FAVz080 Cultural History of Central Europe: Continuities and Transfers

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2019
Extent and Intensity
0/0/0. 2 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Teacher(s)
Philipp Ther (lecturer), doc. Mgr. Pavel Skopal, Ph.D. (deputy)
Mgr. et Mgr. Terézia Porubčanská, Ph.D. (assistant)
Guaranteed by
doc. Mgr. Pavel Skopal, Ph.D.
Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Supplier department: Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Wed 2. 10. 14:00–15:50 Scala, 17:00–18:40 C34
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.

The capacity limit for the course is 40 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 1/40, only registered: 0/40
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 16 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
The lecture will provide a thesis on the First Republic as the closest successor state of the Habsburg Empire. The topic will be framed by a reflection on the promises and difficulties of a research on cultural transfer and specified by a comparison of the musical modernism in Vienna and Prague. The seminar will focus on Alois Hába and microtonal music, as musical modernism and also microtonal music were a truly transnational endeavor.
Learning outcomes
Students will be able to evaluate critically on the transfer studies research approach and recognize its advantages and difficulties. They will get an insight into musical modernism as a transnational phenomenon, as well as to the way historians can conceptualize the questions of dis/continuities and crises.
Syllabus
  • Lecture: Wednesday 2.10.2019, 14.00-16.00, cinema Scala
  • The second life of Habsburg monarchy in Czechoslovakia. Remarks on continuities after 1918
  • Lecture will be presented in Czech
  • Seminar: Wednesday 2.10., 17.30-19.00, Cultural Transfer - A Case Study: Alois Hába and Musical Modernism
  • Screening Hall, Arne Novaka 1, C34,
  • In English
Teaching methods
Lecture + seminar with discussion
Assessment methods
Obligatory presence at the lecture and seminar; final written test based on knowledge of the lecture, the seminar, and reading an essay (the text will be specified soon).
Language of instruction
Czech
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
Information on completion of the course: Povinná účast na přednášce a semináři, závěrečný vědomostní test
Teacher's information
Bio: Philipp Ther is a professor of Central European History at the University of Vienna, where he also served as director of the Institute of East European History from 2014 until 2018. Previously he was a professor of comparative European history at the European University Institute in Florence. Since his doctorate in the late 1990s Philipp Ther has worked on the history of refugees in modern Europe. While most books are focused on flight and expulsion and the suffering it involves, he is interested as well in the later lives of refugees in the countries of arrival and the history of integration. Philipp Ther has published widely on a major cause of mass flight, radical nationalism, and ethnic cleansing (among his English language books is The Dark Side of Nation States: Ethnic Cleansing in Modern Europe, New York: Berghahn Press, 2014). All of his works are driven by the conviction that it makes limited sense to deal with Europe like a territorial container and with a traditional occidentalist focus, but that European history should be studied with a broader vision that includes its near neighborhoods in the East, across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean. He switched to cultural history at the turn of the millennium. He published a book about opera theatres in Central Europe, their repertoires, music styles and stage productions in the 19th century. In 2014 this book, which was based on a publication for the 125th anniversary of the Czech National Theatre, appeared in English (Center Stage: Operatic Culture and Nation Building in 19th Century Central Europe, West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2014). The monograph is structured like an opera, Philipp Ther´s other writings are also inspired by the structure and sounds of classical music. His most recent work that appeared in the U.S. was shaped by the opening of Europe in 1989. Philipp Ther witnessed the Velvet Revolution in Prague and considers himself an “89er”. In 2016 his account of the revolutions and the analysis of subsequent transformation of Europe was published by Princeton University Press under the title Europe since 1989: A History (the German original won the non-fiction prize at the Leipzig bookfare in 2015). The book reassesses the economic reform policies in Central and Eastern Europe, their social impact, and the feedback effects on the West, particularly on united Germany. He also runs several international research projects on the history of transformation processes (see for more information http://recet.univie.ac.at/). He argues that the recent crisis of democracy and the rise of right wing populists and nationalists in Eastern Europe and the West is rooted in economic dogmas and policies that came to dominate the world around 1989.
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