Czech Popular Fantastic Arts 1990-2012 in cultural, social and literary contexts

Antonín Kudláč Czech Popular Fantastic Arts 1990 - 2012 in Cultural, Social and Literary Contexts The dissertation focuses on the exploration of popular fantastic arts in the Czech environment between 1990 and 2012. Popular fantastic arts are defined as a segment of popular culture, which uses fantastic motifs and finds expression in various art forms and media (literature, film and television programs, visual arts, games, etc.). Popular fantastic literature (science fiction, fantasy, horror) is used as the basic medium for research in this area. For defining and understanding the nature of popular fantastic arts, its recipients (the so-called fans), who form a distinctive subculture called the fandom, are of extreme importance. This dissertation, bordering on interdisciplinary cultural anthropology, sociology, literary criticism and media studies, is based on the hypothesis of an active and creative approach of the recipients of popular culture, who endow these cultural artifacts with their own meanings, share them and use them for their own interests. This approach is rooted mostly in the theoretical works of John Fiske and Henry Jenkins, in particular in the concept of participatory culture and cultural divergence. The work consists of two parts. The research development of popular culture in..