RSb709 Underground Literature and Liberal Arts in Soviet Era

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2024
Extent and Intensity
0/0/0. 3 credit(s). Type of Completion: k (colloquium).
Teacher(s)
dr. Dmitrij Bresler (lecturer), Mgr. Anna Agapova, Ph.D. (deputy)
Guaranteed by
Mgr. Anna Agapova, Ph.D.
Department of Slavonic Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Mgr. Anna Agapova, Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Slavonic Studies – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Mon 15. 4. to Fri 19. 4. each working day 14:00–17:40 B2.34
Prerequisites
Academic English at a communicative level, basic knowledge of Russian is welcome but not essential
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is offered to students of any study field.
Course objectives
The lectures are devoted to the Soviet avant-garde and underground poetic tradition from the 1960s to the 1980s as "university" literature, which is characterized by the involvement of representatives of the artistic and academic communities, and analytical attention to form, to media issues, and the sociocultural conditions of the existence of the text.
Learning outcomes
Students will be able to summarise the pragmatic aspects of underground literature during the late Soviet era.
Students will be able to list and describe the main methods of preserving, transmitting, and producing unconventional cultural knowledge during the late Soviet era.
Through the study of literature, students will be able to define the connections between underground literature, current literary theory, and the emerging critical community.
Students will be able to describe forms of collective self-education that emerged in late Soviet era and compare them with the ones in Czechoslovakia.
Syllabus
  • 1. "You are crucifying the Freedom…": Introduction to the Pragmatics of Unofficial Soviet Cultural Discourse.
  • 2. Soviet Humanities in Action: Preservation, Transmission and Production of Unconventional Cultural Knowledge in the 1960s–80s
  • 3. Magical Structuralism: Occasional Reception of Current Literary Theory in the 1960s–80s
  • 4. "Free Universities": Forms of Collective Self-Education at the Late Soviet Times
  • 5. Towards to the Critics Communities: Metapoetics of the Underground
Literature
  • • LIPOVETSKY, Mark, Ilja KUKUJ, Tomáš GLANC, Maria ENGSTRÖM, and Klavdia SMOLA. The Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. ISBN 0197508219
  • • ZITZEVITZ, Josephine von. The Culture of Samizdat: Literature and Underground Networks in the Late Soviet Union. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020. ISBN 978-1788313766
  • • YURCHAK, Alexei. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. ISBN 9780691121178
  • GLANC, Tomáš and Jana ROGOFF. Lexikon ruských avantgard 20. století. 1. vyd. Praha: Libri, 2005, 373 s. ISBN 8072772597. info
  • Samizdat : alternativní kultura ve střední a východní Evropě - šedesátá až osmdesátá léta 20. století : Berlin, Akademie umění: 10.9.-29.10.2000, Praha, Národní muzeum: 6.6.-25.8.2002, Brusel, Evropský Parlament: 5.-15.11.2002. Edited by Heidrun Hamersky. Bremen: Výzkumný ústav pro východní Evropu při Univerzitě Brémy, 2002, 48 stran. ISBN 3936604010. info
  • SKILLING, H. Gordon. Samizdat and an independent society in Central and Eastern Europe. 1st pub. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1989, xi, 293. ISBN 0814204872. info
Teaching methods
lecture (teacher's explanation), seminar discussion, independent reading of texts
Assessment methods
Students will participate in a minimum of 4 topics (min. 80% attendance). Each topic, except the first one, consists of a lecture and a seminar part. Home preparation for the seminar part is required, as well as active participation in discussions in at least 3 seminars.
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught only once.
Information on the extent and intensity of the course: 20 hodin blokové výuky.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/spring2024/RSb709