Slavic Studies

This course provides an introduction to European fairytales within a historical, geographical, and cultural context including European folk genres such as myth or legends and a close focus on Czech fairytales. The course describes and surveys the changes in the approach to European fairytales within the development of scholarship about them. It presents sociohistorical, psychological, or anthropological interpretations, as well as biologically based and gender or feminist methods of their interpretation. The course topics include ethical or moral principles in fairytales, gender and social roles, and historical and political influences on fairytale adaptation.

This course examines various elements of Czech non-mainstream culture, such as graffiti and street-art, political art collectives, the underground, new social movements, psychedelia, D.I.Y. music scenes, LGBTA, and social theater. It examines critical theory to discuss the practices of "alternative" urban lives in postindustrial society and certain trends of artistic production. The focus is on the political interpretation of youth subversion and disclosures of power mechanisms. Visuals and field trips to graffiti and other subcultural sites are an inherent part of this course.

This course introduces the area of Czech fairytales as a genre within its broader historical, geographical, and cultural context. Furthermore, it describes and surveys the changes in the approach to fairytales within the development of scholarship about them. The course presents historical, psychoanalytical, and philosophical interpretations, as well as anthropological and religious types of theories, and biological and gender or feminist methods of their interpretation. The course respects the connection of the fairytale to other folklore narrative forms like legends, fables, and myths; however, it defines the fairytale as a specific genre. It includes topics such as ethical and moral principles in fairytales, gender and social roles, and historical and political influences on fairytale adaptations.

This course develops knowledge of Czech at the intermediate level. It provides linguistic tools to enable successful communication in many situations and to facilitate better understanding of the Czech cultural and social context. By completing this course, students acquire the following knowledge and language skills: listening: students can follow basic news, general conversation, and understand announcements; reading: students can read and understand texts on familiar topics and simple news items; speaking: students can hold conversation on known topics, can answer questions about themselves, and can ask for information; writing: students can write emails and short texts on familiar topics, including PowerPoint presentations; and vocabulary: students acquire broader and more specialized vocabulary related to specific situations and topics. This course is designed for students who meet the following requirements: 1) are able to read and comprehend a simple newspaper or magazine article; 2) are able to communicate about everyday topics; 3) are able to write one page essay on familiar topics (where they live, why they want to study the Czech language, etc.); and 4) have acquired basic vocabulary and understand fundamental principles of Czech grammar (conjugation, declension, syntax, etc.).

This is a beginning-level course that provides students with the basic skills needed to communicate on a daily basis, including grammar, conversation, listening, writing, and reading comprehension. The course is designed to develop practical knowledge of the Czech language, allowing for function in everyday situations and facilitating a degree of integration into Czech culture and society. The course focuses on correct pronunciation and the acquisition of pertinent vocabulary and phraseology. Grammatical topics are introduced and employed as tools allowing for the use of Czech in simple conversational situations. The course also includes topics related to the Czech culture as a basic introduction to Czech society and customs. This course is intended for students who do not intend to continue their study of Czech and desire an introduction to the fundamentals of Czech grammar, syntax, and vocabulary.

This course examines the role of ethnic and religious identity in group prejudice in a Central European context, along with its geopolitical, cultural, ideological, and ethical implications. The course explores the function of communication in large groups and in mass movements, and the opportunities it provides for social research. A comparison of the Anglo-American and Continental European traditions of social research provide insight into complementarities of the two approaches and potential richness for new methodological approaches in the field of communication research. Students explore the historical circumstances in which particular social research scholarship was developed in order to provide a more realistic understanding of the scientific process. The course also discusses the mutual influence of society and social research and the benefits and dangers of this dynamic for democracy. Students identify research problems and build adequate research methodologies. The course reviews topics including the role of ethnicity and religious affiliation in a Central European context, how stereotypes may lead to group prejudice, prejudiced group attitudes as they appear in media and other forms of public discourse, the importance of social research for policy planning, interpreting publicly disseminated messages, and comparing and analyzing approaches to social research from an historical perspective.