Skip to main content

Christopher Koy

University of South Bohemia, Department of English, Faculty Member

Charles University, Prague, Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, Alumnus

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Alumnus

Followers

695

Following

132

Public Views

Almae materes:
B.A., Beloit College
- Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg (junior yr abroad)
M.A., University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign
Ph.D., Charles University, Prague

I studied German, philosophy and English at Beloit College, University of Illinois and Charles University (in Prague). I teach 19th and 20th century literature of the United States as well as English conversation and composition to future Czech teachers of English.

In 2007 Kamila Vránková and I co-edited the proceedings of a literature conference entitled "Dream, Imagination and Reality in Literature" held in České Budějovice in the previous year. The articles can be accessed here

https://www.pf.jcu.cz/structure/departments/kaj/o-katedre/publikacni-cinnost/sbaas2007/

(ORCID: 0000-0002-2299-198X)

less

InterestsView All (14)

Uploads

Journal articles by Christopher Koy

Folklore and Voodoo in Zora Neale Hurston's 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'

B. A. S. British and American Studies (XXVII), 2021

Zora Neale Hurston's best-known novel, 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' (1937), has become a major ... more Zora Neale Hurston's best-known novel, 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' (1937), has become a major part of the African American as well as the American literary canon, though it had not always received a large readership. As a trained ethnologist (8.A., Columbia tJniversity, 1925), Hurston had conducted field work in the Southern states of the U.S. as well as in' the Bahamas, Jamaica and Haiti, and published in scholarly journals as well as one book of collected folklore 'Mules and Men' (1935) before 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' was written and published. This contribution attempts to show the impact and influence her cultural anthropology field work exerted on the novel.

Obsessive Butcher: Francis Brady's Gift and Exchange in Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy

Ostrava Journal of English Philology 12:2, 2020

Patrick McCabe's novel The Butcher Boy (1992) has been critically examined from a very large numb... more Patrick McCabe's novel The Butcher Boy (1992) has been critically examined from a very large number of perspectives for over a quarter of a century. Instead of a comprehensive look at the entire Irish novel or an analysis of the compelling language, psychology, or its historical context, this article will narrowly focus on Derrida's look at the ethics of gifts and exchanges and apply his notions to the nature and eventual deterioration of the close relationship between Francis (Francie) Brady and his childhood friend Joe Purcell as a contribution to an understanding about the homicidal behavior of the narrator Francis Brady.

"What will thou do, old man?" -Refashioning Lear's Descent into Madness in Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater

Ostrava Journal of English Philology, 2017

An intertextual study of Philip Roth's novel Sabbath's Theater and William Shakespeare's play Kin... more

Confronting Intolerance in Post-Conflict Kosovo Through Literary Fiction

Lingua Viva, 2015

Half-Jew, Half-Gentile: The " Very Very Screwed Up " Child in "The Family Carnovsky" and "American Pastoral"

Litteraria Pragensia - Studies in Literature and Culture, Jul 2015

In this article I trace numerous similarities in plot, setting, characters and motif in two novel... more In this article I trace numerous similarities in plot, setting, characters and motif in two novels. The approaching European war and holocaust in Israel Joshua Singer's novel The Family Carnovsky and the brutality of the Vietnam War of Roth's novel American Pastoral serve as the dreadful conditions which trigger the half-Jewish teenage child in each novel to revolt against the assimilating Jewish father figure and commit subversive acts against the U.S. government. I argue that the numerous similarities are not merely coincidental in this intertextual study, but that Roth has most likely updated Singer's depiction of a pre-WWII refuge family to America's next major crisis, namely the Vietnam era in the 1960s and 1970s.

Applying Strategies of the Snobographer: Charles W. Chesnutt’s Use of Thackeray in Two ‘Blue Vein Society’ Stories

American and British Studies Annual, 2015

African American Vernacular Latin and Ovidian Figures in Charles Chesnutt's Conjure Stories

Litteraria Pragensia - Studies in Literature and Culture, Jul 2011

After the audacious study and profound interest in Latin literature by the autodidact Charles Che... more After the audacious study and profound interest in Latin literature by the autodidact Charles Chesnutt is presented, this contribution argues that, unlike scholarship up to now pointing to orally-passed African American folktales, many of Chesnutt's Conjure Woman stories are in fact variations of selected stories from Ovid's masterpiece Metamorphoses. This claim is underscored by citing specific incidences of conjuring of North Carolina slaves into animals and trees in Chesnutt's stories with the magic (Voodoo) transformations of characters in selections of Metamorphoses by Ovid. This use of Ovid by Chesnutt is argued to be an example of "signifying" as described in the theory of African American rhetoric by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in his study, The Signifying Monkey.

Junot Díaz's "Aurora" and "Aguantando" as Minor Literature

Ostrava Journal of English Philology, 2012

Mark Twain o vyučování a učení se jazykům

Cizí Jazyky: Časopis pro teorii a praxi, 2009

This article, written in Czech, translates into English as "Mark Twain on Foreign Language Teachi... more This article, written in Czech, translates into English as "Mark Twain on Foreign Language Teaching and Learning." It shows both his humorous and serious writing about struggles he and his children encountered learning German, French and Italian. Occasionally he presents innovative ideas of learning, such as acquiring a language through play, which was ahead of his time.

Invited talks by Christopher Koy

Ohiyesa and His Role in Attempting to End Hostilities between Native Americans and the U.S. Government.pdf

Conference talk on Ohiyesa or Charles Eastman on August 6, 2019 in Fairfield Bay, Arkansas

Educating the Next Generation of Kosovars

2014 - Abstracts of "15 Years of Peacekeeping in Kosovo - Lessons Learned for the Region"

Philip Roth's Bohemia

2007 - Lehrstuhl für Amerikanistik - Universität Augsburg (Germany)

Interviews by Christopher Koy

"Christopher Koy: Česká stopa Philipa Rotha"

Interview (in Czech) about Philip Roth and his literary connections to Franz Kafka and the Czech ... more

Book Chapters by Christopher Koy

Representations of the Québécois in Brian Moore's Novels

Considering Identity: Views on Canadian Literature and History. (Olomouc: Palacky University, 2015), 141-156.

Belfast-born Canadian novelist Brian Moore (1921-1999) wrote novels which include a complex portr... more Belfast-born Canadian novelist Brian Moore (1921-1999) wrote novels which include a complex portrait of the Québécois. His first Canadian novel, The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1960), presents Montreal government officials, many of them French-speaking, as less sympathetic to the Irish immigrant protagonist. In later Canadian novels, however, Moore develops greater sympathy for the French-speaking minority. As a former Catholic within Protestant-dominated Northern Ireland, Moore includes insightful history of French-Canadian missionary work with distinct political and cultural overtones in both Black Robe (1985) and No Other Life (1997). He explores the national division of Canada during the period of violent upheaval surrounding the “October Crisis” in his neglected work, The Revolution Script (1971). Significantly, Moore’s sympathy for the Front de Libération du Québec (or FLQ) kidnappers comes at the expense of Pierre Trudeau, depicted as an actor. This contribution traces the development of Moore’s fictional portrait of the Québécois, a perspective which may be unique given both his immigrant “outsider” status and his early experiences as a minority in Belfast.

Book Reviews by Christopher Koy

Review of "In Our Own Image: Fictional Representations of William Shakespeare." David Livingstone. (Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2019)

Prague Journal of English Studies, 2020

Review of "Violent Disruptions: American Imaginations of Racial Anxiety in William Faulkner & Richard Wright." Linda Chavers. (NY: Peter Lang, 2019).

Litteraria Pragensia - Studies in Literature and Culture, 2019

Review of Linda CHAVERS, "Violent Disruptions: American Imaginations of Racial Anxiety in William... more

Review of "Diaspora in the Fiction of Andrea Levy." Pavlina Flajsarova. (Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2014.)

Lingua Viva, 2017

Review of a monograph by Pavlina Flajsarova entitled "Diaspora in the Fiction of Andrea Levy" (20... more

Review of "Prag in der amerikanischen Literatur: Cynthia Ozick und Philip Roth." Simone Kraus. (Frankfurt: Peter Lang 2015)

Litteraria Pragensia - Studies in Literature and Culture, 2016

Book review of a 2014 dissertation defended at the University of Mainz and published in 2015.

Review of "Why Teach? In Defense of a Real Education." Mark Edmundson. (New York: Bloombury, 2013).

Lingua Viva, 2014

A critical review of "Why Teach? In Defense of a Real Education." (It is a collection of essays ... more

Review of "Teacher Man." Frank McCourt. (New York: Harper Perennial, 2005).

ATEČR Newsletter. Journal of English Language Teaching, 2007

A review of a memoir by the Irish-American writer Frank McCourt about his career as a New York Ci... more

Folklore and Voodoo in Zora Neale Hurston's 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'

B. A. S. British and American Studies (XXVII), 2021

Zora Neale Hurston's best-known novel, 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' (1937), has become a major ... more Zora Neale Hurston's best-known novel, 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' (1937), has become a major part of the African American as well as the American literary canon, though it had not always received a large readership. As a trained ethnologist (8.A., Columbia tJniversity, 1925), Hurston had conducted field work in the Southern states of the U.S. as well as in' the Bahamas, Jamaica and Haiti, and published in scholarly journals as well as one book of collected folklore 'Mules and Men' (1935) before 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' was written and published. This contribution attempts to show the impact and influence her cultural anthropology field work exerted on the novel.

Obsessive Butcher: Francis Brady's Gift and Exchange in Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy

Ostrava Journal of English Philology 12:2, 2020

Patrick McCabe's novel The Butcher Boy (1992) has been critically examined from a very large numb... more Patrick McCabe's novel The Butcher Boy (1992) has been critically examined from a very large number of perspectives for over a quarter of a century. Instead of a comprehensive look at the entire Irish novel or an analysis of the compelling language, psychology, or its historical context, this article will narrowly focus on Derrida's look at the ethics of gifts and exchanges and apply his notions to the nature and eventual deterioration of the close relationship between Francis (Francie) Brady and his childhood friend Joe Purcell as a contribution to an understanding about the homicidal behavior of the narrator Francis Brady.

"What will thou do, old man?" -Refashioning Lear's Descent into Madness in Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater

Ostrava Journal of English Philology, 2017

An intertextual study of Philip Roth's novel Sabbath's Theater and William Shakespeare's play Kin... more

Confronting Intolerance in Post-Conflict Kosovo Through Literary Fiction

Lingua Viva, 2015

Half-Jew, Half-Gentile: The " Very Very Screwed Up " Child in "The Family Carnovsky" and "American Pastoral"

Litteraria Pragensia - Studies in Literature and Culture, Jul 2015

In this article I trace numerous similarities in plot, setting, characters and motif in two novel... more In this article I trace numerous similarities in plot, setting, characters and motif in two novels. The approaching European war and holocaust in Israel Joshua Singer's novel The Family Carnovsky and the brutality of the Vietnam War of Roth's novel American Pastoral serve as the dreadful conditions which trigger the half-Jewish teenage child in each novel to revolt against the assimilating Jewish father figure and commit subversive acts against the U.S. government. I argue that the numerous similarities are not merely coincidental in this intertextual study, but that Roth has most likely updated Singer's depiction of a pre-WWII refuge family to America's next major crisis, namely the Vietnam era in the 1960s and 1970s.

Applying Strategies of the Snobographer: Charles W. Chesnutt’s Use of Thackeray in Two ‘Blue Vein Society’ Stories

American and British Studies Annual, 2015

African American Vernacular Latin and Ovidian Figures in Charles Chesnutt's Conjure Stories

Litteraria Pragensia - Studies in Literature and Culture, Jul 2011

After the audacious study and profound interest in Latin literature by the autodidact Charles Che... more After the audacious study and profound interest in Latin literature by the autodidact Charles Chesnutt is presented, this contribution argues that, unlike scholarship up to now pointing to orally-passed African American folktales, many of Chesnutt's Conjure Woman stories are in fact variations of selected stories from Ovid's masterpiece Metamorphoses. This claim is underscored by citing specific incidences of conjuring of North Carolina slaves into animals and trees in Chesnutt's stories with the magic (Voodoo) transformations of characters in selections of Metamorphoses by Ovid. This use of Ovid by Chesnutt is argued to be an example of "signifying" as described in the theory of African American rhetoric by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in his study, The Signifying Monkey.

Junot Díaz's "Aurora" and "Aguantando" as Minor Literature

Ostrava Journal of English Philology, 2012

Mark Twain o vyučování a učení se jazykům

Cizí Jazyky: Časopis pro teorii a praxi, 2009

This article, written in Czech, translates into English as "Mark Twain on Foreign Language Teachi... more This article, written in Czech, translates into English as "Mark Twain on Foreign Language Teaching and Learning." It shows both his humorous and serious writing about struggles he and his children encountered learning German, French and Italian. Occasionally he presents innovative ideas of learning, such as acquiring a language through play, which was ahead of his time.

Ohiyesa and His Role in Attempting to End Hostilities between Native Americans and the U.S. Government.pdf

Conference talk on Ohiyesa or Charles Eastman on August 6, 2019 in Fairfield Bay, Arkansas

Educating the Next Generation of Kosovars

2014 - Abstracts of "15 Years of Peacekeeping in Kosovo - Lessons Learned for the Region"

Philip Roth's Bohemia

2007 - Lehrstuhl für Amerikanistik - Universität Augsburg (Germany)

"Christopher Koy: Česká stopa Philipa Rotha"

Interview (in Czech) about Philip Roth and his literary connections to Franz Kafka and the Czech ... more

Representations of the Québécois in Brian Moore's Novels

Considering Identity: Views on Canadian Literature and History. (Olomouc: Palacky University, 2015), 141-156.

Belfast-born Canadian novelist Brian Moore (1921-1999) wrote novels which include a complex portr... more Belfast-born Canadian novelist Brian Moore (1921-1999) wrote novels which include a complex portrait of the Québécois. His first Canadian novel, The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1960), presents Montreal government officials, many of them French-speaking, as less sympathetic to the Irish immigrant protagonist. In later Canadian novels, however, Moore develops greater sympathy for the French-speaking minority. As a former Catholic within Protestant-dominated Northern Ireland, Moore includes insightful history of French-Canadian missionary work with distinct political and cultural overtones in both Black Robe (1985) and No Other Life (1997). He explores the national division of Canada during the period of violent upheaval surrounding the “October Crisis” in his neglected work, The Revolution Script (1971). Significantly, Moore’s sympathy for the Front de Libération du Québec (or FLQ) kidnappers comes at the expense of Pierre Trudeau, depicted as an actor. This contribution traces the development of Moore’s fictional portrait of the Québécois, a perspective which may be unique given both his immigrant “outsider” status and his early experiences as a minority in Belfast.

Review of "In Our Own Image: Fictional Representations of William Shakespeare." David Livingstone. (Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2019)

Prague Journal of English Studies, 2020

Review of "Violent Disruptions: American Imaginations of Racial Anxiety in William Faulkner & Richard Wright." Linda Chavers. (NY: Peter Lang, 2019).

Litteraria Pragensia - Studies in Literature and Culture, 2019

Review of Linda CHAVERS, "Violent Disruptions: American Imaginations of Racial Anxiety in William... more

Review of "Diaspora in the Fiction of Andrea Levy." Pavlina Flajsarova. (Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2014.)

Lingua Viva, 2017

Review of a monograph by Pavlina Flajsarova entitled "Diaspora in the Fiction of Andrea Levy" (20... more

Review of "Prag in der amerikanischen Literatur: Cynthia Ozick und Philip Roth." Simone Kraus. (Frankfurt: Peter Lang 2015)

Litteraria Pragensia - Studies in Literature and Culture, 2016

Book review of a 2014 dissertation defended at the University of Mainz and published in 2015.

Review of "Why Teach? In Defense of a Real Education." Mark Edmundson. (New York: Bloombury, 2013).

Lingua Viva, 2014

A critical review of "Why Teach? In Defense of a Real Education." (It is a collection of essays ... more

Review of "Teacher Man." Frank McCourt. (New York: Harper Perennial, 2005).

ATEČR Newsletter. Journal of English Language Teaching, 2007

A review of a memoir by the Irish-American writer Frank McCourt about his career as a New York Ci... more

Step by Step - Angličtina pro samouky (2002, 2007)

Fraus

Saul Bellow and His Fictions of Black Culture

Antropologicke symposium III (Pilsen: Naklad. Ales Cenek), 2004

As a former student of Africanist Melville J. Herskovits in the Department of Anthropology at Nor... more As a former student of Africanist Melville J. Herskovits in the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois), Nobel Prize laureate Saul Bellow wrote Africans and African Americans extensively into many of his novels, often with assumed anthropological principles. Some of his novels allude to the Jewish-black cultural relationship in the United States. His “African” novel, Henderson the Rain King (1959), has been perceived by black critics as both stereotyping blacks (Cecil Brown) and celebrating them (Floyd Salas). An episode in Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970) includes a controversial caricature of an African American exactly duplicating the Nazi depictions of Jews. Bellow’s more recent critique of black culture and its influence on American culture generally (published in essays and interviews) is also revealing. This paper intends to survey this subject matter as it is revealed in Bellow’s novels, essays and interviews. It will also consider the reception of his literature as it relates to this theme, including his final novel, Ravelstein (2000).

Using Fiction by Isaac Bashevis Singer to Prevent Plagiarism

Challenges of English Language Teaching, 2008

Signifying on Scots: Charles W. Chesnutt's Parodies of Walter Scott

South Bohemian Anglo-American Studies, 2007

The Mule as Metaphor in the Fiction of Charles Waddell Chesnutt

Theory and Practice of English Studies, 2005

The term “mulatto,” meaning an offspring of one black parent and one white parent, is a racist te... more The term “mulatto,” meaning an offspring of one black parent and one white parent,
is a racist term etymologically derived from the Spanish word “mulatto” meaning a
young mule. The mule, a sterile offspring of a mare and a male donkey, is an
important metaphor in early African American literature and folklore.
Anthropologists collected African American tales with mules, and Charles Waddell
Chesnutt (1858-1932), inspired in part by this folklore, employed the mule as a
metaphor in his literary output to represent in part the subjugation of blacks.

The Misunderstood Conclusion of Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson

Theory and Practice in English Studies, 2004

Philip Roth’s Fiction about Czechs and Kafka

Proceedings 2002 University of West Bohemia

William Dean Howells and the Genteel Socialism in 'Annie Kilburn'

Proceedings 1999 University of West Bohemia

(guest editor): Litteraria Pragensia: Studies in Literature and Culture - The Worldliness of Philip Roth (with an Introduction) 25:49 (July 2015)

Litteraria Pragensia: Studies in Literature and Culture, 2015

This volume includes an interview conducted by Stanislav Kolář, intertextual studies by Aristi Tr... more This volume includes an interview conducted by Stanislav Kolář, intertextual studies by Aristi Trendel (Roth cf. Updike), Petr Anténe (Roth cf. Zadie Smith) and Christopher Koy (Roth cf. Singer); Mike Witcombe’s analysis of Roth’s complex portrayals of sexual libertinism to David Lukeš and Hana Ulmanová’s treatment of his alleged offensiveness to Jews; and finally stopping with Valerie Roberge’s links to Kierkegaard.

(guest editor): Litteraria Pragensia - Studies in Literature and Culture - Reappraising the Black Literary Tradition 21:41 (July 2011)

Litteraria Pragensia - Studies in Literature and Culture, 2011