Identities, Canons, Pop-culture: A Comparative Approach

Focused on the shaping of modern cultural identities, the research ranges from the major features of great cultural epochs, the Renaissance, Romanticism, Modernism and Postmodernism, to the interrelationships of literature and other arts, namely theatre and film. The multidisciplinary approach combining, among others, semiotics, communication theory, philosophy and psychoanalysis explores relations between culture and technology, experimental art and pulp literature. The project is unique in connecting advanced reflection of contemporary critical theories with an internationally relevant research in several prominent specialized fields, including Shakespeare, Joyce and Byron studies, as well as contemporary theatre, poetry, fiction and critical thought of Czech and European Modernism and avant‑garde. Research team members are represented in the executives of 6 international academic associations and members of international research groups. International research cooperation also includes doctoral programmes like Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate Text and Event in Early Modern Europe (TEEME).

Key collaborators

• Louis Armand

• Libuše Heczková

• Martin Hilský

• Jakub Machek

• Ondřej Pilný

• Daniel Vojtěch

• Josef Vojvodík

• Clare Wallace

Selected output

• Petr A. Bílek, Josef Vojvodík, eds., Heslář české avantgardy. Estetické koncepty a proměny uměleckých postupů v letech 1908-1958/ A Glossary of Catchwords of the Czech Avant-Garde. Conceptions of Aesthetics and the Changing Faces of Art 1908-1958, FF UK: Praha 2011

• Clare Wallace, The Theatre of David Greig, London: Bloomsbury 2013.

• Martin Procházka, Michael Dobson, Andreas Höfele, Hanna Scolnicov, eds., Renaissance Shakespeare: Shakespeare Renaissances, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014.

• Ondřej Pilný, The Grotesque in Contemporary Anglophone Drama, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.