About the Department
The department offers courses and study programmes at the bachelor, master, and doctoral levels in Film, TV and Radio, and Theatre and Performance Studies, presenting audiovisual media and performance as a dynamic field with a variety of engaging cultural, aesthetic, and social issues to explore. Besides the rudiments of the theory and history of each medium, the curriculum focuses especially on their overlaps, providing an opportunity for the investigation of various forms of mediality and arts in film, television, theatre, and the internet.
These media are discussed in the courses not only as modes of communication but also as a means of establishing, maintaining, and negotiating between communities (e.g., in audience studies), as well as a crucial agent in the power games and an important aspect of politics (e.g., the issue of copyright, social acting, etc.). On the examples of contemporary TV and Radio broadcasting, dance and other forms of live and mediated performance, the institution of identity (communal, national, ethnic, gender, etc.) is raised as a subject of inquiry, including the interaction between the human and non-human and its artistic, technological, and ethic consequences.
A distinctive feature of the research undertaken at the Department of Theatre and Film Studies is interdisciplinarity. Spanning not only the firmly established fields of film, theatre, television, radio, and literary studies but also over the manifold areas that give them both the theoretical and analytical vitality – such as media industry studies, festival studies, performance and dance studies, media philosophy, gender and queer theory, sound studies, new media ethics, and copyright – the majority of our research activities engages in the mutual dialogue between various scholarly discourses (see Research).
Our department has also a long tradition of being a major organizer and providing interns for various film, theatre, and audiovisual arts festivals, including AFO, PAF, Olomouc branch of Mezipatra Queer Film Festival, and Flora Theatre Festival. Academia Film Olomouc – the International Festival of Science Documentary Films – has been organized by Palacký University Olomouc since 1966. Over the years, the small-scale private meeting has transformed into one of the biggest scientific events in Europe. AFO is the only festival in the Czech Republic, which provided a space to gather such famous scientists as the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, the roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro, and the philosopher and AI theorist Susan Schneider. Other prominent scholars who have lectured at the department include Ian Christie (Birkbeck, University of London), Steven Price (Bangor University), Peter Krämer (University of East Anglia), and Maria Belodubrovskaya (The University of Chicago).
In addition to these major activities and events, students can participate in several student projects, such as publishing online journal reviews and critics (Divá báze), one of several theatre groups that launch their own theatre projects, a student association (Pastiche Filmz), and off-line and online platforms focused on podcasts (RadioDock), TV (Television ThinkTank), or radio broadcasting (UP Air Student Radio).
The Department is part of Palacký University Olomouc, a modern higher education facility and one of the very top Czech universities, which also plays a significant role in the region. The sixth-largest city in the Czech Republic, Olomouc embodies a perfect balance of elegant, historical architecture and modern, colourful attractions. One of the architectural gems of the city, the historical campus of the university is scattered among the squares designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Department is located in the monumental building of a Baroque Jesuit College that makes part of the cluster and the foundations of which date back to the 17th century.