This paper discusses the presence of women writers in Czech literature textbooks after 1989. It f... more This paper discusses the presence of women writers in Czech literature textbooks after 1989. It focuses on three periods: the communist period (1948 – 1989), the years immediately following the Velvet Revolution of 1989 (i.e., the early 1990s), and finally the post-communist and capitalist period (mid-1990s to 2009).
This paper looks at the use of games in teaching Russian as a foreign language. It discusses the ... more This paper looks at the use of games in teaching Russian as a foreign language. It discusses the didactical usefulness of games in foreign language teaching and highlights the most important points for language teachers who want to introduce games in their classrooms. It further provides the examples of games - performative games, movement games, games with objects, board and card games, and pure language games - that can be used in teaching Russian.
This paper explores the presence of gender-conscious attitudes in the works of the Czech author L... more This paper explores the presence of gender-conscious attitudes in the works of the Czech author Lenka Prochazkova (born 1951), a member of the dissident movement during the communist regime. It argues that her writings took issue with patriarchal social structures, yet sometimes camouflaged these challenges behind criticism of the totalitarian rule. These expressions, which one might be tempted to consider as feminist from a Western and 21st-century point of view, emerged within East European dissident culture and probably without exposure to Western feminist concepts. Prochazkova developed a model of an inner exile for dissidents that originated in a canonical work of Czech literature by Božena Němcova and from which one of her female protagonists draws strength. Thus, her works suggest that Western gender theories are limited in their potential to assess East European dissident women’s writing, when they fail to include local literary traditions.
The final conference of the COST Action IS0901 „Women Writers in History“ took place from 19-21 J... more The final conference of the COST Action IS0901 „Women Writers in History“ took place from 19-21 June 2013 at the Huygens ING (grant holder of the Action) in The Hague in the Netherlands. Approximately fifty participants outlined the new knowledge that had been discovered about the role of women writers in Europe up to the beginning of the 20th century, demonstrated how the conception and development of new tools enabled researchers to analyse new data in new sources, and presented the new collaborations that had been created thanks to this COST Action. The detailled program and the corresponding abstracts upon which this report is based can be found on http://www.womenwriters.nl/index.php/European_Female_Authorship:_Networks_and_Obstacles.
This article explores the use of activity-oriented tasks in undergraduate studies, in particular ... more This article explores the use of activity-oriented tasks in undergraduate studies, in particular of Russian literature and philology. For some time now theories on literary studies have advocated such tasks; however, not much progress has been made at undergraduate level. As we understand them, activity-oriented tasks are designed to help students develop an active approach to literature and sharp their analytical skills. They can make a significant contribution towards reaching the goals of undergraduate studies, they can also make courses livelier and more interesting. This is higly significant because as the humanities are becoming increasingly economised, undergraduate literary studies are coming under greater pressure to justify their validity, and marginalisation threatens in various locations. The article is structured as follows: First we present an outline of current challenges for undergraduate literary courses; next we set out learning goals for such courses. Then we present the concept of activity-oriented teaching of literature and a number of tasks. A generous practical part illustrates our ideas with tried and proven sample tasks using predominantly Russian literary texts. Various forms of activity are presented, such as visualising literary texts; reading them aloud; altering texts; and creating frozen tableaus based on extracts of texts.
The article „The factographical teaching of literature at Czech schools and its criticism (1820-2... more The article „The factographical teaching of literature at Czech schools and its criticism (1820-2011) discusses theories about the teaching of Czech literature from the 19th century to the present day. The authors suggest that the so-called „factographical“ type of literature teaching, which mainly focussed on facts from literary history, was repeatedly criticized in studies on the teaching of literature. Simultaneously, theorists kept emphasizing the benefits of a type of literature teaching that was based on the principles of independent reading, learner-centred analysis, and assignments that involved creative approaches. This discrepance between a factographical type of literature teaching as it existed in the experience of many teachers and learners, and an ideal type of literature teaching as suggested by many critics persisted in various forms of government and political regimes. Among them are the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the First Republic, the socialist regime, the post-socialist period, as well as the capitalist.
The New Zealand Slavonic Journal, special issue: The Czechs and their Neighbours, vol. 46, pp. 23-39, 2014
This contribution explores the relations between the Czechs and the Germans based on the transcul... more This contribution explores the relations between the Czechs and the Germans based on the transcultural influence of the German nineteenth-century bestselling woman author Luise Mühlbach (1814–1873). It suggests that there existed a strong cultural transfer from one linguistic community to the other, especially in the domain of the book trade. Mühlbach’s works, as I will argue, were read both by Czechs and by Germans living in the Czech lands. The notion of ‘neighbour’ in this case adopts a double meaning: On the one hand, it refers to the inhabitants of the German lands, nowadays the neighbouring country of Germany. On the other hand, it points to the Germans that were living in the Czech lands: In this sense, ‘neighbour’ may designate the person that was living next door.
Labyrinth: A Journal of Social and Humanitarian Studies (Special Issue), «Медведь и Россия»: Специальный выпуск журнала «Лабиринт», pp. 87-100, 2013
The article „The Function of the Bear in Boris Polevoi´s Story about a Real Man“ by U. Stohler ar... more The article „The Function of the Bear in Boris Polevoi´s Story about a Real Man“ by U. Stohler argues that the figure of the bear, as manifested in this Socialist Realist novel, acted as a foil for the believe in progress that was inherent in the Soviet thought system. In Polevoi´s novel the bear on the one hand epitomizes the notion of wilderness that the Soviets´ efforts to modernize the country tried to overcome, on the other hand it allegorises the disruption of the natural order that the Second World War inflicted on Russia. These functions of the symbol of the bear emerge when we constrast Polevoi´s novel with Jack London´s short story „Love of Live“, by which it was probably heavily inspired. As numerous parallels between the two works suggest, Polevoi´s novel may be regarded as a Russian version of London´s well-known short story, written with the goal of creating a Soviet tradition of adventure stories: whereas London´s main protagonist has to fight a wolf in order to survive in the wilderness, the life of Polevoi´s leading character depends on his ability to kill a bear and to avoid transforming himself into a bear-like creature.
Dieser Beitrag stellt Ergebnisse einer Untersuchung zu Genderstereotypen im Französisch-lehrwerk ... more Dieser Beitrag stellt Ergebnisse einer Untersuchung zu Genderstereotypen im Französisch-lehrwerk Bonne Chance vor. Er zeigt, dass Genderstereotypen trotz jahrzehntelanger Kritik, zahlreicher internationaler Untersuchungen und trotz der Existenz von Richtlinien für Verlage in diesem Lehrwerk immer noch in grosser Zahl vorhanden sind. Lehrwerke, die oft während Jahrzehnten praktisch unverändert wiederaufgelegt werden, spielen eine entscheidende Rolle bei der Identitätsbildung von Kindern und Jugendlichen. Umso wichtiger ist es, dass sie den Gesellschaftsidealen für zukünftige Generationen von Bürgerinnen und Bürgern entsprechen und die Grenzen der Genderforschung und der Didaktik des Schulbuches durchlässiger wer-den.
This contribution examines the ways in which Sentimentalist ideas about natural equality, which c... more This contribution examines the ways in which Sentimentalist ideas about natural equality, which circulated in Russia during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, were reflected in the work of a little-known woman author, Mariia Bolotnikova (dates of birth and death unknown). By exploring the democratic potential inherent in Sentimentalist discourse, this article suggests that the Sentimentalists’ unconditional valuation of all human beings was applied not only to the problem of serfdom, but also to women’s social inequality. This tendency manifested itself in the works of renowned male writers such as Nikolai Karamzin (1766-1826), and in those of little-known female authors, such as Mariia Bolotnikova. A provincial woman poet with seemingly few contacts to established literary society, Bolotnikova used Sentimentalism’s fascination with nature and femininity to legitimise her activity as an author and to emphasise the woman question. Her criticism of the sexual discrimination that shaped the culture in which she lived was an early, if admittedly small, step towards the creation of awareness of the social inequality of the sexes in Russia.
This paper discusses the presence of women writers in Czech literature textbooks after 1989. It f... more This paper discusses the presence of women writers in Czech literature textbooks after 1989. It focuses on three periods: the communist period (1948 – 1989), the years immediately following the Velvet Revolution of 1989 (i.e., the early 1990s), and finally the post-communist and capitalist period (mid-1990s to 2009).
This paper looks at the use of games in teaching Russian as a foreign language. It discusses the ... more This paper looks at the use of games in teaching Russian as a foreign language. It discusses the didactical usefulness of games in foreign language teaching and highlights the most important points for language teachers who want to introduce games in their classrooms. It further provides the examples of games - performative games, movement games, games with objects, board and card games, and pure language games - that can be used in teaching Russian.
This paper explores the presence of gender-conscious attitudes in the works of the Czech author L... more This paper explores the presence of gender-conscious attitudes in the works of the Czech author Lenka Prochazkova (born 1951), a member of the dissident movement during the communist regime. It argues that her writings took issue with patriarchal social structures, yet sometimes camouflaged these challenges behind criticism of the totalitarian rule. These expressions, which one might be tempted to consider as feminist from a Western and 21st-century point of view, emerged within East European dissident culture and probably without exposure to Western feminist concepts. Prochazkova developed a model of an inner exile for dissidents that originated in a canonical work of Czech literature by Božena Němcova and from which one of her female protagonists draws strength. Thus, her works suggest that Western gender theories are limited in their potential to assess East European dissident women’s writing, when they fail to include local literary traditions.
The final conference of the COST Action IS0901 „Women Writers in History“ took place from 19-21 J... more The final conference of the COST Action IS0901 „Women Writers in History“ took place from 19-21 June 2013 at the Huygens ING (grant holder of the Action) in The Hague in the Netherlands. Approximately fifty participants outlined the new knowledge that had been discovered about the role of women writers in Europe up to the beginning of the 20th century, demonstrated how the conception and development of new tools enabled researchers to analyse new data in new sources, and presented the new collaborations that had been created thanks to this COST Action. The detailled program and the corresponding abstracts upon which this report is based can be found on http://www.womenwriters.nl/index.php/European_Female_Authorship:_Networks_and_Obstacles.
This article explores the use of activity-oriented tasks in undergraduate studies, in particular ... more This article explores the use of activity-oriented tasks in undergraduate studies, in particular of Russian literature and philology. For some time now theories on literary studies have advocated such tasks; however, not much progress has been made at undergraduate level. As we understand them, activity-oriented tasks are designed to help students develop an active approach to literature and sharp their analytical skills. They can make a significant contribution towards reaching the goals of undergraduate studies, they can also make courses livelier and more interesting. This is higly significant because as the humanities are becoming increasingly economised, undergraduate literary studies are coming under greater pressure to justify their validity, and marginalisation threatens in various locations. The article is structured as follows: First we present an outline of current challenges for undergraduate literary courses; next we set out learning goals for such courses. Then we present the concept of activity-oriented teaching of literature and a number of tasks. A generous practical part illustrates our ideas with tried and proven sample tasks using predominantly Russian literary texts. Various forms of activity are presented, such as visualising literary texts; reading them aloud; altering texts; and creating frozen tableaus based on extracts of texts.
The article „The factographical teaching of literature at Czech schools and its criticism (1820-2... more The article „The factographical teaching of literature at Czech schools and its criticism (1820-2011) discusses theories about the teaching of Czech literature from the 19th century to the present day. The authors suggest that the so-called „factographical“ type of literature teaching, which mainly focussed on facts from literary history, was repeatedly criticized in studies on the teaching of literature. Simultaneously, theorists kept emphasizing the benefits of a type of literature teaching that was based on the principles of independent reading, learner-centred analysis, and assignments that involved creative approaches. This discrepance between a factographical type of literature teaching as it existed in the experience of many teachers and learners, and an ideal type of literature teaching as suggested by many critics persisted in various forms of government and political regimes. Among them are the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the First Republic, the socialist regime, the post-socialist period, as well as the capitalist.
The New Zealand Slavonic Journal, special issue: The Czechs and their Neighbours, vol. 46, pp. 23-39, 2014
This contribution explores the relations between the Czechs and the Germans based on the transcul... more This contribution explores the relations between the Czechs and the Germans based on the transcultural influence of the German nineteenth-century bestselling woman author Luise Mühlbach (1814–1873). It suggests that there existed a strong cultural transfer from one linguistic community to the other, especially in the domain of the book trade. Mühlbach’s works, as I will argue, were read both by Czechs and by Germans living in the Czech lands. The notion of ‘neighbour’ in this case adopts a double meaning: On the one hand, it refers to the inhabitants of the German lands, nowadays the neighbouring country of Germany. On the other hand, it points to the Germans that were living in the Czech lands: In this sense, ‘neighbour’ may designate the person that was living next door.
Labyrinth: A Journal of Social and Humanitarian Studies (Special Issue), «Медведь и Россия»: Специальный выпуск журнала «Лабиринт», pp. 87-100, 2013
The article „The Function of the Bear in Boris Polevoi´s Story about a Real Man“ by U. Stohler ar... more The article „The Function of the Bear in Boris Polevoi´s Story about a Real Man“ by U. Stohler argues that the figure of the bear, as manifested in this Socialist Realist novel, acted as a foil for the believe in progress that was inherent in the Soviet thought system. In Polevoi´s novel the bear on the one hand epitomizes the notion of wilderness that the Soviets´ efforts to modernize the country tried to overcome, on the other hand it allegorises the disruption of the natural order that the Second World War inflicted on Russia. These functions of the symbol of the bear emerge when we constrast Polevoi´s novel with Jack London´s short story „Love of Live“, by which it was probably heavily inspired. As numerous parallels between the two works suggest, Polevoi´s novel may be regarded as a Russian version of London´s well-known short story, written with the goal of creating a Soviet tradition of adventure stories: whereas London´s main protagonist has to fight a wolf in order to survive in the wilderness, the life of Polevoi´s leading character depends on his ability to kill a bear and to avoid transforming himself into a bear-like creature.
Dieser Beitrag stellt Ergebnisse einer Untersuchung zu Genderstereotypen im Französisch-lehrwerk ... more Dieser Beitrag stellt Ergebnisse einer Untersuchung zu Genderstereotypen im Französisch-lehrwerk Bonne Chance vor. Er zeigt, dass Genderstereotypen trotz jahrzehntelanger Kritik, zahlreicher internationaler Untersuchungen und trotz der Existenz von Richtlinien für Verlage in diesem Lehrwerk immer noch in grosser Zahl vorhanden sind. Lehrwerke, die oft während Jahrzehnten praktisch unverändert wiederaufgelegt werden, spielen eine entscheidende Rolle bei der Identitätsbildung von Kindern und Jugendlichen. Umso wichtiger ist es, dass sie den Gesellschaftsidealen für zukünftige Generationen von Bürgerinnen und Bürgern entsprechen und die Grenzen der Genderforschung und der Didaktik des Schulbuches durchlässiger wer-den.
This contribution examines the ways in which Sentimentalist ideas about natural equality, which c... more This contribution examines the ways in which Sentimentalist ideas about natural equality, which circulated in Russia during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, were reflected in the work of a little-known woman author, Mariia Bolotnikova (dates of birth and death unknown). By exploring the democratic potential inherent in Sentimentalist discourse, this article suggests that the Sentimentalists’ unconditional valuation of all human beings was applied not only to the problem of serfdom, but also to women’s social inequality. This tendency manifested itself in the works of renowned male writers such as Nikolai Karamzin (1766-1826), and in those of little-known female authors, such as Mariia Bolotnikova. A provincial woman poet with seemingly few contacts to established literary society, Bolotnikova used Sentimentalism’s fascination with nature and femininity to legitimise her activity as an author and to emphasise the woman question. Her criticism of the sexual discrimination that shaped the culture in which she lived was an early, if admittedly small, step towards the creation of awareness of the social inequality of the sexes in Russia.
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