20th Century Prague Literature in International Contexts

The course aims to cover selected chapters of 20th-century Czech literature as part of the Central- and East-European and Anglo-American contexts, presenting Prague and the literature produced here at the crossroads of multiple languages, traditions, poetic and aesthetic systems. The canonical Czech-writing authors include, among others, Jaroslav Hasek, Karel Capek, the poetist poets (Nezval, Seifert, Biebl), Bohumil Hrabal, Milan Kundera, Josef Skvorecký, Ivan Blatný, & Václav Havel. The international context is provided by German-writing authors such as Gustav Meyrink, Franz Kafka, & Robert Musil, by the Russian writers Vladimir Mayakovsky, Mikhail Bulgakov & Marina Tsvetayeva, as well as the many French and Anglophone poets writing in/about Prague.

The seminar will conclude with an overview of the post-1989 situation, where Prague literature has once again become the locus of lively international exchange and prominent Czech or Prague-based writers (Jáchym Topol, Michal Ajvaz, Tom Stoppard, Tom McCarthy, & Louis Armand) have re-entered into dialogue with other traditions and languages. Discussion of the literary texts is complemented by their historical/theoretical backgrounds, provided by the work of Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, Martin Esslin, Sigmund Freud, Angelo Maria Ripellino, et al.