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In search of Afro-American identity: Zora Neale Hurston and race politics of the Harlem renaissance
Koucká, Magdalena ; Procházka, Martin (referee) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to explore the phenomenon of the Harlem Renaissance as not only an artistic but also a socio-political movement in American history. I shall try to trace its historical conditions, its ideology and accomplishments. Introducing its main intellectualleaders--scholars as well as men of belles-Iettres, I will take an insight into the ambience of cultural events and discussions that they created and comment on the diversity of attitudes toward the role of the African American in American society that they launched. Among the most prominent and influential intellectuals who fathered the Movement were Alain LeRoy Locke, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson and Charles S. Johnson. The second target of this thesis is to examine one of the outstanding literary voices of this period. Out of the many artists who began their career during the Harlem Renaissance-and one should name at least Langston Hughes, Countee Cull en, Claude McKay and Jean Toomer--I chose the personality of Zora Neale Hurston as a representative of the unconventional black female artist of this time. In my focus were Hurston' s artistic aims to ground the Black identity as opposed, and sometimes even parallel, to some of her contemporaries. Hurston' s former friend, later a rival, Langston Hughes would probably be her...
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Rethinking the Animal: Post-Humanist Tendencies in (Post) Modern Literature
Gridneva, Yana ; Vichnar, David (advisor) ; Procházka, Martin (referee)
This thesis posits post-humanism as a philosophy that engages directly with the problem of anthropocentrism and is concerned primarily with the metaphysics of subjectivity. It studies five literary texts (James Joyce's Ulysses, Virginia Woolf's Flush, Djuna Barnes' Nightwood, Brigid Brophy's Hackenfeller's Ape and J.M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons) that challenge the humanistic or classical subject through critical engagement with what this subject traditionally saw as its antithesis - the animal. These texts contest various fixed assumptions about animality and disrupt the status-quo of the human. Breaking with the tradition that treats animals exclusively as a metaphor for the human, they attempt to see and understand animality outside the framework of anthropocentric suppositions. This project aims to describe the strategies these texts employ to conceptualize animality as well as the methods they apply to delineate its subversive potential and to disrupt the human- animal binary. Its theoretical framework combines the work of thinkers belonging to the new but thriving field of Animal Studies with the ideas of Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. It is this project's great ambition to contribute towards the development of new post- humanist ethics defined by its...
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Tensions Within the Abolitionist Movement in the United States of America
Dvořáková, Irena ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
The thesis deals with the abolitionist movement in the United States of America and approaches it as an internally disunited movement. It focuses on the conflicts between its most influential representatives, including William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Different motives of the anti-slavery leaders' involvement in the matter are analyzed and used to explain the arguments among these. Attention is given to the problem of racial oppression as one of the main forces having determined not only the development of the abolitionist movement but also the events following the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, mostly the rise of the Black nationalism movement and of black racism. Even though many abolitionists saw slavery as based on racism and, therefore, endeavored to reach its abolition, in practice, many of them refused to acknowledge racial equality between white and African American people. This paradox is one of the central problems of American abolitionism examined in the thesis. The first three chapters discuss abolitionist ideas of William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and David Walker with focus on their distinct and opposing views. The fourth chapter deals with the emancipation of women as it was closely linked to the emancipation of slaves; the...
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Southern gothic family in the works of Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy
Malířová, Barbora ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Onufer, Petr (referee)
The literature anthologized under the label "American Southern Gothic" should be described and a thorough definition of the term should be given before an examination of one aspect of Gothicism in selected works by Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy. To do so, it is necessary to separate the two components of the term and define each of them individually, i.e. we must deal first with the concepts of "Southern literature" and "Gothic art," and only then present a comprehensive definition of the joint category. According to Veronica Makowsky, in its most basic sense Southern literature is writing about the South, but this definition, as Makowsky herself admits, has many complications and thus she presents a more satisfying, theme-based definition: "Topically, Southern writing can concern the South or a Southerner's experience elsewhere, but it can also include a Southerner's writing on a non-Southern topic from a non-Southern point of view.,,1 As the quotation makes clear, it is not at all easy to define the literature of the South concisely and completely. It is best to say that all Southern writers share a common nature; the fact that they were born and raised in a region so much stigmatized by its past, burdened by military and economic defeat, caused that the artists show a distinct affinity both in the...
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Blindness and Obsession: Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and Laughter in the Dark
Rychnovská, Tereza ; Quinn, Justin (advisor) ; Procházka, Martin (referee)
Many books and essays have been written on the works of Vladimir Nabokov, of which my bibliography contains only a tiny fragment. Yet, most of the studies make comparisons within either Nabokov's Russian works or his American works, while the comparison of the two novels I have chosen, Lolita and Laughter in the Dark, is very rare. Most novels by Vladimir Nabokov display the themes of obsession, blindness, manipulation, freedom, and morality. Most of them also are about games, including language games, and the love of language in general. Nabokov switched from writing in Russian to English and experienced a great deal of pain in relinquishing his native tongue, becoming a phantom in his own prose, as if, he said, he had created the person who wrote in English but was not himself doing the writing. 1 Bearing this in mind, it is also important to state that he had translated two of his Russian novels into English (Laughter in the Dark and Despair) . This split in Nabokov's life into two periods is also why it was of great relevance to me that I should compare two of his novels that were written at different times, in different languages, and with different backgrounds. It might seem more natural to compare two novels originally written in Russian that have quite similar plots and characters, Laughter in the...
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Mixed-use building in Brno
Koždoň, Jakub ; Procházka, Martin (referee) ; Sobotka, Jindřich (advisor)
The subject of this diploma thesis is a newly built mixed-use building in Brno. It is a four-storey building without cellar. The building is located on a corner plot in an urban part of Brno - Židenice. In the 1st floor there are three business units. On the other floors are a total of 11 apartments. One apartment is located in the courtyard. It is designed for people with limited mobility. The vertical structures are of the ceramic blocks Porotherm. Ceiling structures and staircases are cast-in-place reinforced concrete. The building is insulated with contact insulation system ETICS. The roof is warm flat. The project was processed by computer software AutoCAD 15.
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Meatpacking plant
Majtán, Marián ; Procházka, Martin (referee) ; Sobotka, Jindřich (advisor)
The diploma thesis is focused on project documentation of Meat packing plant. Along with meat processing the documentation solve question of accomodation for employees. Building consists of two main sections: The processing – it is structured under requierements of meat packing industry. Second one is residential part set in 2nd, 3rd and 4th floor. Main inspiration for design are meat packing plants in Scandinavian countries, where is often need to provide accomodation to employess because of disadvantageous geographic locality. Building is built of Heluz building system, perimeter walls consists of insulation filled blocks. Building is without basement and it is based on footings of plaint. The roof is flat, partially designed as extensive green roof. Isover system is used to thermal insulation. A part of object is also asphalted plain for transport goods to and from the meat packing plant.
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