Research Team for Modern Czech Theatre

The Research Team for Modern Czech Theatre focuses on historical changes within modern Czech theatre, but also on the relationship between two kinds of artistic communication: theatrical and literary. Established in mid-2017 as part of the Department of 20th Century and Contemporary Literature (with plans of developing into an independent department), the team combines historical research on theatre and drama with theoretical research.

The central research interest of the team is the theatrical drama, understood both as a distinct literary work and as a text intended for realisation on the stage.

At present, the main project of the team is Modern Czech Theatre (1896–1989), a dictionary that will provide a comprehensive report on approximately one hundred years of development and change in Czech theatre.

Within the purview of the team’s professional activities are two ongoing book series, developed in cooperation with Academia Publishing. Starting with a collective monograph aptly titled Text and Theater (2019), the Theatrologica series will consist of professional publications on the theory and history of theatre and drama in both Czech and global contexts. The Drama series will then make available to readers important (but overlooked) theatre and radio plays from various historical stages, and of various themes and genres. The introductory volume of this series, Expressionist Drama from the Czech Lands (2020), presents expressionist plays written in both Czech and German.

Current projects

(Un-)United Europe? Crossing borders in German and Austrian literature, and its reception in Czech Republic after 2000

Main instigator: Renata Cornejo, FF UJEP

Project team: Renata Cornejo, Zuzana Augustová

Year: 2022

This project will examine how borders remain an important part of literary discourse in German-language literature after 2000, with an aim to better understand how they are represented, and what concepts they prefigure in the prose and dramatic works that cross them.

Publication department

České surrealistické drama

Tomáš Kubart (ed.), Marek Lollok (ed.), Jitka Šotkovská (ed.)

Neoficiální drama z komunistické totality

Lenka Jungmannová (ed.)

Expresionistické drama z českých zemí

Zuzana Augustová (ed.), Lenka Jungmannová (ed.), Aleš Merenus (ed.)

Text a divadlo

Aleš Merenus (ed.), Iva Mikulová (ed.), Jitka Šotkovská (ed.)

Experiment jako kritika nacismu

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