Contemporary Literary and Cultural Discourses in Central Europe

Timetable

Module aim (aims)

The students gain the ability to analyse and synthesize, general knowledge, primary knowledge in the field of Central European art, political and literary history

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

critical abilities, interdisciplinary skills, ability to appreciate cultural diversity, ability to work in the individual and collective way

Syllabus

Course learning content:

Explaining and briefly describing the history of the concept of Central Europe, diversity in its definition and its delimiting. Central Europe - between geography and history; “Maximum of diversity at the minimum of area” - an attempt of defining Central Europe; Where does the Central Europe lie? Europe of fading borders.

Presentation of the culture or traditions of Central Europe and historical, geopolitical, national, transnational, literary context of its existence. Central European cities – Central European cultural centers; What is he like and whether exists „homo Europae centralis”?; Central Europe – a view from the outside.

Presentation of the culture or traditions of Central Europe and historical, geopolitical, national, transnational, literary context of its existence; The role of the Greco-Roman tradition in „shaping” Central European culture; Central Europen Enlightement traditions.

Discussion on the social and political phenomena that determine the shape of literature and culture of selected Central European countries (in the past and currently). Between the Middle Ages and the 18th century; „Reviving” Europe; Central Europe in the context of World War I; Central Europe in the context of World War II; Central Europe in the context of Holocaust; Central Europe – „an island in a sea of communism”? Postwar experience; Central Europe - the space formed by dissidents and writers?

Reading list

• Ash, T.G. (1999). The Uses of Adversity. Essays on the Fate of Central Europe. London: Penguin Books.
• Ash, T.G. (2009). Facts are subversive. Political Writing from a Decade Without a Name. New Heven– London: Yale University Press.
• Baár, M. (2010). Historians and Nationalizm. East-Central Europe in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press.
• Čepič, Z. (ed.) (2008). 1945 – A Break with the Past. A History of Central European Countries at the End of World War Two. Ljubljana: Institute for Contemporary History.
• Chosen number of periodical “Herito” – a bilingual English-Polish quarterly on Central European heritage and culture published by the International Cultural Centre (http://www.herito.pl/en).
• Dolański, D., Pufelska, A. (eds.) (2012). Notions of the Self. The Search for Identity in the East Central Europe in the 18th Century. Zielona Góra–Potsdam: Oficyna Wydawnicza Uniwersytetu Zielonogórskiego.
• Pudłocki, T., Ruszała K. (eds.) (2018). Intellectuals and World War I. A Central European Perspective. Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press.
• Riedel, R. (ed.) (2010). Central Europe. Two Decades After. Warsaw: Centre for Europe (University of Warsaw) and Institute of Political Science (Opole University).