HISTORY OF CZECH CULTURE

The course is part of the curriculum and aims at understanding the history of Czech literature and culture, the theory of literary history and the analysis of literary text.


The aim of the course is to deepen the knowledge of cultural and literary production in the Czech language as well as of a literary and cultural investigation. The analysis of the text is inserted in the historical - cultural discourse both in a diachronic sense, that is as a history of literature, and synchronically, as a specific phenomenon within a pulsating cultural system. The achievement of these objectives allows the student to enrich his literary and cultural education both in analytical and synthetic terms.

1. Knowledge and understanding
● Know the basic linguistic terminology and understand the texts that make it
use.
● To know literary production and its interaction with the different spheres of culture.
● To know the theory of analysis of the literary text in its linguistic, literary and cultural components.

2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
● (Know the basic linguistic terminology and understand the texts that make it
use.) Knowing how to properly use linguistic terminology in all processes
application and communication of acquired knowledge.
● (Knowing the literary production and its interaction with the different spheres of culture.) Knowing how to relate the analysis of the specific text with contemporary and coherent critical production in addition to the mechanisms for using the text
● (To know the tools of analysis of the literary text in its linguistic, literary, cultural components.) To be able to apply the analysis tools and the literary production as a whole to the single specific text.

4. Communication skills
● Know how to communicate the specificities of literary reflection, using one
appropriate terminology.
● Knowing how to interact with peers and with the tutor, in a critical and respectful manner, in the presence and
on the virtual classroom forum.
5. Learning skills
.
● Knowing how to critically consult the reference texts and the bibliography in them
contained.

Knowledge of the English language is required in order to study the exam bibliography.
Knowledge of the Czech language is not required.

The aim of the course is to provide an overview of the representation of the Shoah in Czech culture. Particular attention will be given to film production.
The course intends to investigate some foundamental elements of memory as the dimension of the witness and the survivor, the representability and the language of the shoah,.
The links between the memory of the Shoah and the socialist and post-socialist cultural discourse in the Czech / Czechoslovakian context will be also investigated.

J. Otčenášek, Romeo, Giulietta e le tenebre. (Romeo, Juliet and Darkness )
L. Fuks, Il bruciacadaveri. (The Cremator)
L. Fuks, Il signor Theodor Mundstock ( Mr. Theodore Mundstock)
J. Weil, Una vita con la stella. (Life With A Star )

Partial bibliography:
Jiří Holý, The Jews and the Shoah in Czech Literature after World War II, “Russian Literature”, vol 77, n. 1, pp. 35-53;
J. Holy eds., The representation of the Shoah in Literature, Theatre and Film in Central Europe: 1950s and 1960s, Central Europe, Centrum pro stadium holocaust a židovské literatury, 2012
Marek Kucia, “Holocaust Memorials in Central and Eastern Europe: Communist Legacies, Transnational Influences and National Developments”, Remembrance and Solidarity Studies , 5 2016.
T. Sniegon, Vanished history. The Holocaust in Czech and Slovak Hisotrical Culture, Berghahn 2014
Langford, Barry, “You cannot look at this’: Thresholds of Unrepresentability in Holocaust film”, The Journal of Holocaust Education, 01 December 1999, Vol.8(3), pp.23-40
Rauch Stefanie, “Understanding the Holocaust through Film: Audience Reception between Preconceptions and Media Effects”, History & Memory, 2018, Vol.30(1), pp.151-188
M. Rothberg, Traumatic Realism. The Demands of Holocaust Representation, University of Minnesota Press 2000

A. Minuz, La Shoah e la cultura visuale, Bulzoni 2010

The final exam consists of an oral interview based on the contents of the module and on a written paper.
The paper must be delivered at the end of the course. The assignment of the theme of the paper will be done during the course.
Non-attending students are required to contact the teacher for the assignment of the specific topic to be presented during the examination

The course consists of lectures and seminar moments. Students are required to read texts or watch audiovisual material which will then be discussed in the classroom.
The course takes place in a blended mode at 50%. All information will be available in the teaching moodle space

Italian

oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development