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Body, Mind, and the Lost Generation in Works of Hemingway and Fitzgerald
Nekvasilová, Klára ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
The thesis explores the notion of physicality in selected novels of Ernest Hemingway and Francis Scott Fitzgerald, using the works of Jean Baudrillard as its theoretical base. The text seeks to uncover the significance of a human body in the novels through a detailed observation of the depicted characters, focusing mainly on the role of the body as an emblem that reflects not only its owner's individual battles, but also the transgressive processes taking place in the society. The study assumes that the works written by the authors of the Lost Generation capture the gradual onset of capitalism and consumerism, and thus they reflect the emergence of the consumer society, a social order that became Baudrillard's main subject of study. The main aim of the thesis is thence to explore the human body as a reflection of major societal changes and uncover the methods in which the characters use their bodies to define their own position in the newly arising system. Following the theoretical introduction, the analysis firstly examines fashion and demonstrates its capability to either unify the members of the consumer society through their shared desire to follow specific trends, or alternatively hierarchically divide the consumers based on their dissimilar approaches to consumption. Secondly, the thesis...
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The Legacy of Invisible Man: Ralph Ellison's Influence on Fight Club.
Otáhal, Michal ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
This thesis explores the themes of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1952) in comparison with Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club (1996) through the views of the intradiegetic unnamed first- person narrators of both novels. Although they are of a different race, socio-economical standing, and era, they have a similar mindset which, on the one hand, criticizes the US capitalism and the work-oriented, materialistic American Dream, and on the other one, reflects Emersonian combination of nihilism and anarchy. Fight Club follows the ideas voiced in Invisible Man and adjusts them to the contemporary globalized society. The thesis is divided into three main chapters, each focusing on one major topic pursued by the narrators. The first chapter deals with the idea of dispossession, both as a material and spiritual separation from the world, which is the core of the narrators' process of self-liberation from the norms of society. Only when they lose all possessions, social bonds, and almost erase their identities, they can find their true (Emersonian) selves and freedom. The self is more analysed in the following chapter focused on the theme of social invisibility. The narrators are taken at face value by society, i.e. people concentrate only on their outward social markers and disregard their individual selves....
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Great American Myths: Nation-Building and Identity Politics in the United States of America
Pyshkin, Dmitry ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
This thesis attempts to analyze the American Thesis, also the American Creed or the American Ideology (the terms as used by Anatol Lieven in America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism) as the United States` national identity. In interaction with a set of national myths, the American Thesis constitutes the narrative of US America`s identity, the nation`s 'common sense' and morality. The thesis begins with the definition of the phenomenon of the nation as a political and cultural community, then proceeds to discuss the specific contexts from which the narrative image of the US nation emerged. Next, the thesis studies the American Creed as the cultural instrument of fostering social cohesion and assimilating uncanonical dissent. Finally, the myths of US nationalism are analyzed in the context of their narrative structure and affective dynamics which account for the ontological and emotive power of the American Thesis. Key words: the USA, US nationalism, the American Creed, myth, nation-building, national identity
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Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche, John Dewey, and the Creative Reader
Ľuba, Peter ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
The aim of this MA thesis was to analyze the correspondences and differences between the individual philosophers and writers from the loosely formed intellectual group of Euro- American pragmatism. The thesis utilizes a chronological approach, starting with the early signs of transatlantic pragmatism in Immanuel Kant's philosophy, and traces this development throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century. In addition to the comparison of philosophical similarities and dissimilarities of the examined authors, each chapter also considered the possible uses of pragmatic techniques in pedagogy and education. Therefore, besides the examination of differing epistemologies of writers of transatlantic pragmatism, this thesis also aims to offer educational suggestions, ideas and practical methods for an educator. The first chapter of the thesis is designed to introduce the theme of the work at large. The second chapter of the thesis analyzes the rudimentary signs of pragmatism, in the revolutionary ideas of Immanuel Kant and Johan Gottlieb Fichte. This chapter focuses on the genesis of subjective idealism, subjective category creation and Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre, along with his lectures on vocations. The third chapter surveys the ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his approaches towards the...
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What It Means to Be American?: Creating American National Identity
Zeimannová, Adéla ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
National identity is a complex notion of being and belonging. The multiple selves, out of which the identity is composed of such as gender, class, race, and ethnicity etc. pose a challenge in creating any sort of unified collective national identity that would encompass each individual's unique set of these multiple selves and roles. This complexity is even more pronounced when a national identity of such nations as the U.S. is examined. Due to its multicultural and multiethnic nature, identifying a collective American identity becomes a challenge. This thesis examines the birth of national identity in the U.S. during the Revolutionary era through the time of the Early republic and the period of 1800-1850 in an effort to discover the unifying features of such complex identity and to uncover its origins. The text consults theoretical framework on nation, nationalism and national identity to establish a working definition of a nation and to explain the complexity of the concept which is then further examined in the context of the U.S. In combination with a historical overview of the period 1770-1850, the thesis addresses nationalist feelings and thoughts that permeated the country at the time, examining the first emergence of calls for unified American national identity and the subsequent...
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Tier-y Blues: Langston Hughes's Poetics of Blackness
Zídková, Pavla ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
In the first half of the 1920s, the New Negro movement aimed to capture the changing African American consciousness of the times. Based on the aesthetic and philosophical thoughts articulated by its representatives, among whom the most central figures were Alain Locke and W. E. B. DuBois, a new artistic movement arose - the so-called "Harlem Renaissance". This study is an initial attempt to investigate the relationship between the poetics of Langston Hughes (since Hughes is generally considered one of the most prominent representatives of the "Harlem Renaissance") and the "New Negro" aesthetic ideas as outlined in the movement's defining anthology, The New Negro. The primary material considered consists of Hughes's poems published between 1926, when his first collection, The Weary Blues, was published, and 1942, marked by appearance of his collection Shakespeare in Harem. The choice to analyse this particular range of Hughes's writing reflects the focus of the thesis - these works were published during and several years after the philosophical predominance of the New Negro movement and the peak of its principal aesthetic manifestation, the "Harlem Renaissance." The chosen corpus allows us to assess the transformation of African American sensibility and recognise the achievements and/or failures...
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Objectivity Disguised: Ideas of Authenticity in the Novels of Thomas Pynchon and Paul Auster
Torčík, Marek ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
This thesis deals with six texts by two of the best-known contemporary American novelists, namely Paul Auster and Thomas Pynchon. The thesis analyzes three most recent novels by each writer: Invisible, Sunset Park and 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster and Against the Day, Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon. All six novels explore various modes of authenticity - a notion which in each author's work adopts specific mechanisms of establishing ways of existing within the world that are directed towards a critique of the forms of society that try to limit individuals, confine them to prescribed objective categories. Chapters I to IV establish one by one the primary approaches to understanding how authenticity works within individual novels. First two chapters explore Paul Auster's works, and emphasize their portrayal of change as an organizing leitmotif. Chapters III and IV deal with selected works by Thomas Pynchon and analyze their use of entropy and information overload within individual narratives. The final chapter then combines all these notions and provides a comparative analysis and a critical interpretation of all six works against a theoretical and critical framework. The thesis explores the differences between Auster's and Pynchon's approach to authenticity, notions of the subjective or the...
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The American Notion of Freedom: Freedom as a Central Element of American History and its Reflection in Literature.
Tomášková, Barbora ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
This thesis explores the American notion of freedom and its interpretations within individual periods of American history. In the thesis, freedom is described upon the basis of historical context, and its importance is demonstrated through specific examples of the periods' literary works and documents. The work analyzes periods from 1776; the year of the U.S. establishment, and continues up to the first half of the twentieth century. For the purpose of the thesis, six particular periods characteristic of significant historical events, or, of social, literary, and philosophical movements, were chosen. Chronologically, the thesis begins with the 17th century's arrival of the first European settlers to the North American continent, followed by the founding of the United States more than a century later. The thesis then gradually focuses on movements and philosophies emerging during the 18th and 19th century, namely, transcendentalism and abolitionism, and further continues with introducing the freedom-related ideals of American anarchists and pragmatists. The work then closes with the 20th century's Beat generation. The objective of the thesis is to prove, that during American history, freedom had always been the most important value; a value which shaped the American mentality into how we know it...
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Shock and Awe: Deformities in the Selected Stories of Flannery O'Connor, Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams
Soukupová, Markéta ; Ulmanová, Hana (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
This thesis traces the phenomenon of American Southern Gothic literature in relation to its most integral part: the exaggerated monstrosity. Even though the prevalent distorted images are usually associated with aesthetic decadence, their moral symbolism should not be neglected. Furthermore, since the Gothic tradition is congruent with the unconscious and irrational, the absence of any psychological interest poses a major limitation in the Southern studies. Drawing on this approach, the following thesis investigates the role of deformities in connection to the individual's mind. Thus, aside from the literary historical concerns that arise within the context of the American South, the main aim of this thesis is to determine whether there is a link between the distortion and psychological trauma of the Southern past. The selected topic is approached from an interdisciplinary point of view; apart from literary history (E.A. Poe, W. Faulkner), Freudian definition of unconsciousness will be likewise employed. I hereby hope my findings may significantly broaden and contribute to the conceptualization of deformities in regards to the context of the American South, more specifically within the historical, literary and psychological field of Southern studies. Key words: American, South, Gothic, Deformity,...
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