This paper provides a close reading of a representative selection of suburban poems by the Americ... more This paper provides a close reading of a representative selection of suburban poems by the American writer John Updike (1932–2009). It also draws upon the existing scholarship by suburban studies historians (including Kenneth Jackson, Dolores Hayden, John Archer, and James Howard Kunstler), who have argued for the cultural importance of American suburbia in fostering identity, and develops the argument by literary critics including Jo Gill, Peter Monacell, and Robert von Hallberg, who have championed the existence of a viable suburban tradition in postwar American poetry. By scrutinizing poems from Updike’s early poetry, represented by “Shillington”, up to his closing lyric opus, “Endpoint”, the paper argues that Updike’s unrecognized importance is that of a major postwar poet whose lyric work chronicles, in memorable, diverse, and important ways, the construction of individual identity within suburbia, in a dominant setting for most Americans from the 1950s up to the present.
Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, 2021
The article analyzes an overlooked aspect of American suburban poetry-the writing of American wom... more The article analyzes an overlooked aspect of American suburban poetry-the writing of American women poets who deal with the problem of how to represent female identity. Drawing on the existing criticism of women's poetry, a comprehensive survey of the suburban poems by American women poets, from the 1940s to the 2000s, is provided.
Hradec Kralove Journal of Anglophone Studies, 2019
In the critical discussion about Revolutionary Road, the highly-esteemed novel by Richard Yates, ... more In the critical discussion about Revolutionary Road, the highly-esteemed novel by Richard Yates, hardly any attention has been paid to the way in which failed search for identity, rather than the stereotypized deadness of American suburban environment, contribute to the doomed development of the Wheelers, the couple featured in the story. The paper is going to relate the failure of Frank and April to make their suburban existence work to their inability to accept the postwar narrative of middle-class suburbia as conformist heaven. The story of their downfall is situated within the discourse of identity-seeking while the discrepancy between the idyllic surface and identity crises of individual suburbanites is being highlighted. Ultimately, the paper aims to provide a fresh reading of a classic suburban tragedy.
The article surveys the whole of the poetry by John Updike, American writer better known for his ... more The article surveys the whole of the poetry by John Updike, American writer better known for his fiction. Special focus is on role of the suburban setting and identity in his poetry.
A long interview with professor Robert Crawford (University of St Andrews), Scottish poet and sch... more A long interview with professor Robert Crawford (University of St Andrews), Scottish poet and scholar. About literature, poetry, Robert Burns, T. S. Eliot, St Andrews, and Scottish independence. Biblio entry of the interview is here below
Flajšar, Jiří, and Pavlína Flajšarová. “Poetry Often Likes To Go Offroad: Robert Crawford Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar and Pavlína Flajšarová.“ In: Cultural Studies Alive: Conversations with Inkultus Scholars, by Jiří Flajšar and Pavlína Flajšarová. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2015. 7-40. ISBN 978-80-244-4763-6.
Billy Collins represents the genteel side of contemporary middle-class American suburbia. His poe... more Billy Collins represents the genteel side of contemporary middle-class American suburbia. His poems mix humor, irony, and sadness in an exploration of literature, music, art, and autobiography. This paper surveys a sample of Collins' poems, characterizing him as a mediator between the highbrow and lowbrow elements of American suburban culture.
This paper provides a close reading of a representative selection of suburban poems by the Americ... more This paper provides a close reading of a representative selection of suburban poems by the American writer John Updike (1932–2009). It also draws upon the existing scholarship by suburban studies historians (including Kenneth Jackson, Dolores Hayden, John Archer, and James Howard Kunstler), who have argued for the cultural importance of American suburbia in fostering identity, and develops the argument by literary critics including Jo Gill, Peter Monacell, and Robert von Hallberg, who have championed the existence of a viable suburban tradition in postwar American poetry. By scrutinizing poems from Updike’s early poetry, represented by “Shillington”, up to his closing lyric opus, “Endpoint”, the paper argues that Updike’s unrecognized importance is that of a major postwar poet whose lyric work chronicles, in memorable, diverse, and important ways, the construction of individual identity within suburbia, in a dominant setting for most Americans from the 1950s up to the present.
Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, 2021
The article analyzes an overlooked aspect of American suburban poetry-the writing of American wom... more The article analyzes an overlooked aspect of American suburban poetry-the writing of American women poets who deal with the problem of how to represent female identity. Drawing on the existing criticism of women's poetry, a comprehensive survey of the suburban poems by American women poets, from the 1940s to the 2000s, is provided.
Hradec Kralove Journal of Anglophone Studies, 2019
In the critical discussion about Revolutionary Road, the highly-esteemed novel by Richard Yates, ... more In the critical discussion about Revolutionary Road, the highly-esteemed novel by Richard Yates, hardly any attention has been paid to the way in which failed search for identity, rather than the stereotypized deadness of American suburban environment, contribute to the doomed development of the Wheelers, the couple featured in the story. The paper is going to relate the failure of Frank and April to make their suburban existence work to their inability to accept the postwar narrative of middle-class suburbia as conformist heaven. The story of their downfall is situated within the discourse of identity-seeking while the discrepancy between the idyllic surface and identity crises of individual suburbanites is being highlighted. Ultimately, the paper aims to provide a fresh reading of a classic suburban tragedy.
The article surveys the whole of the poetry by John Updike, American writer better known for his ... more The article surveys the whole of the poetry by John Updike, American writer better known for his fiction. Special focus is on role of the suburban setting and identity in his poetry.
A long interview with professor Robert Crawford (University of St Andrews), Scottish poet and sch... more A long interview with professor Robert Crawford (University of St Andrews), Scottish poet and scholar. About literature, poetry, Robert Burns, T. S. Eliot, St Andrews, and Scottish independence. Biblio entry of the interview is here below
Flajšar, Jiří, and Pavlína Flajšarová. “Poetry Often Likes To Go Offroad: Robert Crawford Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar and Pavlína Flajšarová.“ In: Cultural Studies Alive: Conversations with Inkultus Scholars, by Jiří Flajšar and Pavlína Flajšarová. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2015. 7-40. ISBN 978-80-244-4763-6.
Billy Collins represents the genteel side of contemporary middle-class American suburbia. His poe... more Billy Collins represents the genteel side of contemporary middle-class American suburbia. His poems mix humor, irony, and sadness in an exploration of literature, music, art, and autobiography. This paper surveys a sample of Collins' poems, characterizing him as a mediator between the highbrow and lowbrow elements of American suburban culture.
Cultural Studies Alive: Converastions with Inkultus Scholars, 2015
JOHN ARCHER
Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar
John Archer is a professor of cultural studies and compar... more JOHN ARCHER Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar John Archer is a professor of cultural studies and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota. He earned his PhD in Architectural History from Harvard University (1977). He is the author of several books and many articles on British, colonial, and American architecture. This interview was conducted at the Art Center of the Faculty of Arts, Palacký University, in Olomouc, on May 13, 2015, after Archer gave a lecture on the history of American suburban photography.
Cultural Studies Alive: Conversations with Inkultus Scholars, 2015
THOMAS AUSTENFELD
Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar and Pavlína Flajšarová
Thomas Austenfeld is Profess... more THOMAS AUSTENFELD Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar and Pavlína Flajšarová Thomas Austenfeld is Professor of American Literature at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He holds a PhD from the University of Virginia. Before moving to Switzerland, he taught at Drury University and at North Georgia College and State University (U.S.). He is the author and editor of several books and many articles and reviews on Anglophone, especially American, literature and culture. His major specializations are American women writers, Southern writers, and American poetry of the twentieth century. This conversation took place at Palacký University on March 19, 2015, after Professor Austenfeld gave a lecture on the fiction and life of Katherine Anne Porter.
Cultural Studies Alive: Conversations with Inkultus Scholars, 2015
JASON BLAKE
Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar
Conducted at Palacký University, February 26, 2014, after... more JASON BLAKE Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar Conducted at Palacký University, February 26, 2014, after Dr. Blake gave a lecture on the cultural meaning of hockey in Canada. He has taught English and Canadian studies at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he has lived for over a decade. An author of many articles on Canadian, American, and Slovenian culture, he notably published Canadian Hockey Literature (University of Toronto Press, 2010), a major scholarly survey of Canadian hockey fiction that grew out of his PhD dissertation.
Cultural Studies Alive: Conversations with Inkultus Scholars, 2015
RICHARD JACKSON
Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar
Richard Jackson has taught poetry, creative writing, ... more RICHARD JACKSON Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar Richard Jackson has taught poetry, creative writing, and humanities at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (where he is a UT National Alumni Association Distinguished Service Professor of English) and at Vermont College. Originally a New Englander, he got his PhD in English literature from Yale University. Jackson has published many books of poetry, translation, critical essays, and interviews. His latest poetry volume is Out of Place (Ashland Poetry Press, 2014). His volume of interviews with American poets is Acts of Mind (University of Alabama Press, 1983); his poetry criticism was collected in The Dismantling of Time in Contemporary American Poetry (University of Alabama Press, 1987). This conversation took place in a café in Olomouc on October 18, 2014, on the day following the the SEFOC (Searching for Culture) conference of the INKULTUS project, which brought together a diverse spectrum of American poetry scholars and academic experts in many other fields.
Cultural Studies Alive: Conversations with Inkultus Scholars, 2015
MARTIN KUESTER
Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar
The interview took place at Palacký University on Marc... more MARTIN KUESTER Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar The interview took place at Palacký University on March 12, 2014. Kuester is a professor of English Studies and Literary Science at Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany. His specializations are Canadian literature, culture, and the poetry of John Milton.
Cultural Studies Alive: Conversations with Inkultus Scholars, 2015
This volume brings together nine interviews with visiting scholars from Europe, the United States... more This volume brings together nine interviews with visiting scholars from Europe, the United States, and Canada who lectured at Palacký University in Olomouc as part of the INKULTUS grant project. The interviews were conducted within the period from November 2013 to spring 2015, either by Jiří Flajšar or by Pavlína Flajšarová, or by both. The questions ranged between culture, literature, film, art, history, nationality, identity, sports, regionalism, and many others, reflecting the unique expertise of each interviewee and their professional achievements. Each conversation is introduced with a brief biographical note about the interviewee.
Cultural Studies Alive: Conversations with Inkultus Scholars, 2015
REBEKAH BLOYD
Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar
The interview took place in Olomouc on February 17, 201... more REBEKAH BLOYD Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar The interview took place in Olomouc on February 17, 2014, during a lecture visit by Rebekah Bloyd to Palacký University. The original transcript was subsequently expanded by email during the following year. A former Fulbright to Jamaica and the Czech Republic, Dr. Bloyd has widely published her poetry, nonfiction, and criticism. She teaches writing and ethnic literature at California College of the Arts and at Santa Clara University.
Cultural Studies Alive: Conversations with Inkultus Scholars, 2015
JAHAN RAMAZANI
Interviewed by Pavlína Flajšarová and Jiří Flajšar
Jahan Ramazani teaches at the U... more JAHAN RAMAZANI Interviewed by Pavlína Flajšarová and Jiří Flajšar Jahan Ramazani teaches at the University of Virginia, where he is the Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English. He holds an M.Phil. from Oxford and Yale and a Ph.D. from Yale. He is the author of Poetry and Its Others: News, Prayer, Song, and the Dialogue of Genres (2013), A Transnational Poetics (2009), The Hybrid Muse: Postcolonial Poetry in English (2001), Poetry of Mourning: The Modern Elegy from Hardy to Heaney (1994), and Yeats and the Poetry of Death (1990). Together with Jon Stallworthy he edited The Twentieth Century and After in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, and he edited the most recent edition of The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. This interview took place in Olomouc on 9 March 2015, after Professor Ramazani gave a lecture at Palacký University.
Cultural Studiea Alive: Conversations with Inkultus Scholars, 2015
ROBERT CRAWFORD
Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar and Pavlína Flajšarová
Robert Crawford is a Scottish ... more ROBERT CRAWFORD Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar and Pavlína Flajšarová Robert Crawford is a Scottish poet, scholar, and critic. He studied at Glasgow University and Oxford University, where he got his doctorate. Since 1989, he has taught at the University of St Andrews, where he is currently a professor of English. He has published six books of poetry and more than two dozen other books on poetry, literature, history, and culture. His most recent books include Young Eliot (Cape, 2015), a new biography of the famous poet, Testament (Cape, 2014), the latest volume of Crawford’s own poetry, and Bannockburns (Edinburgh University Press, 2014), a major volume of Scottish literary history. The essential part of this interview with Professor Crawford was completed in a bar at Svatý Kopeček near Olomouc on November 20, 2013. Additional questions were posed by email and answered by Crawford during the winter of 2013/14. The interview predates a crucial referendum on Scottish independence, which took place in Scotland on September 18 2014 and did not go the way he favoured. Another major thing has happened since the interview took place—as of 2015, Crawford’s biography of T. S. Eliot, Young Eliot, a project that he talks about here, has been published by Cape (U.K.) and Farrar (U.S.).
Culture and Humor in Postwar American Poetry, 2014
"Am I a stooge of the popular culture machine?" 1 wonders Campbell McGrath (b. 1962) in "The Bob ... more "Am I a stooge of the popular culture machine?" 1 wonders Campbell McGrath (b. 1962) in "The Bob Hope Poem, " a major early 1990s attempt at a long poem about American history, the cult of celebrity, and his own life. This chapter attempts to answer the poet's rhetorical question by means of thematic and rhetorical analysis of his early poetry, its achievement and failure to portray recent and contemporary American popular culture, and its use of humor.
The book provides a multidisciplinary survey of the history of American suburbia and an interpret... more The book provides a multidisciplinary survey of the history of American suburbia and an interpretation of its cultural role in relation to the American Dream, social class, gender, race, ethnicity, architecture, literature, and the arts. It then traces the history of American suburban poetry from William Carlos Williams to Laurie Albanese. Last, the book brings the current trends in American suburbia and outlines its future development and challenges to be faced in the area of architecture, urban planning, community, and hybridization of suburban identities. It argues for the essential place of suburbanization in American culture and claims that it has been helping to shape the American sense of identity, self, and community for over two hundred years.
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Flajšar, Jiří, and Pavlína Flajšarová. “Poetry Often Likes To Go Offroad: Robert Crawford Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar and Pavlína Flajšarová.“ In: Cultural Studies Alive: Conversations with Inkultus Scholars, by Jiří Flajšar and Pavlína Flajšarová. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2015. 7-40. ISBN 978-80-244-4763-6.
Flajšar, Jiří, and Pavlína Flajšarová. “Poetry Often Likes To Go Offroad: Robert Crawford Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar and Pavlína Flajšarová.“ In: Cultural Studies Alive: Conversations with Inkultus Scholars, by Jiří Flajšar and Pavlína Flajšarová. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2015. 7-40. ISBN 978-80-244-4763-6.
Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar
John Archer is a professor of cultural studies and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota. He earned his PhD in Architectural History from Harvard University (1977). He is the author of several books and many articles on British, colonial, and American architecture. This interview was conducted at the Art Center of the Faculty of Arts, Palacký University, in Olomouc, on May 13, 2015, after Archer gave a lecture on the history of American suburban photography.
Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar and Pavlína Flajšarová
Thomas Austenfeld is Professor of American Literature at the University
of Fribourg, Switzerland. He holds a PhD from the University of Virginia.
Before moving to Switzerland, he taught at Drury University and at North
Georgia College and State University (U.S.). He is the author and editor of several books and many articles and reviews on Anglophone, especially American, literature and culture. His major specializations are American women writers, Southern writers, and American poetry of the twentieth century. This conversation took place at Palacký University on March 19, 2015, after Professor Austenfeld gave a lecture on the fiction and life of Katherine Anne Porter.
Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar
Conducted at Palacký University, February 26, 2014, after Dr. Blake gave
a lecture on the cultural meaning of hockey in Canada. He has taught English and Canadian studies at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he has lived for over a decade. An author of many articles on Canadian, American, and Slovenian culture, he notably published Canadian Hockey Literature (University of Toronto Press, 2010), a major scholarly survey of Canadian hockey fiction that grew out of his PhD dissertation.
Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar
Richard Jackson has taught poetry, creative writing, and humanities at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (where he is a UT National Alumni Association Distinguished Service Professor of English) and at Vermont College. Originally a New Englander, he got his PhD in English literature from Yale University. Jackson has published many books of poetry, translation, critical essays, and interviews. His latest poetry volume is Out of Place (Ashland Poetry Press, 2014). His volume of interviews with American poets is Acts of Mind (University of Alabama Press, 1983); his poetry criticism was collected in The Dismantling of Time in Contemporary American Poetry (University of Alabama Press, 1987). This conversation took place in a café in Olomouc on October 18, 2014, on the day following the the SEFOC (Searching for Culture) conference of the INKULTUS project, which brought together a diverse spectrum of American poetry scholars and academic experts in many other fields.
Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar
The interview took place at Palacký University on March 12, 2014. Kuester is a professor of English Studies and Literary Science at Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany. His specializations are Canadian literature, culture, and the poetry of John Milton.
Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar
The interview took place in Olomouc on February 17, 2014, during a lecture visit by Rebekah Bloyd to Palacký University. The original transcript was subsequently expanded by email during the following year. A former Fulbright to Jamaica and the Czech Republic, Dr. Bloyd has widely published her poetry, nonfiction, and criticism. She teaches writing and ethnic literature at California College of the Arts and at Santa Clara University.
Interviewed by Pavlína Flajšarová and Jiří Flajšar
Jahan Ramazani teaches at the University of Virginia, where he is the Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English. He holds an M.Phil. from Oxford and Yale and a Ph.D. from Yale. He is the author of Poetry and Its Others: News, Prayer, Song, and the Dialogue of Genres (2013), A Transnational Poetics (2009), The Hybrid Muse: Postcolonial Poetry in English (2001), Poetry of Mourning: The Modern Elegy from Hardy to Heaney (1994), and Yeats and the Poetry of Death (1990). Together with Jon Stallworthy he edited The Twentieth Century and After in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, and he edited the most recent edition of The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. This
interview took place in Olomouc on 9 March 2015, after Professor Ramazani gave a lecture at Palacký University.
Interviewed by Jiří Flajšar and Pavlína Flajšarová
Robert Crawford is a Scottish poet, scholar, and critic. He studied at Glasgow University and Oxford University, where he got his doctorate. Since 1989, he has taught at the University of St Andrews, where he is currently a professor of English. He has published six books of poetry and more than two dozen other books on poetry, literature, history, and culture. His most recent books include Young Eliot (Cape, 2015), a new biography of the famous poet, Testament (Cape, 2014), the latest volume of Crawford’s own poetry, and Bannockburns (Edinburgh University Press, 2014), a major volume of Scottish literary history.
The essential part of this interview with Professor Crawford was completed in a bar at Svatý Kopeček near Olomouc on November 20, 2013. Additional questions were posed by email and answered by Crawford during the winter of 2013/14. The interview predates a crucial referendum on Scottish independence, which took place in Scotland on September 18 2014 and did not go the way he favoured. Another major thing has happened since the interview took place—as of 2015, Crawford’s biography of T. S. Eliot, Young Eliot, a project that he talks about here, has been published by Cape (U.K.) and Farrar (U.S.).