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Representations of Native Americans in Czech Written Sources in the Early Modern Period
Libánská, Anna ; Brenišínová, Monika (advisor) ; Křížová, Markéta (referee)
The diploma thesis deals with the issue of representations of Native Americans in Czech written sources from the 16th century which are related to the topic of european overseas exploration. Special emphasis is placed on the formation of representations of corporeality in the context of discourses present in the early modern literary production and on the representations of gender relations that discourses of the body help to produce in texts. Apart from other things, the textual representations were influenced by the europocentric interpretation of the world which emerging from christian discourse at that time. As well, the work shows how the practices of othering of American Indians and their societies are produced in analyzed sources. The othering was realized, beside other things, in the context of dichotomous discourses of civilization and barbarism, religious discourse and the discourse of power. Emphasis is also put on the changes and mutual similarities of discourses in the written sources. In order to analyze representations of American Indians, the work uses the method of Foucalt's discursive analysis. The work also uses the constructivist theory of representation and the theory of hegemonic gender configurations. Key words Native Americans, corporeality, gender, otherness, textual...
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