CJBC126 Fiction and History in the Posmodern Era

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2003
Extent and Intensity
0/6. 3 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
prof. dr. Lubomír Doležel (lecturer), doc. PhDr. Jiří Kudrnáč, CSc. (deputy)
Guaranteed by
doc. PhDr. Jiří Kudrnáč, CSc.
Department of Czech Literature – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Helena Bednářová
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 36 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
The aim of the course is to evaluate critically the postmodern philosophical and epistemological position, according to which there is no substantial difference between the fictional and the historical narrative, and to explain an alternative position based on possible-worlds semantics.
Syllabus
  • During the long reign of the mimetic doctrine works of fictional literature were treated basically as history in a belletristic form. In postmodern philosophy and cultural history the differentiation of fiction and history was attacked from the other flank, from the side of literary and text theory. Roland Barthes and Hayden White gained prominence by their thesis that there are no textual features which would allow us to determine whether a narrative is fictional or historical. This thesis, derived from analyses of historical texts, was theoretically propped up by a radically constructivist philosophy of language, erasing the relationship of reference and denying language the capacity of imaging the world. The postmodern challenge stimulated new interest in the ancient links between literature and history. Many literary and cultural critics accepted and further radicalized the posmodern thesis, but most practising historians simply ignored it. The relatively rare critical voices from the ranks of historians have not carried sufficient theoretical weight because they have been, basically, reformulations of old arguments against historical relativism. The theoretical position which will be developed in the course issues from the assumption that, indeed, there are no textual features that would allow us to decide unequivocally whether a text is fictional or historical. The differentiating criteria have to be sought on a different level, on the level of possible worlds projected by fictional and historical texts, respectively. The core of the course will develop a semantics of possible worlds, focusing especially on those functional and structural world properties which are essential for formulating a new theory of the relationship between fiction making and historical modelling of the past. No less attention will be devoted to the analysis of selected fictional and historical works which cultivate creatively the lively intertextual exchange between literature and historiography in the postmodern era.
Literature
  • Ferguson, Nial, ed. Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals. London: Picador.
  • Friedlander, Saul, ed. 1992. Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the Final Solution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Pavel, Thomas. 1986. Fictional Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Eco Umberto. 1994. Six Walks in Fictional Woods. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Český překlad Olomouc: Votobia, 1997.
  • White, Hayden. 1987. The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Barthes, Roland. 1967.
  • Doležel, Lubomír. 1998. Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Český překlad Praha: Karolinum, 2003.
  • Trevor-Roper, H. R. 1980. History and Imagination. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Assessment methods (in Czech)
Požadavky k udělení zápočtu: 1. Účast. 2. Aktivita v seminářích - dávání otázek, účast v diskusi. 3. Krátký ústní pohovor na závěr kursu (budou probíhat od 27. do 30. října buď individuálně nebo v malých skupinách). Každý student si pro pohovor připraví jednu specifickou otázku vztahu mezi fikcí a historií a prokáže schopnost pojednat o ní v pojmosloví, které bylo rozpracováno v kursu.
Language of instruction
Czech
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
General note: Počet účastníků kursu bude omezen na 50 studujících z těchto oborů.
Information on the extent and intensity of the course: v období od 6. října do 5. listopadu 2003.
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