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Du Bois and rap music: two ways of awakening of the African American self-consciousness
Sedlák, Ladislav ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to connect W.E.B. Du Bois and rap music as two immensely important influences on African American community by tracing the development from one of the greatest scholars in American history to the widely criticized musical genre. Du Bois is studied all over the world whereas rap lyrics are mostly ignored by scholars. Nevertheless, both can serve as extraordinary sources of knowledge and pride, both can lead to the awakening of African American self-consciousness, as far as we choose the right kind of rap music and the right Du Bois. Du Bois's inclination to Stalinism in his later years may be perceived as equally condemnable as the first album of the American gangsta rap crew NWA; but most importantly both Du Bois's radical political thinking and the emergence of gangsta rap are alerting and inevitable in a way. They were caused by the longstanding frustration of the black community in the US. The thesis compares the themes of Du Bois's collection of essays The Souls of Black Folk with the poetry of rap artists. An important part of this thesis is also a sketch of the development of African American progressive thought and social commentary, which is necessary to see the link between Du Bois and rap. It is also intended to make us see that the artistry of musicians such as Mos Def,...
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The portrayal of the tragic mulatto myth in William Faulkner's Light in august
Vejvodová, Iva ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
This thesis deals with the concept of race in the work of the American novelist William Faulkner, namely with the depiction of the tragic mulatto myth in his novel Light in August. In this thesis I explain and discuss the concept of racial heritage as such and also within the Southern context. Subsequently, I argue the importance of race for the development of the character of Joe Christmas, the protagonist of the novel. The theoretical part explains the concept of the myth of biracial heritage in broader sense. The following analysis of the tragic hero, in terms of racial and therefore also social predetermination, specifically focuses on the particular situations in Joe Christmas's life that contribute to the core argument of the thesis. The theme of depiction of racial conflict in the American society could be grasped from many various perspectives, discussed on several artistic levels and observed from a number of different angles. There is a vast heritage in the field of literature, paintings or film, documenting the actual state of the society of that time. The matter of Afro-American inheritance that contributed to the cultural complexity and diversity within the American society is, beyond any doubts, a very serious one. The overlooked absurdity of the racial conflict in American democratic system...
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Self, Speech and Agency: Emerson, Melville and Bartleby - Beyond Pragmatism and Performativity
Maderová, Blanka ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee) ; Stock, Richard Thomas (referee)
Blanka Maderova: Self, Speech and Agency: Emerson, Melville and Bartleby beyond Pragmatism and Performativity Abstract The dissertation focuses on Melville's characters - such as Bartleby the Scrivener - who challenge American Emersonian vitalism, rhetoricism and performativity. Melville's silence, deactivation, ruptures in discourse, and subjectivities have stood, even in his time, in contrast to American myths of success, force of will, and self-reliance. The potentialities of Melvillean "anti-heroes" contest the rhetorical force, performance, and unity of the isolated self represented in these myths. While Emerson's early work manifests his reliance on the powers of the "beyond" (Platonism) and the "below" (Gnosis), which, however, often cannot be clearly distinguished, the language of Emerson's late work resonates with that of the late Melville on many levels. The dynamic relationship between Emerson and Melville has been, in my view, shaping American culture since the "Melville Revival" in 1920s and continues to do so in contemporary debates regarding both the formation of subjectivity and issues of performativity and agency. Although Emerson is often portrayed as "the beautiful enemy" of Melville, it can be shown that they address the same topics - especially the issues of power, speech, will,...
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Sign, symbol and allegory in Hawthorne's stories and The Scarlet Letter
Strouhalová, Slávka ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
In my thesis I will examine Nathaniel Hawthorne's stories The Minister's Black Veil and The Artist of the Beautiful as well as his famous romance The Scarlet Letter in terms of sign, symbol and allegory. I chose these particular works as typical representatives of Hawthorne's production. The Minister's Black Veil, first published in 1836, is an expression of Hawthorne's Puritan heritage recovery period, The Artist of the Beautiful, which came out in 1846 is an expression of his Romanticism and his dealings with Transcendentalism, while his major work, The Scarlet Letter, 1850, is a remarkable and complex blend of the two strains of his thinking and art. My thesis consists of four chapters. In the first chapter, named Sign, Symbol, and Allegory, I try to define what these terms mean, and to establish the difference between the first two, as some critics use the term sign and symbol interchangeably. I base my analysis on the Saussurian concept of sign, which will be outlined and contrasted with symbol. I will try to adumbrate the way in which reading of signs differs in the Puritan era and in the nineteenth century. I will characterize allegory and the patterns that enable us to recognize it, and I will mention how the understanding of what allegory is has changed in modern times. In the following three...
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White city, 1893, technological, commercial, cultural wonder; Against the Day, 2007, Thomas Pynchon
Létalová, Michaela ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
Thomas Pynchon's novel Against the Day presents an extreme challenge to the reader's knowledge of sciences and arts as well as to his reading skills. The age of information overload the contemporary society lives in requires fast adaptation to the continual tide of data, products, stress, and to all what civilization calls conveniences and labor saving devices of the modern age. Pynchon's books play the role of the "simulation of the disorienting overload of modern culture".1 All of Pynchon's texts tend to be "long, rambling, multilayered, underplotted, quasi-unfinished monsters. But with this one [Against the Day] there is the feeling that the magician has fallen in love with his own stunts, as though Pynchon were composing a pastiche of a Pynchon novel, says Louis Menand."2 Further according to Menand, Against the Day is imperfect in the sense of "What was he thinking?"3 In order to successfully approach any of Thomas Pynchon's texts the reader needs to be either extremely well educated in all fields of human knowledge, and able to discern between the science part and the fiction part of the text, or capable of a swift use of the computerized body of knowledge - the data stored on the internet, besides the still fairly high required level of education. Knowing as little as we do about the author himself,...
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The Puritan view of death: attitudes toward death and dying in Puritan New England
Holubová, Petra ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
The Puritan attitude toward death in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century New England was ambivalent and contained both terror at the possibility of eternal damnation and hope for deliverance. The joyful theme of the migratio ad Dominum resonated with the Saints only at times when they were convinced divine grace was actively working in their lives, but when they saw they were backsliding, the horror of death prevailed. Puritan anxiety about death was caused by tensions inherent in the doctrine of predestination, which implied man's dependence on God's inscrutability, and in the doctrine of assurance, which implied that self-doubt was more desirable than full assurance of salvation. What complicated any verification of the presence of grace was man's endless potential for self-deception. Memento mori gave urgency to the Puritan work ethic and the effective use of time. The anxiety about one's destiny began in early childhood when death and its ensuing horrors for the depraved were used as a means of religious instruction to provoke spiritual precocity and conversion. This early immersion into the discourse about death has been erroneously interpreted as a proof of the non-existence of childhood in Puritan New England. Deathbed scenes depicted in Puritan spiritual biographies were designed as examples...
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The beginnigs of American feminism
Mergeščíková, Tamara ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Nováková, Soňa (referee)
in English The objective of this thesis is to trace and depict the beginnings of feminist thought in America. Its aim is to show how feminist thought was developed within the Puritan/Protestant community as well as its effect on the African-Americans who were integrated into the Puritan community as an inferior race through the slave trade. The thesis uses qualitative and quantitative methods of research. A variety of primary and secondary material is used to describe the beliefs of the people in the era, such as the division of the male and female spheres of influence. The views of both men and women are provided to create a more objective description of the era and its beliefs. In addition, the subject is considered from the American point of view as well as the point of view of foreigners, such as the French historian and political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville. Furthermore, feminism is depicted in various realms of the society - in literature, in the theatre, in the political and in the social life. The quantitative methods include statistical data on wages to prove women were not fairly treated in comparison to men, as well as data from the 1860 Census to prove the drastic effects of slavery upon African-American women and the immorality within the white society's marriage institution. The...
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The Concept of Self-Definition: Emersonian Principles in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Richard Wright's Native Son
Piňosová, Alžběta ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
The works of the nineteenth-century American thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson continue to be inspiring particularly due to their empowering effect on the individual. It is especially Emerson's concepts of the sovereignty of the individual, the importance of self-definition, the view of life as a transitory flow, and the relationship between freedom and fate which can be practically and usefully applied in the life of an individual. It is possible, then, to understand and evaluate Emerson's works through the practical effects of his concepts, in other words through the prism of pragmatism. Emerson's empowering philosophy can be of use especially to disempowered groups such as African Americans. The Emersonian themes which are to be found in the works of various African-American non-fiction writers such as W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr. and Cornel West testify to the relevance of Emerson for this minority group. In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Richard Wright's Native Son, two African-American novels, Emersonian principles are shown to be of utmost importance for the positive development of the protagonists.
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The Emersonian Pynchon
Naser, Safwan ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
Ralph Waldo Emerson and his postmodemist colleague Thomas Pynchon ... a seemingly incongruous connection. The aim of this thesis is to explore the unusual relationship between these prominent authors and advert to the great influence which Ralph Waldo Emerson unquestionably had not only on authors who were not separated from him by such a noticeable temporal abysm, but also a most recent author who, according to the vast majority of the definitions of the postmodern, should be entirely free of any Emersonian influence. This intricate relationship will be assessed mainly through Mason and Dixon, the most recent novel by Thomas Pynchon which reflects many aspects of what Emerson found absolutely central. The summation of what seems to be propounded throughout the entire novel is represented by the idea of determining boundaries, in both the literal and the abstract sense. Emerson himself devoted much attention to this subject matter and it is clear that Pynchon and Emerson have much in common from this perspective, which holds true to such an extent that the boundary between the postmodem and romantic is itself facing the pressure of redefinition, which is in turn a fundamental concept which both authors share.
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The metaphysical detective story in Paul Auster's The New York trilogy and Thomas Pynchon's The crying of lot 49
Buršíková, Marika ; Robbins, David Lee (referee) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor)
While the first two chapters of the thesis provide the necessary theoretical framework concerning the classical detective story and the metaphysical detective story, in the third chapter this framework is employed to analyze the particular themes that are present in The New York Trilogy and The Crying of Lot 49. To explain the metaphysical detective story, a step back to the classical detective story as its predecessor is required. To sum up the oppositions expressed in criticism dealing with this subject, the contrast between these two genres has been defined in terms of high art and popular art (Todorov), art and kitsch (Holquist), ontological dominant and epistemological dominant (McHale), postmodern and positivistic mode of thinking (Spanos). The metaphysical detective story takes the conventions of the classical detective story and distorts them in order to betray the reader's expectations. Since the popular genres are constituted by their corresponding sets of conventions which need to be familiar, any change in them causes the work to lose its status as part of the genre. In this case, the classical detective story has served as a point of departure for many authors who transformed it into a completely different genre which had no longer anything to do with popular literature. Classical detective...
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