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Curriculum The current semester curriculum consists of twenty-two courses in history, philosophy, psychology, ethnography, economics, political science, urban studies, literary criticism, art history, film studies, music, religious studies, gender studies, and Czech language. All CHP courses are listed below but not all of them are offered every semester – see the respective semester curriculum to find out more.
Czech Culture and Civilization The course traces essential events and periods of Czech history and culture. It provides students with a deeper insight into the Czech mentality and character by dealing with issues, which have determined modern Czech identity, as well as with current political and cultural events and issues. Moreover, students get familiarized with the city of Prague. Through both these aspects, the course will help students to integrate into and experience the Czech society from within. The course consists of in-class lectures and discussions, multimedia presentations, and field trips. Instructors: Ivana Doležalová, film theorist, and publicist; Dr. Petr Bílek, Associate Professor, Chair of Department of Czech Literature, Charles University, Prague; Dr. Václav Cílek, Director of the Institute of Geology, Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic; and Dr. Pavel Sládek, Researcher and Lecturer, Institute for Near East and African Studies, Charles University Intensive course designed to develop, at a very basic level, the proficiencies of comprehension and speaking, and introduce the students to everyday culture of Czech life. The focus is on achieving elementary conversational skills covering various elementary topics. In addition to this, practical excursions out of the classroom are organized. Instructors: Dr. Marie Auerspergová, Lecturer, Prague School of Economics, Jitka Kauerová, Lecturer of Czech, Dr. Karel Kučera, Professor of Czech Language, Charles University; Dr. Zuzana Vanišová, Prague School of Economics.
Political Dimension of the European Union The course explains the origins and current structure of the European Union. It examines the role of politics in the functioning of the EU. The course describes political effects of the European Integration and the role Member States, EU Institutions and European citizens play in the whole process of the European integration. The course examines to what extent the EU limits the power and sovereignty of EU Member States. Special attention is paid to the EU citizen’s rights, both political and „economic“. Instructor: Dr. Michal Mocek, Consultant on European Affairs; Martin Moravec, EU affairs consultant and project manager
Challenges to European Politics The main goal of this course is to familiarize the student with European political systems and the main challenges to European politics. It is designed to promote a deeper understanding of European politics, to highlight the tendencies of development and to facilitate prediction of future problems of the region. Instructor: Dr. Vladimíra Dvořáková, Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, Prague School of Economics, Petr Vymětal, Junior Researcher, University of Economics, Prague CEE Economies and the EU Enlargement In 2004 Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia became part of the enlarged EU. This had an economic impact on both the new entrants and the EU itself. The first part of this course deals with issues related to the economic transition from centrally planned economic system into the market economy. The second part tackles topics related to the EU enlargement. Instructor: Tomáš Jelínek, Senior Public Affairs Consultant and Chair of the Institute of Social and Economic Analyses Fragmentation and Reintegration of Europe This course compares the current stage of geographical patterning of ethnonational identities and political and economic transformation in democratic Western Europe and the democratizing post-communist Eastern Europe. Since the 1989 fall of the Iron Curtain, the continent is involved in modernization and reintegration largely orchestrated by the European Union. Nevertheless, the importance of ethnonational, political and economic diversity is enduring and increased by the fragmentation of former communist federations. The course proceeds from an interdisciplinary viewpoint and will acquaint the student with essential facts of the heritage of ethnonational identities, post-1989 state fragmentation and recent political and economic reintegration across Europe. Instructor: Dr. Petr Dostál, Professor of Social Geography, Charles University Societies in the New EU Member Countries: Related Topics in Social Change in the East Central Europe The course focuses on the complexity of social change in the East Central Europe (the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia) in the period between the fall of Communism and the accession to the European Union. The emphasis is on the mutual interrelations between political, social, economic, and regional development. Special attention is paid to the external influence of the EU accession on these processes. In the first block, students will be informed about the typical social structure of the Communist and post-Communist society in comparison with Western models. Then the changes of incomes, expenditures, poverty, social mobility, education, housing, national economy, regional development, and the systems of administration will be addressed. In the second block, voting behavior and party system development will be studied in relation to region’s history, cultural diversity, development of social structures, regional development, ethnic relations, and electoral laws. The gender issues and the value changes will be discussed vis-à-vis empirical data collected. Finally, the hypothesis of East - West convergence in political, social, economic and regional development will be tested. Instructor: Dr. Tomáš Kostelecký, Senior Researcher, Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences
Gender and Culture: Selected Current Topics The course analyzes contemporary phenomena shaping our everyday existence in this world as men and women. Starting with the debate of the “communist gender experiment” students move into political and sociological arenas to debate registered partnership, transgender issues, reproduction rights (including sterilization of Roma women), sex trafficking, pornography, and representation of sexes in public life. Youth subcultures will be presented from a gender viewpoint. Other major cultural myths upholding traditional concepts of masculinity and femininity – film, media and advertising will be studied and compared to the new virtual possibilities of cyberspace, “reformed” spirituality and post-feminist readings of popular culture and cartoons. The course is heavily supported with visual documentation, field-trips, and stars exciting Czech guest-speakers from the field of arts, politics and religion. Instructor: Dr. Pavla Jonssonová, translator, gender studies scholar, and musician The course builds on the very successful Cultural memory and Rise of Modern Europe courses. It focuses on general understanding of European mentality viewed as a basic unity established on Christianity, urban culture and market economy. The extreme plurality and constant, often brutal discussion among individual kingdoms, states, political fractions, guilds, heretic sects, aristocracy and clergy, the neverending flow of ideas, influences and technologies, may have created the seemingly uniform but in detail very complex European phenomenon. Can it last in contact with globalization, Americanization, Islam and its own internal conflicts and transformations? What is its heart and what potential can it bring to common future? The course will lead students through main European periods of architecture styles which will be interpreted in terms of mentality changes, intellectual history and cultural anthropology. In-class lectures will be complemented by excursions to some well known and totally unknown historical monuments. Instructor: Dr. Václav Cílek, Director of the Institute of Geology, Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic Czech History of the 20th Century: An Oral History Project The main goal of this course is to familiarize students with development of the Czech society in the 20th century and to provide thus a necessary background for the oral history project students will participate in. The course focuses on the key crossroads of modern Czech history (emergence of an independent state, Nazi occupation, establishment of the Communist regime, Prague Spring, Velvet Revolution). The oral history project, which constitutes an integral part of the course, is organized by the Institute of Contemporary History of the Academy of Science of Czech Republic. The thematic focus of the project is the late sixties in the U.S.A. and Czechoslovakia - parallels and differences and/or Czech exiles in America who returned back home after 1989. American students will participate on the project together with Czech students and young assistants of the Institute of Contemporary History. Instructors: Dr. Oldřich Tůma, Director of Institute of Contemporary History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Dr. Miroslav Vaněk, Head of the Center for Oral History, Institute of Contemporary History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Jews in East Central Europe: Life of a Minority This course describes the life of the Jewish community in Europe since the formation of Jewish settlements around the 9th C until the present time. The historical aspect is enriched by detailed insights into both Jewish spirituality and social life. In-class lectures are combined with the field-trips to Prague Jewish monuments. The course has basically three focal points: (1) The situation of the Czech Jewry is the natural departure point. However, we attempt to offer meaningful comparisons with related regions, whose communities represent tendencies that might help elucidating the key problems of a particular period. Above all, the very specific development of Polish Jewry is necessary for the understanding of Jews of Central Europe from 16th C onwards. (2) We put the emphasis on recurring constantly to the interference between the Jewish minority and the surrounding society. The development of a minority is not viewed as isolated but rather interconnected in a very particular way with the majority society. (3) We try to reconstruct the character of the daily life of the Jewish people in the period under scope. Analyzing the rites of passage, festivals and customs as well as the social structures we attempt to describe the different social roles of classical Rabbinic Judaism (a child, a woman, a laic, a rabbi etc.) Instructor: Dr. Pavel Sládek, Institute for Near East and African Studies, Charles University Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in European Context: Confrontation, or coexistence? The ongoing process of so called globalization has led to more or less open confrontation between „universal“ transatlantic (originally European) culture (First World) and „particular“, local or national cultures of the underdeveloped countries (Third World). The outward conflict based primarily on economic inequality has been gradually transformed into ideological and religious antagonisms between „West“ and „East“, and „North“ and „South“. Basics of the three great monotheistic systems (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) are studied, both in phenomenological (religious philosophy) and historical perspectives. Special attention will be given to different interactions between these religions-cultures in given historical and geographical context, applied to individual historical periods of European history. Contributions of various religious systems to foundation of European culture will be examined and their role in this multicultural process will be evaluated. The historical-philosophical survey will be completed with an assessment of the nowadays situation, with the emphasis on examination of possible ways to a dialogue rather than to a confrontation. Instructor: Dr. Milan Lyčka, Assistant Professor, Institute of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Charles University Prague “Baroque-Classicism” Polarity in the Art of Central Europe This course provides a comprehensive picture of the development of European architecture, sculpture, and painting from the Renaissance to the early 20th century in Central Europe. Stress is laid upon Baroque tradition and monuments in Prague. Lectures are not intended exclusively for students of art history. At the beginning of the course, students will receive a reading package. Lectures are accompanied by excursions to historical sites in Prague. Instructor: Dr. Jan Bažant, Deputy Director of the Institute of Classical Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and Associate Professor, Charles University The course gives a comprehensive picture of European art history from ancient Greece and Rome to the present times, with stress on Central Europe and Prague. In descriptions of art historical epochs the emphasis is placed on iconography as the barometer of historical changes. Instructor: Dr. Jan Bažant, Deputy Director of the Institute of Classical Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and Associate Professor, Charles University
Emblematic Reductions: Icons of American and Czech Popular Culture This course focuses on semiotic interpretation of popular culture emblems, e.g. entities produced by intentional reduction of meaning. It will cover discursive practices that produce semantic reductions, be it mass media, pop-culture industry, as well as mediating chains of exchange between distinct nations. The materials covered and interpreted will include popular music, TV broadcasting, book presentations and re-presentations, advertising, internet presentations, as well as sociological sources. The course is based on cultural studies perspective, stressing semiotic methodological approaches. Instructor: Dr. Petr Bílek, Associate Professor, Chair of Department of Czech Literature, Charles University, Prague
Readings from Central European Literature: Meeting Points, Diverging Lines In this course we will walk a full circle: from the days of Austro-Hungarian empire to the very presence, the moment when nowadays independent countries belonging once to one larger unit are to be re-united in an even larger unit. While reading texts of authors representing the canon of modern Central European literature, we will be looking for uniting themes and diverse paths taken up in the turbulent common past of this territory. Instructor: Dr. Martina Moravcová, literary theorist, and translator Reading Prague: the City as a Metaphor of Human Existence is a literature course designed in an inter-disciplinary pattern. It focuses on interpretations of the image of Prague in the 19th and 20th century and Czech, German, and Jewish literatures. The relations between the image of Prague and the issues of identity in fiction (national, local, social, religious, personal) are examined. The interpretation of the images of Prague in literature is accompanied with presentation and representation of Prague in film, photography, music videos and other media. Instructor: Dr. Petr Bílek, Associate Professor of Czech Literature, Charles University Reading in 20th century Czech and American Literature This course focuses on comparative reading of selected works of Czech and American fiction. The course is organized around several topics: 1) Speaking of Europe, speaking of America; 2) Speaking of War; 3) Speaking a minority voice; 4) Speaking of Women and 5) Speaking of Alienation. Film screenings, walks, and visits to exhibitions with related themes will be an integral part of the course. The goal of the course is to offer an insight into Czech fiction against the background of American literature, it counts on students’ familiarity with some pivotal works of American fiction. Instructor: Dr. Martina Moravcová, literary theorist, and translator Modern Czech Film: History on Screen The course provides a deeper insight into the issues of modern Czechoslovak history and socio-cultural developments as documented by both major feature films and documentaries. Viewed against the general backdrop of key historical events, the participants will gain more intimate knowledge and understanding of the unique modern Central European experience as interpreted by famous film makers many of which helped create the phenomenon of the Czech New Wave (Academy Award Laureates Miloš Forman and Jiří Menzel among them). Film screenings will include films covering World War II., the Stalinist Fifties, the period of political and cultural thaw of the Sixties, the most significant works of the post-1968 Soviet invasion years as well as post-1989 Velvet Revolution trends and controversies of the Czech film art. Instructor: Ivana Doležalová, film theorist, and publicist
European Space in Film: The Other Europe? This unique course is designed to discuss and question the identity of specific nations in European space, which has always been a fascinating crossroad of ideas and ideologies as well as the birthplace of wars and totalitarian systems. The course will cover the masterpieces of Russian, Hungarian, German and Polish cinematography, focusing on several crucial periods of history, in particular World War II and its aftermath, showing the moral dilemmas of individuals and nations under the Nazi regime as well as revealing the bitter truth of the Stalinist years. It needs to be stressed that the goal of this course is not only to learn about the historical and geo-political context within European space through the most popular media, but also to thoroughly investigate the film-makers' means of expressing themselves within this specific visual art. Instructor: Ivana Doležalová, film theorist, and publicist
The goal of the course is to get students acquainted with the specific nature of European media, namely television. Despite globalization processes the mass media are still primarily a local phenomenon determined by language, culture, history, and last but not least by the size of media markets. Europe has a long tradition of state or public service broadcasting. The monopoly of these services came to the end in the eighties and nineties of the last century, when public broadcasting became part of the dual system consisting in the co-existence of public service and commercial broadcasting. The development towards the dual system in Europe was finalized after the 1989, when the Central and Eastern Europe countries followed suit and implemented several media policy recommendations of the Council of Europe and the European Union. The course will deal also with the European dimension of television broadcasting represented by the Directive EU “Television without Frontiers”. Instructor: Milan Šmíd, Department of Journalism, Charles University Faculty of Social Sciences
is designed to give students the ability to handle everyday situations in Czech by focusing on listening and reading comprehension, speaking and beginning writing skills, introduction to Czech grammar. Instructors: Dr. Marie Auerspergová, Lecturer, Prague School of Economics, Jitka Kauerová, Lecturer of Czech, Dr. Karel Kučera, Professor of Czech Language, Charles University; Dr. Zuzana Vanišová, Prague School of Economics. The course focuses on the most frequent psychic disorders, their clinical assessment, treatment, on crisis intervention, and psychotherapy process. The disorders are approached in the European tradition and differences between Europe and America in dealing with the disorders are discussed. An integral part of the course are clinical site visits where students meet diagnosed patients and are taught psychodiagnostic methods and their usage in clinical practice Instructors: Katarína Komadová, Clinical Psychologist, Bohnice Mental Hospital; Mabel Rodriguez, Clinical Psychologist, Department of Psychology, Charles University, Prague Psychiatric Center.
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