Sylabus
Content 1. Folklore and popular cultures in the humanities and social sciences 2. Birth of folklore in the age of Romantic nationalism
Readings: Wilson, Willliam A.: Herder, Folklore and Romantic Nationalism (01) 3. Czech folklore and the Romantic Nationalism
Readings: Hartwig, Kurt: The Incidental History of Folklore in Bohemia (02) 4. „Gallows humor“ as strategy of resistance during the Second World War
Readings: Obrdlik, AntoninJ.: „Gallows Humor“ – A Sociological Phenomenon (03) 5. Social function of Czech folklore during the Second World War
Readings: Chad, Bryant: The Language of Resistance? Czech Jokes and Joke-Telling under Nazi-Occupation, 1943-1945 6. Folklore behind the Iron Curtain: Czech popular cultures during Communism
Readings: Oring, Elliot: Risky Bussiness: Political Jokes under Repressive Regimes (05) 7. Urban phantoms between vernacular and popular culture
Readings: Janeček, Petr: Superhero or villain? Spring Man narratives between communicative and cultural memory (06) 8. Contemporary Czech folklore between East and West
Readings: Janeček, Petr: Bloody Mary or Krvavá Máří? (07) 9. Czech children´s folklore in international context
Readings: Janeček, Petr: Current Studies of Games and Play in the Czech Republic (08) 10. Traditional Czech folklore between nationalism and nostalgia
Readings: Feintuch, Burt: The Joke, Folk Culture and Milan Kundera´s „The Joke“ (09) 11. Czech folkloristics as part of the European ethnology
Readings: Rogan, Bjarne: The troubled past of European ethnology (10)
Anotace
The course provides an introduction to phenomena of both historical and contemporary popular cultures of the Czech Lands with special emphasis on the folklorism ("fakelore") of the age of romantic nationalism in the 19th century and subversive role of folklore in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic in the 20th century.
The course presents folklore and its various interpretations (including contemporary one of the "intangible cultural heritage") as one of the specific both vernacular and official strategies to interpret pecularities of local history and society. It focuses especially on collective expressive forms such as traditional oral folklore (folktales, folk legends), but also more modern form such as jokes, graffiti and internet memes.
Brief history of Czech branch of academical field of ethnology – from nonintentional fixations of folklore texts and early academic conceptualizations of folklore to contemporary interdisciplinary folklore theories – is also presented.