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PAVEL JANOUŠEK: Černá kočka aneb Subjekt znalce v myšlení o literatuře a jeho komunikační strategie; RADOSLAV PASSIA: Na hranici. Slovenská literatúra a východokarpatský hraničný areál; JOZEF BRUNCLÍK: Introvertnosťou ku katarzii. Lyrický svet v tvorbe Jána Motulka; KATARZYNA KUCZYŃSKA-KOSCHANY: Interlinie w ciemności. Jednak interpretacja
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The point of departure for the article is a discourse that aims to revise and reflect on particular questions closely related to the constitution, existence and reception of literary canon or as the case may be with one of its forms referred to by the given signifier taking into consideration the reception and differentiation process in literature and arts. In the first part of the text the author among other things rereads selected theoretical works on the questions of canon (by W. Wiesmüller, A. Fowler, H. Markiewicz) so that he could use the premise that canon is “what is recommended for the readers’ experience” (P. Zajac) as a point of departure in the second part. The author’s considerations are triggered by the publication 1001 Books You Must Read before You Die. Although the book materializes the essence of literary canon its notion is extended beyond the limits of one’s mortality and a “pragmatic dilemma what to avoid reading so that we would have time for reading” (H. Bloom). The interpretation part focuses on two novels – The Sorrows of Young Werther by J. W. Goethe and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by J. Diaz.
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This paper investigates the main issues of literary canon formation and the debates over the literary canon, concerning aspects such as the bequeathing of cultural values, institutional authority and cultural memory, from the hypothetical terms “World-literature classics” to the question of the archaeology of communication, whilst aiming to draw attention primarily to the terminological gaps and blind spots of canon literature. Most of the theoretic treatises of the last 30 years, including the base texts of the US canon debate in the last decades of the 20th century, were not necessarily based upon the same canon concepts. Concerning this, the author assumes the existence of two major canon concepts; one is tighter and more professional, used in a paradigmatic meaning, featured obviously by ease of variability; while the other is much wider, and due to its cultural background, normativity seems to be less variable, rather determining and correlating with some segments of tradition.
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During the last twenty years canon has been taken as a register of literature for the interested public as well as professional readers. It is a challenge, therefore, to revive the initial meaning of canon as obligatory reading for the general education of the next generation. The article starts with a brief outline of the major positions of research in the humanities on the issue of literary evaluation and the controversy about normative and descriptive theories. Both are connected with the key purpose of general education in secondary schools. The great variety of aims provides arguments for choosing works of literature in the light of didactic intentions. The article then focuses on the description of teaching sequences including decisions for the selection of concrete literary works, e.g. novels by Uwe Timm (2003) and Melinda Nadj Abonji (2010). Conducted in three consecutive steps with altogether eight criteria, such canon decisions become plausible in theory as well as practicable in educational contexts: Literary Evaluation (e.g. polyvalence, self-reference), Didactic Justification (e.g. exemplarity, potentiality of significance) and Context Formation (e.g. by motif or literary form). Especially complex literary texts with their inherent thought-images (Denkbilder) give rise to an unlimited process of interpretation, enabling young readers to widen their knowledge and broaden their competence.
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K. Clark’ s understanding of socialist realism as a canonical doctrine turns our attention towards the problem of the universal authority of this phenomenon in Soviet-type culture. The article focuses on exposing the principles of this authority in the form of canonization as a “contract agreement”. In this type of framework, the subject of analysis is the process of canonization formed by the “figures” of forclusion, conversion, inclusion (into tradition, which is at the same time a production of tradition) and instruments such as commentary and lecture. Finally, the subject of reflection is also the moment of the destruction of canonized structures through their subversion. The literary material to serve as illustration of these mechanisms is Slovak literature and literary life in 1948/49 – 1989/90.
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The starting point of the study is the conflict between classical (academic) and alternative canon. Some prominent texts of speculative fiction can notably stage this conflict (as a possible textual strategy) by confronting us with the experience that mainstream literature and popular registers are inseparable. The reading of these texts can prove that the aesthetical canon is not equivalent to cultural elitism. In contemporary literature, some works of speculative fiction – works of science fiction and fantasy in particular – support this idea. The study – by reading David Gemmell’ s “Troy Series” and Dan Simmons’ s “Hyperion Cantos” – exemplifies the fact that the principle of innovation does not necessarily destruct the existing canon but integrates itself into the canon while rearranging it. The works of Gemmell and Simmons employ such poetical and rhetorical techniques that are able to modify the system of expectations created by the evoked genres (mythological fantasy and new space opera) and also lead us to reconsider the classical literary canon. They both indicate that an artificially created cultural hierarchy can be set in motion by rereading works of popular literature.
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Systems theory offers the opportunity to model communication as a principle of the self-organization of social systems. It is a tool for observing the mechanisms and principles of the construction of social reality made visible in acts of communication. Until the 1980s, systematic study of the canon was, in the German environment, inhibited by a traditional understanding of the canon, according to which the canon contained the best works. Since the overcoming of this idea, the study of the canon has become more differentiated as part of the study of literature evaluation. In the literary scholarship of German-speaking countries in the 1980s, the research of the mechanisms and components of the literary canon was becoming increasingly impotent; there is research about the historical background of its construction and its position in contemporary society. A certain consensus already exists, e.g., in the rejection of opinions that explain the construction of the canon through the aesthetic qualities of particular artistic works, as practised by Harold Bloom. On the contrary, the thinking about the canon converges in the idea that the canon reflects social conditions, group interests, etc. There are several varieties of social background-based canon formation (postcolonial, gender, social, discourse analytical…); however, it is the textual aspects, and the aesthetic qualities of texts, that are undervalued as possible elements in the process of canonization, which is also typical for system-theoretical literary study in general, which accompanies and strongly influences canon research in Germany. My reflections will develop primarily in the context of the systems theory developed by Niklas Luhmann and its application on the study of literature as an autopoietic system.
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The study, focusing on the writings of A. Maillet – the founding figure of modern Acadian literature – deals with the question whether the well-known Acadian and Quebec author might be considered as canonical. An analysis of the canonical novel “Pélagie-la-Charrette”, written in 1979, draws on the contemporary context and Bloom’ s “The Canon of Western Literature”, canonical characteristics of the genres being relevant to the analysed text (i.e. the epic, the picaresque novel etc.). The analysis reveals that the author substantially revises the traditional Acadian canon when fictionalizing historicity. Confronting multiple canons, A. Maillet creates a hybrid, aesthetically appealing polysemantic text that promotes her from the “periphery” towards the “western literary canon”.
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From the late 1960s to the early 2000s, questions of canonization formed one of the central issues of “Deutschdidaktik”, which is the German phrase for the scholarly approach to teaching German language and literature. Within the didactic debate on canon, however, teaching world literature was widely neglected. Instead, the canon debate mainly focused on teaching contemporary literature, children and youth literature, and functional literature. When addressing world literature, “Deutschdidaktik” omitted the discussion of fundamental issues of the canon. Things are very different within the US-American discourse. The discussions about teaching world literature and about how to redefine the canon are strongly intertwined. This essay compares the developments within the German and the US-American discourse. It will discuss the reasons for divergent settings of priorities in both canon debates. The essay concludes by suggesting a more intensive dialogue between American and German pedagogic discourse. It also states the need for a stronger intertwining of literary studies and studies of literary education within the German discourse, mainly through an application of postcolonial theorems on literary education.
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The subject of project managers' competencies was very popular in scientific research over the past decades. A great number of academic researchers studied the field of project manager's competencies, its impact on project success and correlation to project performance and key characteristics of a project environment. The aim of this literature study was to analyze methodological aspects of aforementioned studies in order to identify research patterns applied, research instruments used, respondents' profiles and others. It's understandable that publications related to competencies of project managers can be found in leading project management journals. These articles constituted also a basis of the analysis. Furthermore, publications considered were narrowed to those focused on at least one of three appointed aspects, namely identification of competencies, their evaluation or relative importance assessment. Over a dozen of articles were obtained as the outcome of journals review. Key characteristics of selected studies were systematically analyzed and compared, including, among others, construction of the respondents group, examined subset of competencies and the approach adopted to identification and evaluation of competencies. As a result some patterns and repeatable elements were found. Moreover, two identified contentious practices were discussed - usage of a self-assessment to evaluate performance of respondent and usage of project success criteria aimed at assessing the performance of a project manager.
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