: Connor and Nancy Cadava (ed.), Who Comes After the Subject? New York, London:
Routledge, 1991, 96–119.
 Derrida, Jaques: The Animal That Therefore I am. (trans. David Willis). Critical inquiry 28, 2002,
369–418.
 Detela, Jure, Ekologija, ekonomija preživetja in živalske pravice. Nova revija 77. 1473─1484,
Ljubljana, 1984.
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Dunayer, Joan: Specizam. Diskriminacija na osnovi vrste. Zagreb, Čakovac, Institut za etnologiju i
folkloristiku & Dvostruka duga, 2009.
Donaldson, Sue and Will Kymlicka: Zoopolis. A Political Theory of Animal Rights. Oxford: Oxford:
University Press, 2011.
Fairclough, Norman: Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. Harlow etc.:
Longman, 2010.
Ferry, Luc: Novi ekološki red. Drevo, žival in človek. (Le nouvel ordre écologique). Ljubljana:
Založba Krtina (Zbirka Krt 21), 1998.
Finke, Peter: Kulturökologie. In: Nünning, Vera in Ansgar Nünning (ur.), Konzepte der
Kulturwissenschaften. Theoretische Grundlagen – Ansätze – Perspektiven. Stuttgart,
Weimar: Metzler V., 2003, 248–279.
Francione, Gary L.: Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2008.
Glotfelty, Cheryll: Introduction: Literary Studies in an Age of Evironmental Crisis. In: Cheryll
Glotfelty in Harold Fromm (ed.), The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology. Athens
in London: The University of Georgia Press, 1996, XV–XXXVII.
Golež Kaučič, Marjetka. Thematization of nonhuman subjectivity in folklore, philosophical, and
literary texts. Cosmos 27, 2011, 121‒154.
----,: "A bunny is a beautiful thing" or Animals as machines (!?) : the perception of the animal
world in Slovenian folk songs. Traditiones, 42/1, 2013, 42, 71‒88.
----,: Zoofolkloristics : first insights towards the new discipline. Narodna umjetnost, 52/1 (2015):
7‒30.
----,: Zoopoetika u poeziji Tomaža Šalamuna. In: Kovač, Zvonko (ed.), Kozak, Krištof Jacek (ed.),
Pregelj, Barbara (ed.). Obzorja jezika - obnebja jezika : poezija Tomaža Šalamuna. Zagreb: FF
Press, 2014, 145‒163.
Haviland, William A.: Kulturna antropologija. Jastrebarsko: Naklada Slap, 2004 (1975).
Hochman, Jhan: Green Studies: Nature in Film, Novel, and Theory. Moscow. Idaho: University of
Idaho Press, 1998.
Hofer, Stefan: Die Ökologie der Literatur. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2007.
Hösle, Vittorio: Filozofija ekološke krize. Moskovska predavanja. Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 1996
(1991).
Ingold, Tim (ed.): What is an Animal? One World Archeology 1. London in New York: Routledge,
1994.
Lockwood, Randall: Anthropomorphism is not a four-letter word. In: R. J. Hoage
(ed.), Perceptions of Animals in American Culture. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1989,
41‒56.
Marjanić, Suzana in Antonija Zaradija Kiš (eds.), Kulturni bestijarij I. Zagreb: Hrvatska sveučilišna
naklada in Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku 2007.
Marjanić, Suzana in Antonija Zaradija Kiš (eds.), Književna životinja, Kulturni bestijarij II. Zagreb:
Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada in Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku, 2012.
Meeker, Joseph W.: The comedy of survival: studies in literary ecology. New York: Scribner's,
1974.
Möderndorfer, Vinko: Verovanja, uvere in običaji Slovencev. Narodopisno gradivo.
Celje: Družba Sv. Mohorja, 1948.
Noske, Barbara: Humans and Other Animals: Beyond the Boundaries of Anthropology. London:
Pluto, 1993.
Ryder, Richard D.: Animal revolution: changing attitudes towards specieciesism. London in New
York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2000.
Rueckert, William: Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism. Iowa Review 9/ 1,
1978, 71–86.
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Sax, Boria: Animals as tradition . In: Linda Kalof in Amy Fitzgerald (eds.), The animals reader. The
Essential Classic and Contemporary Writings. Oxford in New York: Berg, 2007, 270‒278.
Serpell, James: In the Company of Animals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Shepard, Paul: Thinking Animals: Animals and the Development of Human Intelligence. New
York: Viking, 1978.
Steeves, H. Peter (ed.): Animal Others. On Ethics, Ontology, and Animal Life. New York: Albany
State University of New York Press, 1999. 93‒117.
Vičar, Branka: Si kdaj videl svobodnega konja. Filozofski kontekst animalistične etike v poeziji
Jureta Detele in Miklavža Komelja. In: Etika v slovenskem jeziku, literaturi in kulturi. Center za
slovenščino kot drugi tuji jezik. Ljubljana: FF. 2013, 35‒45.
Visković, Nikola: Životinja i čovjek: prilog kulturnoj zoologiji. Split: Književni krug, 1996
----: Stablo i čovjek: prilog kulturnoj botanici. Zagreb: Antibarbarus d.o.o., 2001.
-----: Kulturna zoologija. Zagreb: Naklada Jesenski in Turk, 2009.
Zapf, Hubert: (ed.): Kulturökologie und Literatur. Beiträge zu einem transdisziplinären
Paradigma der Literaturwissenschaft. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2008.
Willis, Roy (ed.): Signifying Animals. Human Meaning in the Natural World. New York:
Routledge, 1990.
Student requirements and grading
1. Active participation in class (discussions) and regular study of course literature.
2. Writing a term paper following research paper form and standards. Publicly presented oral
defense of the paper (and testing students on other material covered in the class); reading
chapters of dissertation with critical overview of other students.
 Most of the study will be dedicated to write a thesis.
Ritual
Programme: Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures (3rd level)
Module: Slovene Studies - tradition and modernity
Course code: 68
Year of study: Brez letnika
Course principal: Assoc. Prof. Jurij Fikfak, PhD
ECTS: 6
Workload: lectures 60 hours, seminar 30 hours
Course type: general elective
Languages: Slovene
Learning and teaching methods: lectures, discussion classes
Learning objectives
This course familiarizes students with the concepts of rituality and ritual practices from a historical,
theoretical, and empirical perspective. The first part introduces students to the history of these
concepts and research on them; the second part focuses on a critical overview of topics and
theoretical bases by various authors; and the third part tests students’ range of knowledge through
fieldwork and a term paper or article for publication.
The main learning objectives of this course include understanding the role of rituals in society and
interpreting ritual behavior by using various methods and perspectives. Other relevant objectives
include developing critical thinking; familiarizing oneself with palimpsestism and intertextuality;
exploring the dynamics of various public, media, official, and subcultural discourses; and studying the
interplay of creativity (from uniqueness to seriality).
Skills acquired
In this course, students learn how to read and understand texts on rituals and identify configurations,
25
processualism, and duration, as well as how to use various research techniques in the field in line
with the theoretical research premise selected. In the process, they learn that, at the etic level,
theoretical concepts, the research concept, and results depend on a specific research paradigm,
whereas at the emic level ritual practices usually depend on the interplay between various discourses
at the local, regional, media, national, and global levels. Research on rituality makes it possible to
study social and cultural dynamics and to explore inclusive and exclusive strategies and practices, and
the conflicting nature and dialogism of shaping cultural identities and practices. Students are thus
ready to engage in contemporary intercultural communication.
Content
Rituality is a universal feature of human existence. Just as human society cannot be conceived of
without language or music, it also cannot be envisaged without performing rituals or ritual practices.
The purpose of this course is to reflect on the concept, role, and importance of rituality in past and
current societies and culture, as well as to use a concrete example to test what has been learned.
Course structure:
The course consists of three parts. The first part focuses on a historical overview of thematizing and
studying rituals and ritual practices in Slovenia and central Europe, also taking into account the
reception of ethnological and cultural anthropology findings established within a broader or global
context. The second part involves a thematic overview of rituals, including their language, structure,
and processes, as well as their role and significance in various contexts and situations. The third part
is empirical, enabling students to develop research skills while carrying out research on specific
selected rituals and ritual practices, and to test various theoretical research premises and practical
methods.
1. Historical overview
Discovering the Other means discovering otherness through “foreign customs and traditions.” The
first or historical part focuses on various understandings and theories of rituality (mainly) in central
Europe, from pre-scholarly ones (e.g., Santonino) at the end of the Middle Ages and the views of
Johann Gottfried Herder to the first detailed thematizations of the concept of “ritual” during the
nineteenth century (e.g., Gregor Krek). During this period, describing and studying rituality was
largely about discovering the Other, or part of the exoticization strategy and practice (Fikfak 2008).
Special emphasis is placed on research conducted in the twentieth century, during which ritual
practices (i.e., customs and traditions) became one of the most distinctive ethnological and
identification elements.
Based on an overview of works published in Slovenia (Kotnik, Orel, Kuret, etc.) and central Europe,
issues connected with rituals elsewhere will be discussed (Frazer, van Gennep, Eliade, Durkheim, and
so on) as well as their mutual influences.
2. Thematic overview
The second part reflects on the basic concepts of rituality and ritual practices, and thematic
definitions:
Rituality: language, structure, form, process, and typology
Thematization of language: grammar and morphology, the basic elements of rituals and their
structure, forms, procedural character, and typology (van Gennep, Rites of Passage; Goody,
Construction of a Ritual Text; Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology; Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual
Practice; Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions).
Rituality: performative aspects, internalization, and “communitas”
Overview and analysis of the performative aspects of rituals and the role of rituals in constituting a
community (Turner, Ritual Process; Tambiah, A Performative Approach to Ritual; Schechner,
26
Performance Theory; Cavallin, Ritualization and Human Interiority).
Rituality and semiotics
Rituals as signs in de Saussure’s or Peirce’s concepts of semiotics (Parmentier, Signs in Society), as
metonymic metaphors (Jakobson), and as heteroglossia (Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World).
Rituality, religion, and myth
Religion provides an important basis for certain forms of rituals (Eliade, Zgodovina religioznih
verovanj in idej; Rappaport, Ritual and Religion).
Rituality, politics, and power
National politics is also reinforced through rituals, such as daily oaths for schoolchildren in certain
countries (e.g., the US), flags, national ceremonies, commemorations of fallen soldiers, and so on
(Kertzer, Ritual, Politics, and Power; Simonič, Kaj si bo narod mislil?).
3. Empirical section
In the third part, discussions will be held with students to select locations and events suitable for
conducting research on rituality and some of its aspects. By studying a concrete ritual practice,
students will test all the relevant elements of various research premises they have learned about in
the first and second parts of the course. After completing their qualitative empirical research,
students will present their work as part of a seminar and submit their papers for publication in a
research journal.
In addition to the main instructor, classes are also conducted by guest lecturers from various
institutions in Slovenia and abroad. The topics covered by these lecturers include rituality and work,
rituality and politics, rituality and sports, and rituals and festivals.
Seminar classes
Work within the seminar classes entails learning both how to understand and research rituality; the
students learn and test the material covered in lectures and consultations in practice. This is always
connected with a concrete empirical study in which individual students test theoretical premises and
concepts. The class takes place in the form of discussions accompanying the papers presented by
other students. Every student must write a term paper to complete the class, and together with an
oral defense this constitutes the main form of examination.
Student requirements and grading
1. Active participation in class (discussions) and regular study of course literature;
2. Taking part in fieldwork by observing and analyzing concrete ritual practices;
3. At the end of first year: a term paper following research paper form and standards. Oral defense
of the paper (and testing students on other material covered in the class).
Links to other courses
This course falls under ethnology and cultural anthropology, but also relates to courses in folklore
studies, historiography, and the sociology of culture and religion.
Requirements for offering the course
 Staffing: an instructor and guest lecturers.
 Physical: a classroom with basic audiovisual equipment. Opportunities for field research.
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