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Lecturer(s)
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Course content
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LECTURES 1) Introduction to the Course. What Is Culture? What Is Literature? What Is a Work of Art? Low Culture, High Culture, Mass Culture, Popular Culture 2) The Problem of the Author (author function, the death of the author, auteur, implied author, narrator, focalizer). Speech, Thought and Narrative. Stream of Consciousness 3) The Three Genres (Aristotle), Tragedy vs Comedy, Basic Elements of Dramatic Plots. 4) Narrative Levels and Plots (Propp, Campbell, Freytag). Fabula and Sjuzet. Myth Criticism (Frye, Levi-Strauss, Eliade, Jung). 5) The Basics of Structuralist Criticism (de Saussure's sign, Jakobson's model of communication and language functions) 6) Psychoanalytic Criticism 7) Basic Elements of Poetry (Rhythm, Rhyme, Tropes and Figures) 8) Poststructuralism: Power, Surveillance and Simulacra (Nietzsche, Foucault, Baudrillard, Althusser). 9) Posthumanism, Deconstruction, Anthropocene 10) Postcolonialism 11) The Basics of Feminist and Gender Criticism 12) Postmodern (Fredric Jameson), Intertextuality, Adaptation and Visual Media 13) Transmediality and Convergence Culture; Audience and Fandom 14) Closure, Revision. SEMINARS will serve as supplementary sessions to the Lectures. Students will be introduced to topics and areas such as the relationship of popular and high culture, a historical overview of specific theories of literature and culture (from formalist theories, to structuralism, the basics of narratology, psychoanalysis, postcolonial theories, feminist theories and gender studies, intertextuality and adaptation, theories of the Postmodern including deconstruction, Anthropocene studies, and the impacts of visual and digital media). The seminars will be based on presentations and discussions. Specific topics and reading lists will be distirbuted at the beginning of the semester.
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Learning activities and teaching methods
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Independent creative and artistic activities, Lecture, Seminár, E-learning
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Learning outcomes
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The aim of this course is to provide students with the necessary theoretical background for the analysis of literary texts and cultural artifacts. During the semester, students will become familiar with the basic aspects of literary and film works and will learn to identify works of art in general. Students will also be introduced to the study of genres and the most important critical and theoretical movements of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. At the end of the course, students will be able to identify issues of power and identity (e.g. sexual and ethical), and will also be aware of the social quality of values ??and groups. The course will also prepare them for further study in the field of literary and cultural analysis and help them to realize the ingrainedness of stereotypes of thinking and prejudices. The course thus warns students about the dangers of bias and leads them to become more receptive thinkers who are open to the opinions of others.
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Prerequisites
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unspecified
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Assessment methods and criteria
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Oral exam, Oral presentation of self-study, Test
- Due to the University's study regulations, attendance is compulsory; 3 absences are allowed. - Students take one written test to receive the credit (zápočet). The test covers the content of the lectures.
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Recommended literature
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Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. 2003.
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Bauman, Zygmunt. Globalization: The Human Consequences. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
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De Man, Paul. Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism. London: Routledge, 2013.
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Derrida, Jacques and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Of Grammatology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.
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Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2015.
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Fludernik, Monika. An Introduction to Narratology. London: Routledge, 2009.
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Giles, Judy and Tim Middleton. Studying Culture. A Practical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 2010.
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Hawkes, Terence. Structuralism and Semiotics. New York: Routledge, 2005.
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Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1991.
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Klages, M. Literary Theory. A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum, 2006.
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McHale, Brian. Constructing Postmodernism. London: Routledge, 2006.
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Montgomery, Martin, et al. Ways of Reading: Advanced Reading Skills for Students of English Literature.. London: Routledge, 2013.
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Silverman, Kaja. The Subject of Semiotics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
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