Undergraduate Program in Central European Studies

For many Central European nations Romanticism was a decisive cultural influence that shaped their emancipation movements in the nineteenth century. Organic models of community based on the affinities between nature, culture and language became the foundation of nationalistic ideologies. The upsurge of nationalism gave birth to grand narratives of national history, and created sharp divides in multilingual and multiethnic societies. The outcome of these developments was a deep and protracted crisis of many Central European nations in the twentieth century, affecting the best works of their cultures. The course is divided into two parts. In the first part we shall study the origins and different forms of Romanticism in Central European cultures (Czech, Slovak, and partially also Austrian, German, Polish, and Hungarian), and read specimen of Czech romantic literature (K.H. Mácha's verse tale May, selected poems from the Queen's Court Manuscript) and selected theoretical or historical texts (see below in the section Reference). We shall also discuss the refashioning of romantic paradigms in the communist ideologies of bipolar world and "people's culture". Our main aim will be the understanding of basic cultural notions and paradigms, such as multiculturalism, ethnocentrism, patriotism, nationalism, the invention of tradition, cultural translation, or imagined community, th