CENTRAL EUROPEAN CULTURE
AND SOCIETY
(CESP/CECS)
SYLLABUS FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2012-2013
FALL SEMESTER
Lecturer: Hynek Melichar
hynek.melichar@upol.cz
Office Hours: Tue 14:15-15:15, Wed 15:45-16:45
(office no. 3.19, DPES, 3rd floor)
Selected Tuesdays (see dates below!), 15:45 - 18:15 at 106 lecture
room, DPES, Křížkovského 12, ground floor
I.
THE AIM OF THE COURSE AND ITS ROLE IN THE
OVERALL DEGREE CURRICULUM
This one-semester course is part of the Central European Studies Program (CESP)
offered by the Dpt. of Politics and European Studies. It is offered mainly to foreign
students within the framework of the Erasmus/Socrates program, Euroculture degree
program or to individual foreign students ("free movers"). CESP courses are in a
limited way opened also to students of the DPES, and the Palacký University in
general, as an optional course.
The course acquaints students with chosen important and mutually interrelated
aspects of politics, culture and society in East-Central Europe (mostly V4 countries)
in the 20th and 21st centuries and puts emphasis on their reflections in
cinematography. Combining lectures, discussions, readings, audio-visual materials
and movie projections, this course should provide students with better understanding
of selected important cultural and socio-political issues that have shaped
contemporary Central Europe and its intellectual, societal, political and cultural
space. The course complements, deepens understanding of, and provides for different
perspectives on, some important issues and themes rising from other CESP courses
(e.g. Central European History, Ethnic Minorities in CE, etc.) and stresses their
mutual interconnectedness.
II. METHODS
The course is based largely on audio-visual material and movie projections within 2,5
hrs. class sessions. Projections are introduced by a lecture on the selected
phenomena. A seminar discussion on the topic supported by assigned readings and
their interpretations follows after the projection.
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III. COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND EVALUATION
Class participation is required, max. 2 absences are allowed per semester. Students
are obliged to read assigned readings prior to each session. Student evaluation
and final grade is based on active participation in seminar discussions and a
written critical essay.
Each student will choose one of the following topics for his/her essay:
1. Is there a common Central European culture and society? What makes it?
Critically discuss.
2. Which factors and events were crucial for the shaping of contemporary Central
European cultural and societal space? Critically discuss.
3. Critically analyze a movie or a literary work depicting cultural and/or societal
aspects of Central Europe.
The essay will follow relevant academic standards including citations and will have 68 pages. It will be based on student’s own research with supported arguments and
quotes. Students are encouraged to utilize the Central Library and internet article
databases accessible via UP internal network (e.g. in the Central Library or at the
dormitories).
Essay submissions will be due by December 11th 2012 in both electronic
and printed copies.
IV. COURSE PROGRAM
INTRODUCTORY CLASS – COURSE PROGRAM AND REQUIREMENTS –
September 18th
1st SESSION – September 25th
WHAT IS CENTRAL EUROPE? IS THERE A CENTRAL EUROPEAN IDENTITY?
Reading:
- Kundera, Milan. 1984. The Tragedy of Central Europe. The New York Review of
Books, Vol. 31, No. 7, pp. 1-17.
- Ash, Timothy Garton. 1986. Does Central Europe exist?. The New York Review of
Books, October 9, 1986, pp. 112-115.
2nd SESSION – October 9th
JEWS IN CENTRAL EUROPE I
Movie: The Sunshine, HU co-production, 1999, 181 min. (1st part)
Reading:
- Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. Comparative Cultural Studies and the Study of Central
European Culture. In Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. Comparative Central European
Culture. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, pp. 1-27.
- Recommended:
o Piotrowski, Piotr. 2009. In the Shadow of Yalta: Art and the Avant-garde in
Eastern Europe, 1945-1989. London: Reaktion Books, pp. 7-29 (Introduction).
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2nd SESSION II – October 16th
JEWS IN CENTRAL EUROPE II
Movie: The Sunshine, HU co-production, 1999, 181 min. (2nd part)
Reading:
- Suleiman, Susan Rubin. 2002. Central Europe, Jewish Family History, and
Sunshine. In: Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. Comparative Central European Culture.
West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, pp. 169-186.
- Gantner, Eszter B., Kovács, Mátyás. The Constructed Jew: A pragmatic approach for
defining a collective Central European image of Jews. In Šiaučiunaite-Verbickiene,
Jurgita and Lempertiene, Larisa (eds.). 2007. Jewish Space in Central and Eastern
Europe: Day-to-Day History. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 211223.
3rd SESSION – October 30th
SPORT, POLITICS AND SOCIETY
Movie: Freedom’s Fury, USA-HU, 2006, 90 min.; Communism and Football, BBC Four
documentary, 59 min.
Reading:
- Riordan, James. 2007. Impact of Communism on Sport. Historical Social Research,
Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 110-115.
- Jokisipilä, Markku. 2005. Cold War on Ice. Conference Paper Sport between East
and West, University of Zürich, 7./8. 10. 2005, pp. 1-7.
- “Citizens at play” In Molloy, Peter. 2009. The Lost World of Communism: An Oral
History of Daily Life Behind the Iron Curtain. BBC Books, pp. 135-158.
- Recommended:
o Riordan, James. The Sports Policy of The Soviet Union, 1917-41. In Arnaud, p.
and Riordan, J. 2003. Sport and International Politics: The impact of fascism
and communism on sport. London-NY: Routledge, pp. 67-77.
4th SESSION – November 13th
CENTRAL EUROPEAN CINEMATOGRAPHY – CZECHOSLOVAK “NEW WAVE” OF THE
1960s
Movie: Fireman’s Ball, CS, 1967, 71 min.
Reading:
- Hames, Peter. The Czechoslovak New Wave? A revolution denied. In Badley, Linda et
al. (eds.). 2006. Traditions in World Cinema. Edinburg University Press, pp. 67-79.
- Hames, Peter. 2009. Czech and Slovak Cinema. Theme and Tradition. Edinburgh
University Press. Chapter 4 “Politics”, pp. 75-93.
- Recommended:
o Hames, Peter. 1985. The Czechoslovak New Wave. Berkley-L.A.-London:
University of California Press. Chapter I “Culture and Society”, pp. 11-34.
o Stojanova, Christina. Postcommunist Cinema: The politics of gender and
genre. In Badley, Linda et al. (eds.). 2006. Traditions in World Cinema.
Edinburg University Press, pp. 95-110.
o Mazierska, Ewa. Polish Martial Law of 1981 in Polish post-communist films:
Between romanticism and postmodernism. Communist and Post-communist
Studies, 42 (2009), pp. 289-304.
o Portuges, Catherine. Border Crossings: Recent Trends in East and Central
European Cinema. Slavic Review, Vol. 51, No. 3 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 531-535.
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5th SESSION – November 27th
ALTERNATIVE CULTURE AND UNDERGROUND
Movie: The Beats of Freedom, PL, 2010 + various videos and other audio-visual material
Reading:
- Velinger, Jan et al. 2004. A brief look at 'protest' music plus the underground scene
in Czechoslovakia from 1968 – 1989. http://www.radio.cz/en/section/special/abrief-look-at-protest-music-plus-the-underground-scene-in-czechoslovakia-from1968-1989
- Machovec, Martin. The Types and Functions of Samizdat Publications in
Czechoslovakia, 1948 – 1989. Poetics Today, Vol. 30, No 1 /Publish and Perish:
Samizdat and Underground Cultural Practices in the Soviet Bloc (II), ed. V. Todorov/,
Duke University Press, Durham, NC, USA, Spring 2009, pp. 1-26.
- Recommended:
o “The Dynamic 1960s, Part Two: Key Productions in New Studio Theatres and
Elsewhere”. In Burian, Jarka M. 2000. Modern Czech Theatre: Reflector and
Conscience of a Nation. University of Iowa Press, pp. 111-136.
o Beck, Dennis C. 1996. Divadlo Husa na Provázku and the “Absence” of Czech
Community. Theatre Journal, Vol. 48, No. 4, Eastern-European Transitions
(Dec., 1996), pp. 419-441.
o Piotrowski, Piotr. 2009. In the Shadow of Yalta: Art and the Avant-garde in
Eastern Europe, 1945-1989. London: Reaktion Books. “Epilogue: The Spectres
Hunting Europe in 1980s”, pp. 391-439.
6th SESSION – December 4th
REMEMBERING EVERYDAY LIFE IN COMMUNISM
Movie: The Lost World of Communism, 2009 BBC documentary. Ep. 1: A Socialist Paradise
and Ep. 2: The Kingdom of Forgetting (59 + 59 min.)
Reading:
- Tóth, Eszter Zsófia. “My work, My Family and My Car”: Women’s Memories of Work
Consumerism, and Leisure in Socialist Hungary. In Penn, Shana and Massino, Jill.
2009. Gender Politics and Everyday Life in State Socialist Eastern and Central
Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 33-44.
- “Socialist Youth” In Molloy, Peter. 2009. The Lost World of Communism: An Oral
History of Daily Life Behind the Iron Curtain. BBC Books, pp. 110-134.
- Recommended:
o Esbenshade, Richard S. 1995. Remembering to Forget: Memory, History,
National Identity In Postwar East-Central Europe. Representations, No. 49
(special issue), pp. 72-96.
o Ziólkowski, Marek. Remembering and Forgetting after Communism. The
Polish Case. Polish Sociological Review, 2002, no. 1, pp. 7-24.
o Liodden, Tone Maia. 2006. Czech Emigrants Before and After the Iron
Curtain: Life stories in the context of changing cultural narratives (Master’s
thesis in sociology). Dept. of Sociology and Human Geography, University of
Oslo.
7th SESSION – December 11th (essay deadline)
“POST-COMMUNISM”
Movie: Czech Dream, CZ 2004, 90 min.
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Reading:
- Howard, Marc. 2002. The Weakness of Post-Communist Civil Society. Journal of
Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 1. January 2002, pp. 157-169
- Stroehlien, Andrew. 1999. Czech Intellectuals and “Post-communism”. Central
Europe Review, Vol. 1, No. 14. http://www.ce-review.org/99/14/stroehlein14.html
- Recommended:
o Szczerbiak, Aleks. 2002. Dealing with the Communist Past or the Politics of
the Present? Lustration in Post-Communist Poland. Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.
54, No. 4 (Jun 2002), pp. 553-572.
o Kubik, Jan. 2003. “Cultural Legacies of State Socialism: History Making and
Cultural-Political Entrepreneurship in Postcommunist Poland and Russia. In
Ekiert, Grzegorz and Hanson, Stephen (eds.). 2003. Capitalism and
Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe: Assessing the Legacy of
Communist Rule. Cambridge University Press, pp. 317-344.
o Kumar, Krishan. 1992. The Revolutions of 1989: Socialism, Capitalism and
Democracy. Theory and Society, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Jun., 1992), pp. 309-356.
o http://theargus.net.au/Prague/
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