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Prague: City of Cultures, City of Conflict (328-0-1)

Instructors

Martina F Kerlova
847/491-5788
1880 Campus Drive, Kresge, Office 3325
Office Hours: Tuesdays 12:30-2pm and by appointment

Meeting Info

University Hall 218: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

This course examines Prague, one of the most beautiful and culturally vibrant cities in Europe. The city's magnificent streets and buildings both conceal and reveal a past full of multiethnic coexistence and interethnic conflict. The course aims to understand the development of Prague over the past two centuries from a multicultural, democratic city to a homogeneous, communist one, and ultimately to its present open and capitalist incarnation. We will read and watch a range of literary and historical sources, including the story of the Golem and writings by Václav Havel, and Franz Kafka.

Learning Objectives

- To consider the productive (as well as the destructive) consequences of interethnic strife and political repression
- To investigate how cultural producers and consumers respond to divisive pressures from within and censorious pressures from without.
- To understand the contingent and malleable nature of national and other identities.
- To gain familiarity with the city of Prague and its culture

Class Materials (Required)

Hrabal, Bohumil: I served the King of England
Kovály, Heda Margolius: Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague, 1941-1968

Readings and visuals available on Canvas

Class Attributes

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Historical Studies Distro Area
Interdisciplinary Distro-rules apply
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area
Global Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity