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Reflections of the deleuzian "time-image" in the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and of Alain Resnais
Konoreva, Evguenia ; Armand, Louis (referee) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor)
During the twentieth century, cinematography matured into an independent and potent form of art. Film as a sequence of images caught in continuity presents a unique tool of capturing time; it allows the viewer to observe the manipulation of temporal and of spatial values, which before was not possible in the arts. Furthermore, the technical and aesthetic conceptualization of cinematography was evolutionarily developing during its short history and, according to Deleuze, saw a major break after Citizen Kane (1941)and most forcefully following the Second World War. This break resulted in the emergence of the so-called 'time-image', which in its essence reveals a radical alienation of the individual in contemporary society, but seeks to establish a new philosophy of space and time in a disorientated post-war world. The present analyses of the films chosen in this project aimed at revealing the new realities created by our two chosen film-makers. These realities echo the complexity and ambiguity of the contemporary individuality; these are the realities of a post-war subjectivity, one that is at one stroke both questioned and fragmented. Both Alain Resnais and Andrei Tarkovsky, whose bodies of work were conditioned by the emergence of a new post-modern consciousness, created a new cinematic style and also...
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(Post)Modern Inferno: Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman between modern and medieval netherworlds
Ruczaj, Maciej ; Pilný, Ondřej (advisor) ; Armand, Louis (referee)
I have discussed earlier Noman's hallucinatory experience of "woodenness" spreading across his whole body - "a dry timber poison killing me" (119). It provides another stage in the consistently allegorical construction of the motif. Noman's moment of enlightenment, the possibility of the discovery of an allegorical meaning, is of course immediately distorted by the fact that Noman is already dead and - if his dwelling-place is hell - there is no possibility of further degradation, he is all "wood" by now. "Woodenness" he correctly associates with death, yet as always he misses the point as it is primarily a "spiritual" death that is signalized here.
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Edward W. Said: postcolonial studies and the politics of literary theory
Machátová, Bibiana ; Armand, Louis (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
I first heard the name of Edward W. Said in a university seminar two years ago. His name was mentioned by one of my American teachers and not many of us knew who Edward Said was. After trying to find out who he was I was amazed that I had never heard about one of the most widely known and controversial intellectuals of the twentieth century. I was very surprised that this influential author within the fields of literary theory, post-colonial and cultural studies is so little known within the Czech academic sphere. One of the most striking facts is that as of September 2007, there were only five entries by Said in the Czech National Library!. Similarly, only three of his brief essays were translated into Czech? Thus the purpose of this thesis is to grant appropriate attention to Edward W. Said and present an interpretive overview of his work which is necessary before one can begin to place Said in proper perspectives as the individual whom many have claimed as a centrally important twentieth century figure. It will explore Said's contribution to many disciplines ranging from literary theory and criticism to cultural history to postcolonial studies, as well as the literary, cultural, social, and aesthetic roles he has played as an academic intellectual. It will also attempt to interpret the key moments in...
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Dylan Thomas as a love poet
Mečířová, Eliška ; Armand, Louis (referee) ; Quinn, Justin (advisor)
The aim of the following BA thesis is to discuss and analyse the poetry of Dylan Thomas as love poetry. Thomas's relatively short literary career ended prematurely and the reception of his work was inconsistent from the very beginning. Some praised him as one of the best English poets and others condemned his poetry as empty rambling. Thomas led the life of a prototypical Bohemian poet and in his speech in Rome in 1947 he proclaimed about himself: "One: I am a Welshman; two: I am a drunkard; three: I am a lover of the human race, especially of women." Thomas's poems very much reflect his attitude, his love of life; the main themes they deal with are procreation, birth and death, sensuality, love and religion. Only a few of Thomas's poems do not contain the word "love", yet the range and the meanings of love are multiple in his work. Thomas includes the notion of love in all of his collections. His love for Wales and human race in general merges with his love for women and also for men, his love of God as well as the senses is reflected in his poetry.
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Giving a voice to the Other: Said's theory of anti-colonial resistance
Daghman, Ali ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee) ; Armand, Louis (advisor)
Compared to the detailed theoretical analysis of colonial power and discourse, the conception of anti-colonial resistance has been generally underdeveloped and undertheorised. This inadequate, theoretical concern with resistance to colonialism has lead to the current conception of colonial power and discourse in postcolonial theory. This argument is illustrated on the analysis of the approaches to resistance in the works of Foucault and Bhabha, who have paid the major attention to the issues of power, knowledge and colonialism. They are countered by the work of Edward Said who brings resistance to the focal point of the post- and anti-colonial discourse. Foucault argues that resistance is neither defined by terms of its object, nor is it the result of intentionality on the part of the subject, whether this subject is collective or individual. He thinks of power as an intentional question without a subject, as if he were talking about purposefulness without purpose or action without agency. Yet, Foucault's theory of resistance remains inadequately explored. For Foucault, resistance is not integral but rather a necessary condition for the operation of power. Power itself is viewed as an undifferentiated conception: he tends to think of power from the standpoint of its actual realisation, not the opposition to...
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Incompatibilities: the possibility of engagement in contemporary literary theory
Černovský, Pavel ; Procházka, Martin (referee) ; Armand, Louis (advisor)
To relate question of literature, or art in general, to any notion of engagement represents a number of problems. Probably the first is the problem, manifested in the development of the avant-garde, that engagement no matter how openly defined would nevertheless end in a subordination of art to politics, accompanied by politics usurping the right to define what is art. As Theda Shapiro in her account of the relation between politics and avant-garde art points out, at the beginning: "Many artists tacitly and somewhat naively assumed that, since art has been revolutionary before the Revolution, avant-garde artists would intuitively understand what was now needed and respond to the new economic and social situation."l However, this did not prove to be the case. To a certain surprise, the initial belief that "The fine phrase 'free, unpolitical art' is not meant for you"2 has not lead to a natural and spontaneous co-operation of artists and politicians. Instead, the claim of art being necessarily part of politics in a very wide sense was soon seen to be seized by the increasingly bureaucratic apparatus pursuing "ideological needs of the moment,"3 only to be in the end transformed into a doctrine by the "1932 proclamation of 'socialist realism' as the only officially accepted art form."4 To relate literature to...
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A wood path to the vital self: the power of nature in D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover
Klosová, Kateřina ; Armand, Louis (referee) ; Beran, Zdeněk (advisor)
A wood in spring of such tender and perceptive description would certainly stir a living string not only in Connie Chatterley, the heroine of D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover. The vividness and intensity of life that glares out of this 'picture' represents a dominant feature of Lawrence's novel which belongs to the last, fifth period of the author's career. It is not a mere coincidence that what later became published as Lady Chatterley's Lover was, in fact, a novel Lawrence originally proposed to call Tenderness. It is indeed sensibility of extraordinary degree, intense perception of colours, of slight movements and changes that occur in nature and the parallel changes taking place in the characters that play a vital role in this novel. This "extension of consciousness, [ ... ] an ability to experience what it is like to be a tree or a daisy or a breaking wave or what he (A. Huxley) called Lawrence's 'superior otherness",2 chiefly account for the poetic, soothing, almost pastoral character of Lady Chatterley's Lover. It seems to be in this novel that Lawrence's long-lasting belief in the revitalizing and revivifying power of nature, the idea of man's contact with and return to nature and the acceptance of his origins therein as the only means of survival for mankind come to their climax and...
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McDonaghland as a global village
Konárková, Michaela ; Pilný, Ondřej (advisor) ; Armand, Louis (referee)
The objective of this e-ssay is to explore various possible perspectives -of looking at Martin McDonagh's work. The author of so far six extremely successful plays premiered between the years 1996-2003 has engaged much critical attention as belonging both to the British and Irish theatrical context. However, another important circumstance of his work is that of the globalized, supranational context. I would like to prove that it is in this context where the parodic strategy of his plays is most powerful. The theoretical background of this thesis is represented by Marshall McLuhan's book War and Peace in the Global Village, Zygmun-d- Bauman's book Globalizatio~d Linda Hutcheon's/oetics of Postmodernism.
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Insularity and connection in E.M. Forster's Howards End and A Passage to India
Rezková, Jana ; Beran, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Armand, Louis (referee)
Howards End and A Passage to India, the two best known novels by E.M. Forster are quite different in theme and setting, but they have an important aspect in common. Both novels take place in a strictly divided society and they both deal with the insularity and narrow-mindedness of separate communities and their inability to reach beyond their own environment and experience. "Only connect ... ", an epigraph from Howards End, introduces one of the central themes of F orster' s writing. E. M. Forster strongly believed in the importance of personal relationships and in living a full, undivided life. That is, a life in which spiritual, physical, emotional and rational aspects are all in harmony. 1 In order to reach the desired harmony, one needs to establish connections not only between the spiritual and material life, but also on the level of personal relations. Forster is concerned with an individual's search for harmony, but also with finding harmony and overcoming fragmentation in the whole society. To reach such harmony, both within the self and within the society, is what the characters of his novels strive for. Forster disregarded religion already during his university years2 and this may have led him to consider personal relationships of primary importance. His belief in personal relations is also...
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