Research by the Germano-Bohemist team focuses on transcultural literary relations within and outside the Czech lands (minority, emigration, and exile literature) from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, with an emphasis on the period of the ‘long’ 19th century.
The team deals with processes of cultural translation and transposition, the heterogeneity of cultural codes in works of art, and multilingualism. While, with respect to methodology, the team follows the philological tradition, particularly in the context of the study, poetics, and reception of literary texts, it is also involved to a large extent with contemporary cultural studies. Through its work, the team lays the methodological and material groundwork for innovative synthetic works on the history of Czech literature developed at the ICL.
The Germano-Bohemist team was founded in April 2017 as part of the Department of 19th Century Literature, made up of researchers who collaborate on projects led by other ICL departments. It builds on the foundations of research on German-language literature from the Czech lands developed during the 1960s at the Institute of Languages and Literatures, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, and research on Czech literature, as defined geographically, developed at the ICL in the post-1989 era.
The team regularly collaborates with other scholarly institutions, including the Institute for the Study of Literature, the Kurt Krolop Center for German Literature in Bohemia Prague (Charles University), the Centre for German Moravian Literature (Faculty of Arts, Palacký University of Olomouc), the Adalbert Stifter Association Munich, Collegium Carolinum Munich, and Bohemicum Regensburg-Passau.
The project aims to create a synoptic overview of the development of the literatures of the Czech lands in the “long 19th century” in their interaction, conflictual relations and intermingling.
