Head of Department
The department is currently divided into three sub-departments: Theatre Studies, Film Studies, and Television and Radio Studies. Each sub-department is responsible for tuition in its relevant subject area, the implementation of its own research projects and organization of conferences connected to its field of study. A great advantage of the department for both study and the overall student experience is the ease with which the available fields of study can be combined. Combining disciplines enables interdisciplinary lectures and seminars, joint projects, and the participation of lecturers and students in festivals and conferences. All sub-departments place great emphasis on the practical skills and workplace readiness of students. Leadership of the department is handled by the Head and the Deputy Head, while the Department Assistant is in charge of administrative and operational matters.
Head of Department
Mgr. Milan HAIN, Ph.D.
585 633 487
milan.hain@upol.cz
room: 328
Deputy Head of Department
Mgr. Martin BERNÁTEK, Ph.D.
585 633 428
martin.bernatek@upol.cz
room: 330
Department Assistant
Mgr. Anna GÁBOROVÁ
585 633 423
anna.gaborova@upol.cz
room: 308
Theatre and Performance Studies
The theatre and performance section emphasizes the interdisciplinary form of theater and performance studies with an accent on contemporary forms of theatre and performance and on understanding the performativity and theatricality of culture. We focus on the analysis of performances of various forms and from different historical eras. We develop critical and non-conformist thinking, including through the student server divabaze.cz. We cooperate with theatre institutions (Divadelní Flora, HaDivadlo, Center for Experimental Theater, Divadlo na cucky, Moravian Theater Olomouc). Part of the section's activities is the Center for Performativity Research, which is dedicated to researching contemporary and historical forms of cultural performances and performative acts.
Mgr. Martin Bernátek, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor, Area Head of Theatre and Performance Studies and Deputy Head of department)
Avant-garde and Modernism Studies | Scenography and performance space | intermedial histories of performances | Central-Eastern Europe
In his research and teaching, Martin Bernátek focuses on modern and avant-garde theatre, scenography and performance space. The book Czech theatre photography 1859-2017, written with Anna Hejmová, won the Czech Theater Newspaper Award in 2018. He studied the theory and history of theatre and the theory of interactive media at Masaryk University, Brno (CZ) where he received his Ph.D. degree in 2016 from the Department of Theatre Studies. He completed semester stays at the University of Lapland (FI) and the University of Warsaw (PL) and a work internship at the Polish Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute. He lectured at the Visegrad Seminar of the Institute of Slavic Studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin or at the Department of Theater Studies at the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas (LT). He is a member of the Czech Society for Theatre Research, the European Association for the Study of Theater and Performance and the European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies. He collaborated on educational, popularization and dramaturgical activities with the Czech Arts and Theatre Institute, international festivals Divadelná Nitra or Prague Quadriennale. He worked on the evaluation of art and cultural policy at the National Information and Advisory Center for Culture (NIPOS), at the Brno Cultural Association and as a member of the evaluation commissions of the programs of the Czech Ministry of Culture and the Slovak Fund for the Support of the Arts.
Martin currently works on a book about an avant-garde theatre space project by Emil František Burian called “The Theatre of Labor” (1936-1939) and conducts research on transnational aspects of relations between interwar avant-gardes and workers culture in Central-Eastern Europe
Selected Publications:
Bernátek, M., E. Kubartová. “Teatrologie jako performatika”. In Koubová, Kubartová (eds.). Terény performance. Praha: NAMU, 2022, s. 24‒37.
Bernátek, M., A. Hejmová a M. Novozámská. Česká divadelní fotografie: 1859–2017 . Praha: Institut umění – Divadelní ústav, 2018.
Bernátek, M. "Theatrical Apparatus and Social Change. The Divadlo práce Project." In Zoltán, I. a D. Kosiński (edd.). Reclaimed Avant-garde: Spaces and Stages of Avant-garde Theatre in Central-Eastern Europe, 118–133. Warsaw: Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, 2018.
Mgr. Eliška Kubartová, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor, Erasmus Coordinator, Mentor of Theatre Clubs)
Roman Theatre | Medieval Performance | Medieval Theatre | Plautus | Curculio | Planctus Mariae | Marian Lament
In my research, I am concerned, above all, with the exploration of theatrical and performative cultures of Classical Antiquity and Medieval Europe. I am interested in how, in pre-modern Europe, political and cultural meanings were communicated by situated bodily actions and interactions, in which symbolic codes were embodied and materialized in various types of cultural performances. I have researched into the material and performative aspects of productions of the Roman comedy, the Coronation Order of Emperor Charles IV, and of medieval Bohemian literature (Old Czech and Latin). Another field of my interest is translation for theatre.
I graduated in Latin, Czech and English Language and Literature; received PhD degree in Theatre Studies, Masaryk University in 2017, any my dissertation was published in Czech under the title Verbum caro factum est. Fourteenth-century Bohemian Literature and Performance (2019). I have had short-term research and teaching internships at National and Kapodistrian University in Athens, University in Bergen, and other universities. I received the Evald Schorm Award for a collaborative translation of the Roman comedy Curculio. I am a member of the Societé internationale pour l’étude du théatre médieval; and a member of the Network of Research and Documentation of Ancient Greek Drama.
Currently, I have been exploring the performance and reception of the Marian Lament, a group of medieval texts spanning from scripts for (para-)liturgical performances, theatricalized or not, to devotional songs and readings. Collaborative interdisciplinary research, employing a theatre scholar, medieval music scholar, Latinist, Old Czech linguist, and Old German linguist, has been financed by the Czech Science Foundation (2021‒2023).
Selected Publications:
Poláčková, Eliška. “Planctus Mariae: Performing Compassion as a Means of Social Promotion.” Theatralia 23, no. 2 (2020): 74–91. doi:10.5817/TY2020-2-5.
"http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/143239"
Poláčková, Eliška, and Tomáš Weissar. “Translating Curculio for Stage,” in Personaggi in scena: il parasitus, 87–102. Roma: Carocci editore, 2019.
Poláčková, Eliška. “A Prince, or a Pauper? Staging Noble Lineage in the Coronation Order of Emperor Charles IV.” European Medieval Drama 22 (2018): 149–69. doi:10.1484/J.EMD.5.119440
Mgr. Lukáš Kubina, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor)
Theatricality and Performativity of Cultural Performances | Performativity of Direct Action in the Social Movement | Communist Festivities | History of Post-war Theater | Radical Theatre | Theory of Performativity
Within my scholarly work, I deal with interdisciplinary overlaps of theatre studies. Specifically, socio-cultural anthropology and sociology are the study fields that I mainly incorporate into my research. This includes the borderline forms of theatre, theatricality and performativity of the protest phenomena, social movements, and public events. The last-mentioned comprises my interest in the topic of “utopian spaces,” e.g. specifically designed space for the performance of a communist utopia, as are the Cultural Houses.
In 2014, I completed my master’s degree at the Department of Theater Studies at Masaryk University with a thesis on the theatricality of the May Day communist celebrations in Czechoslovakia at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s. The thesis was then awarded the Václav Königsmark Prize in 2015. My interest in the transformation of cultural performances in the mid-1960s in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic resulted in my PhD thesis that I completed in 2021. Regarding my foreign experiences, I spent a semester at the University of Warsaw in Poland (2016) and the University of Bergen in Norway (2016). Into my other professional activities belongs the membership in Performance Studies International and the co-foundation of the Center for Performativity Research, which aims in connecting scholars from various disciplines.
Also, because of our shared interest in aesthetics and politics of public space, together with colleagues from Palacký University, the University of Warsaw and Masaryk University in Brno, we established the international Josefov-Jaroměř Summer School in 2017.
Selected Publications:
Kubina, Lukáš, and Martina Musilová. “Svět je symbolická interakce: Symbolický interakcionismus jako východisko výzkumu teatrality veřejných událostí [The world as a symbolic interaction: symbolic interactionism as a starting point for the research of the theatricality of public events].” Theatralia 21, no. 1 (2018): 9–32. doi:10.5817/TY2018-1-1.
Kubina, Lukáš. “Theatrical Aspects of the Czechoslovak May Day Celebration in 1948.” In Kunderová, R. Current Challenges in Doctoral Theatre Research, 132-38. Brno: Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno, 2017.
Kubina, Lukáš. “Oslavy ‘prvního máje’ v roce 1948: Interpretativní analýza [First May Celebrations in 1948: Interpretative Analysis].” Theatralia 17, no. 1 (2014): 90–116.
prof. PhDr. Tatjana Lazorčáková, Ph.D. (Professor Emeritus)
Czech Twentieth-Century Theatre and Drama | Czech Theatre Criticism | Puppet Theatre | Contemporary Czech Theatre | Czech Non-Professional Theatre | Methodology of Theatre Studies
In my research, I concentrate primarily on Czech Theatre and Drama in the second half of the twentieth century, focusing on experimental theatre forms, such as the new avant-garde, authorial theatre and studio theatres, and theatre directors outside the cultural centre of the capital. Other major fields of my research are theatre criticism and contemporary theatre in Moravia and Silesia.
I graduated from Czech Literature, Theatre and Film at Palacký University in 1978, and received my PhD from Theatre Criticism at Masaryk University in 1987. I have been the lead researcher in projects researching relations between Moravian and international theatres (financed by the Czech Ministry of Education, 2007–2013) and studio theatres in Brno (financed by the Czech Science Foundation, 2009–2012); I have collaborated on the project TACE – Theatre Architecture in Central Europe (2008). I have lectured internationally at various universities (Lodz, Poznan, Katowice) and conferences (Warsaw, Minsk).
I have authored books on Czech theatre, Čas malých divadel (The Time of Small Theatres, 1995), Studio Forum – příběh divadla (Studio Forum – A Story of the Theatre, 2009), Depeše na kolečkách – HaDivadlo 1978 (“Despatch on the Wheels” - HaDivadlo Theatre 1978, 2011), and co-authored K netradičnímu divadlu (Experimental Theatre, 2003), Kalendárium dějin divadla v Olomouci (History of Olomouc Theatre in Dates, 2008), and Osobnosti divadelní kritiky v Ostravě a v Olomouci (Theatre Critics in Ostrava and Olomouc, 2019). I have published regularly in Czech theatre scholarly journals, Theatralia, Czech Theatre, Divadelní revue (Theatre Revue); I have been member of the editorial board of the Theatralia, and member of the jury of the Thalia Award for outstanding performances in Czech theatre.
Selected Publications:
Lazorčáková, Tatjana. “Činohra po roce 1945 [Czech Drama Theatre After 1945].” In Hasíková, M., et al. Moravské divadlo 1920–2020, 28–55. Olomouc: Moravské divadlo, 2020.
Lazorčáková, Tatjana. “David Drábek a jeho ‘hořící’ stopa v Olomouci! [David Drábek and His Burning Trace in Olomouc!]” In Drábek, D., and L. Jungmannová (ed.) Play Drábek, 553–61. Praha: Akropolis, 2020.
Lazorčáková, Tatjana. “Studiové scény v novodobých dějinách českého divadla jako teatrologický problém [Twentieth-Century Czech Studio Theatres as a Methodological Problem].” In Satková, N., and K. Škrobánková (eds.) Přednášky o divadle a umění 2, 43–7. Brno: JAMU, 2018.
Lazorčáková, Tatjana. “Jan Roubal and His Complex and Complementary ‘Thought’ on Theatre.” Theatralia 19, no. 2 (2016): 139–41.
Mgr. Jitka PAVLIŠOVÁ, Ph.D.
585 633 422
jitka.pavlisova@upol.cz
room: 232 (3.30)
Film Studies
The Film Studies sub-department focuses on the teaching of Czech and world film, the history of film theory, and conducts analytical seminars. Emphasis is placed primarily on interpretive approaches to film, filmmaker and genre theory as well as festival studies. Practical seminars are led by professionals from film production, film distribution companies and screenwriters, among others. The sub-department is involved in the organization of the international conference Screen Industries in East-Central Europe, is an institutional member of the Czech Association of Film Studies (České společnosti pro filmová studia - CEFS), assists in the organization of film festivals co-organized by the department (AFO, PAF, MFDF Jihlava, Noir Film Festival), and founded plus provides ongoing support for 25fps magazine.
Mgr. Jan Černík, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor and Area Head of Film Studies)
ORCID | Academia.edu | Research Gate |
Screenwriting studies | Production studies | Czechoslovak Cinema | Film Theory | Philosophy and Film | New Cinema History |
In my research I combine an interest in the topics of Czech and Czechoslovak cinema, audiovisual industries, and screenwriting with a theoretical framework of analytic philosophy and the scientific method. I believe that in an exploration of audiovisual culture, we have to consider the applicability of our findings.
I graduated in film studies and philosophy and received my Ph.D. degree in film history in 2018. Since 2015 I have cooperated with the Screenwriting Research Network. In the academic year 2018/2019 I spent a semester as a visiting scholar at Greifswald Universität.
I am currently an elected member of the Screenwriting Research Network Executive Council for the period 2021–2023.
Selected Publications:
Černík, Jan. “Where Do the Theory and the Teaching of Screenwriting Intersect? A Survey of Teachers of Screenwriting from East-Central European Film Schools.” Studies in Eastern European Cinema 12, no. 2 (2021): 173–81. doi:10.1080/2040350X.2021.1915680.
Černík, Jan. “The Strange Case of the Three-Column Screenplay Format in 1950s Czechoslovakia.” Journal of Screenwriting 11, no. 1 (2020): 7–26. doi:10.1386/josc_00010_1.
Černík, Jan. “Czechoslovak Screenwriting Discourse and Cultural Transfer between 1948 and 1954: The Influence of Soviet Manuals.” Journal of Screenwriting 7, no. 3 (2016): 351–70. doi:10.1386/josc.7.3.351_1.
Mgr. Petr Bilík, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor)
ORCID
Czech Cinema | Festival Management | Public Relations | Oral History | Creative Industries
I have worked in the practical sphere in festival management, television dramaturgy, editorial work, and public relations. My main area of expertise is the history of Czech cinema, with an emphasis on the post-war period. My focus is influenced by oral history and life stories approaches, where I focus on important personalities from the field of film and culture and combine an academic reflection on their work with extensive interviews. In this way, I have examined the life and creative career of Ladislav Helge, Paul Fierlinger, and Jaromír Kallista. Recently, I have acted as, among other things, an ambassador for the creative industries and cooperates with institutions supporting national cinema and film productions. I have also collaborated with several foreign universities, most notably the University of St. Andrews, and have served in university management positions as Vice Dean of the Faculty and Vice-Chancellor for External Relations.
I studied film, theatre, and literary studies at Palacký University in Olomouc and also focused on art history.
Selected Publications:
Bilík, Petr. Financování filmu jako aspekt kulturní politiky [Film Financing as an Aspect of Cultural Policy]. Praha: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2020.
Bilík, Petr. “Small Country, Complex Film Policy: The Case of the Czech Film Funding System.” In Zahrádka, P., P. Szczepanik, J. Macek, and P. Stepan (eds.) Digital Peripheries, 291–302. Cham: Springer, 2020. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-44850-9.
Bilík, Petr, Michaela Jendřejková, Rostislav Nétek, Magdalena Petráková, and Petra Šobáňová. Výzkum motivací aktérů kreativních průmyslů v olomoucké aglomeraci [Research on the motivations of creative industries actors in the Olomouc agglomeration]. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2020.
Bilík, Petr, and Jan Černík. Filmař Jaromír Kallista [Jaromír Kallista – The Filmmaker]. Praha, Olomouc: NAMU, VUP, 2019.
Mgr. Milan Hain, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor)
ORCID | Academia.edu | personal website
US Film Industry | Classical Hollywood | Star Studies | Industry Studies | Producers Studies | Exile Cinema | Film Noir
My research is mostly concerned with American cinema, especially the Hollywood studio era of the 1930s to 1950s. I am particularly interested in how films (and stars) are made and how they are received by audiences. I prefer archive-based methods of historical inquiry which can be a little challenging considering that my home base is in Central Europe. That’s, however, what makes my work such fun. I’ve published books, articles, and book chapters on the American films of Czech-born actor and director Hugo Haas, and on the star-making operations of producer David O. Selznick. In the near future, I plan to study the representation of Czech characters in Hollywood movies.
I received my Ph.D. from Palacký University in 2014. As a doctoral student, I spent a year as a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Since then, I received other fellowships and stipends, including the Harry Ransom Center Research Fellowship in the Humanities and the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum Visiting Researcher Stipend. My extensive research project on David O. Selznick and his star stable was financed by the Czech Science Foundation. I’ve presented on more than a dozen of international conferences and I welcome any new opportunities for lectures, joint research projects or other forms of collaboration – especially if they lead me to places I’ve never visited before.
Since 2013, I work as programmer at the Noir Film Festival, the only event of its kind in Europe. I also run a blog devoted to film noir and a personal website. I’ve been also associated with the online film magazine 25fps since its inception in 2007. I am a member of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) and The International Association for Media and History (IAMHIST).
Selected Publications:
Hain, Milan. V tradici kvality a prestiže: David O. Selznick a výroba hvězd v Hollywoodu 40. a 50. let [In the Tradition of Quality and Prestige: David O. Selznick and the Production of Stars in Hollywood of the 1940s and 50s]. Praha: Casablanca, 2021 (in print).
Hain, Milan. “Multiple Authorship in Anna Karenina (1935): Adapting Tolstoy’s Literary Classic in the Hollywood Studio Era.” Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 58, no. 3 (2021): 203–22. doi:10.1386/jafp_00028_1.
Hain Milan. “Hollywood Film as Therapy: Hugo Haas, Trauma, and Survivor Guilt.” Jewish Film & New Media 7, no. 1 (2019): 1–22. doi:10.13110/jewifilmnewmedi.7.1.0001.
Hain, Milan. Hugo Haas a jeho (americké) filmy [Hugo Haas and His (American) Films]. Praha: Casablanca, 2015.
Mgr. Nicholas David Hudac, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor)
Cultural history | Central Europe | Czech film | Slovak film | Genre | Auteur theory | Star theory
Nicholas Hudac originally studied at the University of Chicago where he received two degrees: an AB in English Language and Literatures (with a focus on Central European literatures and poetry) and an AM from the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, where his master's thesis focused on Czech and Slovak film. He defended his doctoral dissertation Picturing the Nation: Slovak National Identity in the Age of the Mass-Produced Image in the Department of Film Studies at Univerzita Karlova in 2020 and has been a part of KDFS since 2023. His current research focuses on the convergence between traditional aspects of film theory like star theory, auteur theory, genre, and its intersection with newer trends in cultural history and cultural identity studies.
Selected Publications:
HUDAC, N. "Picturing a Nation: Slovak Documentary Film from its Birth Until 1950.” Slovakia, vol. 45 no. 84-85 (Autumn 2021). pp. 92-120 ISSN: 0583-5623
HUDAC, N. (2023). "Slow Steps: The Institutional Development of Slovak Film From Proto-National to National Film 1939-1950." CINEJ Cinema Journal, 11(1), 316–338. doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2023.491
HUDAC, N. "Aňa Geislerová: An Evolved Interwar Celebrity for the Post-Totalitarian Era" in: Starlight and Star Gazers: Slavic Screen Celebrities. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2024.
doc. Mgr. Luboš Ptáček, Ph.D. (Associate Professor)
Czechoslovak Cinema | Film Theory | Ideology and Film | Film and History | Theory of Adaptation
I graduated from master‘s and doctoral studies in Aesthetics at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague. I am currently working at the department of Theatre and Film Studies of Palacký University in Olomouc as an associate professor. My main research interest is Czech film, especially the ideological structures underpinning Czech cinema, historical film, and the stylistic and narrative experiments of the Czech New Wave. I am the author of three monographs, the latest one being The art between allegory and ideology: The transformation of representation of history in Czech historical film and television series, which was published in 2019.
Selected Publications:
Ptáček, Luboš. “The Sudetes in Czech Cinema – a Political Space Trapped by National and Class Stereotypes.” Ekphrasis. Images, Cinema, Theory, Media 23, no. 1 (2020): 72–86. https://www.ekphrasisjournal.ro/docs/R1/23E6.pdf
Ptáček, Luboš. “The Late Films of Jiří Menzel: The Broken Spell of Nostalgia and Melancholy Heroes in I Served the English King (Obsluhoval Jsem Anglického Krále, 2006) and Skirt Chasers (Donšajni, 2013).” Ekphrasis. Images, Cinema, Theory, Media 21, no. 1 (2019): 223–36. https://www.ekphrasisjournal.ro/docs/R1/21E16.pdf
Ptáček, Luboš. “‘Calamity’: The Small Town and Railway as Allegory.” Studies in Eastern European Cinema 10, no. 1 (2019): 55–67. doi:10.1080/2040350X.2018.1469196.
Ptáček, Luboš. “Ostalgia in Czech Films about Normalisation Created Post-1989.” Humanities 7, no. 4 (2018): 118. doi:10.3390/h7040118.
Mgr. Michal Sýkora, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor)
Contemporary Literature | Crime Fiction Studies | Adaptation Studies | Creative Writing
Graduate of Palacký University (1995), I received my Ph.D. degree in literature theory in 1998. I am the author of four books on modern fiction: a two-part monograph on Vladimir Nabokov (2002, 2004), Visions of the Order of the World in Modern Prose (2008) dealing with authors such as Fowles, Rushide, Kawabata, Perec, Faulkner, and Beckett, and recently the first Czech monograph on Philip Roth (2019). In addition, I published dozens of studies, articles, critiques, and essays on the modern novel and on the history and theory of crime fiction.
I am also the author of five successful novels, translated into foreign languages, adapted for radio and television in the form of mini-series, which received a positive audience and critical response and was sold to a number of countries. The adaptation of the novel It’s Not Over Yet (2016, for TV entitled Monsters of the Shore) was awarded the prestigious Czech Lion film prize in the Best TV Miniseries category in 2020. Together with one of the most successful Czech screenwriters Petr Jarchovský I wrote two TV mini-series, directed by Jan Hřebejk (one of his films was nominated for the Academy Awards): Live Targets (2019) and Background of Events (2021).
I deal with the theory of crime fiction, with an emphasis on the individual historical forms of the genre of crime fiction in an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective. I focus on the specifics of Czech genre theory in the second half of the twentieth century and on the analysis of the relationship between genre and ideology in Czech crime fiction and crime film. I run creative writing courses for students of the department. I also give lectures and seminars devoted to both the theory of adaptation and the analysis of the adaptation process from literature (or drama) to film.
Selected Publications:
Michal Sýkora. “The Prague Orgy: The Life of Writers in a Totalitarian State According to Philip Roth.” Humanities 8, no. 2 (2019): 71. doi:10.3390/h8020071.
Sýkora, Michal. Britské detektivky: od románu k televizní sérii [British crime fiction: from novel to TV series], Vol. 1, Vol. 2. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého, 2012, 2013.
Sýkora, Michal. Philip Roth. Brno: Host 2019.
Television and Radio Studies
This unique combination of two media fields offers insight into the function, history and criticism of television and radio. In addition to lectures from professionals in the fields of television and radio studies, the course focuses on topics such as the analysis of current television series, studies of audiences and fandom, and television/radio genres and formats. In practical seminars students prepare their own radio programmes and podcasts, collaborate in the production and dramaturgy of AFO and the Summer Film School in Uherské Hradiště. The sub-department organizes the Czech-Slovak Flow Conference: Radio and TV studies, shares in the organization of the international Prix Bohemia Radio festival, manages the professional web platforms TelevisionThinkTank and Radiodock.
Mgr. Tomáš Bojda, Ph.D.; (Assistant Professor, Area Head of Radio and Television Studies)
Fiction radio production | Theory of Radio Production | Radio Directing and Radio Acting | History of Czechoslovak Radio | Theory of Radio Adaptation and Adaptation Dramaturgy | Radio Reading | Original Radio Drama of the Sixties
I am a graduate of doctoral study programme Theory and History of Literature, Theatre and Film at the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University in Olomouc. As a teacher, I deal with the theoretical and methodological issues of radio production based on fiction, with a special interest in structuralism and semiotics in relation to radio performance, theory of radio acting, and radio directing and the theory of radio drama. I offer regular analytical seminars and theoretical and historical lectures specializing in the history of literary and dramatic production of the Czechoslovak radio. In my publications, I try to map hitherto unexplored areas of verbal radio production; in 2020 I published the monograph Actor and Director in Radio Drama: Chapters from the Work of Jiří Horčička and Josef Melč. I am currently working on radio adaptations of Karel Čapek’s plays and novels. I have actively participated in several faculty grants. Now I am taking part a grant project mapping the period of what in Czech is called “normalization” at the Vinohrady Theatre. I have also lectured for the Department of Dramatic Art at the Prague DAMU. I regularly publish theoretical and critical papers in professional journals (e.g. Silent Bergman Full of Words, Viktor Preiss on the Radio – A Portrait of a Career, Radio Director Josef Henke) and at conferences (Structuralism as a method of studying a radio artifact).
Selected Publications:
Bojda, Tomáš. Herec a režisér v rozhlase. Kapitoly z tvorby Jiřího Horčičky a Josefa Melče [Actor and Director in Radio Drama. Chapters from the Work of Jiří Horčička and Josef Melč]. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2020.
Bojda, Tomáš. “Viktor Preiss on the Radio – A Portrait of a Career.” Czech & Slovak Journal of Humanities, no. 1 (2019): 75–92.
Hanáčková, Andrea, and Tomáš Bojda. “Silent Bergman Full of Words.” Theatralia 22, no. 1 (2021): 45–60. doi:10.5817/TY2019-1-4.
Mgr. Anna BÍLÁ
room: 233 (3.29)
Mgr. Klára FEIKUSOVÁ, Ph.D.
585 633 431
klara.feikusova@upol.cz
room: 3.29
Selected publications:
Feikusová, Klára (2023). The Perils of Representation: Sandra Oh in Killing Eve. In Quartlerly Review of Film and Video. Online.
Feikusová, Klára (2023). Invasion of Body Snatchers: Fox Mulder’s Queerness, Monstrosity and Status Quo. In Fenwick, James and Rodgers, Diane A. (eds) The Legacy of The X-Files. London, New York: Bloomsbury. pp. 287-300.
Doc. Andrea Hanáčková, Ph.D. (Associate Professor)
Radio and Sound Studies| Theory of Adaptation | Genre Theory
Associate Professor of Theatre and Media at Palacký University Olomouc, The Head of Film and Theater Department, Faculty of Arts, Palacký University, Olomouc (from April 2020).
My research is mostly concerned with radio arts and radio industry, including new media, podcast and their audience. As a practicing documentarist, I am an author of dozens of radio documentaries and features on education, social issues, art, and culture. My scholarly interests include nonfiction genres, theory of radio adaptations, and history of radio. I have summarized the results of my research in books Czech Radio Documentary Programme and Feature. The Poetics of Genres (in Czech, 2010), Radio Criticism and Contemporary Reflections of Auditive Forms (in Czech, 2016), Radio Documentary and Feature (in Czech, 2021). Other studies are listed below in the bibliography. I am focus on the ethics of radio documentary and author performativity on the radio. My activities are also aimed at theatre studies, where my background is. My interest is in the interdisciplinary overlaps between theatre, film, radio and television. I run a professional blog on DokRevue.cz, I am an editor at RadioDock.cz, and I support the children’s radio club.
Selected Publications
Hanáčková, Andrea. “The Mathematics of Crime and the Crime of Censorship on the Czech Public Radio.” Journal of Radio and Audio Media (accepted).
Hanáčková, Andrea, and Tomáš Bojda. “Silent Bergman Full of Words.” Theatralia 22, no. 1 (2021): 45–60. doi:10.5817/TY2019-1-4.
Hanáčková, Andrea. “The Performative Mode and Its Ethical Aspects in Authorial Radio Documentaries.” Czech & Slovak Journal of Humanities, no. 1 (2017): 23–42.
Doc. Tomáš Jirsa, Ph.D. (Associate Professor)
Academia.edu | ORCID |
Media Theory and Media Philosophy| Literature and the Visual Arts | Music Video Studies | Cultural Affect Studies |Contemporary Audiovisual Arts|
As a literary scholar by training, whose research and publications are situated at the intersections of comparative literature, cultural affect studies, and media theory, I have always been interested in the dynamic motion of texts, images, and sounds operating across various media and beyond auteurist and national paradigms. The fruit of this interdisciplinary thrust can be found in my new book Disformations: Affects, Media Literature (Bloomsbury 2021). Recently, I co-edited the collected volume How to Do Things with Affects: Affective Triggers in Aesthetic Forms and Cultural Practices (Brill, 2019; with Ernst van Alphen); and a 2019 special issue of the journal Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, “The Music Video in Transformation” (with Mathias Korsgaard).
After pursuing my doctoral studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (2008–2009), and Paris-Sorbonne University (2010–2011), I received my Ph.D. in 2012 from Charles University where I worked until 2017. In 2015 and 2017, I was awarded Junior Fellowship from IKKM (The International Research Institute for Cultural Techniques and Media Philosophy) at Bauhaus University, Weimar; and in Spring 2019, I was Visiting Scholar at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. In addition, I have been working as a host curator at the Festival of Film Animation and Contemporary Art, PAF Olomouc since 2018. Currently, I am the PI of the interdisciplinary project Between Affects and Technology: The Portrait in the Visual Arts, Literature, and Music Video, funded by Palacký University.
In my current research, I am primarily concerned with the affective and media operations of contemporary (especially hip-hop) music video while also exploring the cultural techniques of portraiture across the visual arts and cinema.
Selected Publications
Jirsa, Tomáš. Disformations: Affects, Media, Literature. New York: Bloomsbury, 2021. www.bloomsbury.com/uk/disformations-9781501362347/
Jirsa. Tomáš. “Lapses, Affects, Supplement: Hiro Murai’s Audiovisual Anachronism.” In Herzogenrath, B. (ed.) Practical Aesthetics, 105–115. London, New York: Bloomsbury, 2020. www.academia.edu/44726406/Lapses_Affects_Supplement_Hiro_Murai_s_Audiovisual_Anachronism
Jirsa. Tomáš. “For the Affective Aesthetics of Contemporary Music Video.” Music, Sound, and the Moving Image 13, no. 2 (2019): 187–208. muse.jhu.edu/article/749749
Jirsa. Tomáš. “Faces without Interiority: The Music Video’s Reinvention of the Portrait.” World Literature Studies 11, no. 4 (2019): 55–68. https://www.academia.edu/42202847/Faces_without_Interiority_Music_Videos_Reinvention_of_the_Portrait
Doctoral Students and Their Research Projects
Our doctoral students specialize in a selected areas of theatre, film, television and radio, and their interdisciplinary overlaps. The doctoral programme is four years long and can be completed in full-time or combined (distance) form. In addition to their academic duties, doctoral students in our department help to organize festivals and professional conferences, independently lead seminars and participate in teaching.
Mgr. Klára FEIKUSOVÁ
585 633 424
klara.feikusova01@upol.cz
room. 3.28
Cultural Hierarchies in the Academic Discourse of the Concept of Cinematization of Television
The research project focuses on cultural hierarchies in the academic discourse of the theoretical concept of the cinematization of television, which describes the ways in which film influences television, especially from an aesthetic point of view. Using critical discursive analysis, I explore and highlight what evaluative subtexts persist in the discourse and what this says about the current cultural state of television and television studies.
Supervisor: Mgr. et Mgr. Jana Jedličková, Ph.D.
Mgr. Barbora KAPLÁNKOVÁ
585 633 424
barbora.kaplankova01@upol.cz
room 3.28
Gender in Fantasy Franchises of 2000-2020: Depiction of Masculinity and Femininity according to the Theory of Performative Gender by Judith Butler
In terms of exploring the topic of gender, fantasy presents a unique platform due to its high inner variability and the potential to challenge the “real” and its “rules”. The aim of this dissertation is to offer a comprehensive image of how masculinity and femininity are depicted in mainstream fantasy film of the last twenty years, which are characterized by the significant success of several franchises, each belonging to a different fantasy subgenre with specific worldbuilding and possibilities for subversion of heteronormative systems. Selected groups of characters from these franchises are approached through analytical-interpretative method built on works of Judith Butler and Brian Attebery.
Supervisor: doc. Mgr. Luboš Ptáček, Ph.D.
Mgr. Veronika VESELKOVÁ
veronika.veselkova01@upol.cz
585 633 424
room 3.28
Performativity of Cultural Identity: South Korean Theatre in Central Europe
The dissertation thesis explores South Korean cultural identity performativity in theatre performances of South Korean origin presented in the region of Central Europe. The research utilizes the concept of intercultural theatre, or interweaving as the fundamental theoretical framework. It also deals with the identification of the cultures’ performativity in relation to the assumed globalized cultural networks and politics in place. A plurality of methodological tools inspired by ethnography in particular is employed as the research perspective.
Supervisor: doc. Tomáš Jirsa, Ph.D.
Mgr. Ondřej ZACH
ondrej.zach01@upol.cz
585 633 424
room 3.28
Transformations of the Culture of Czech Film Production in 1989-1999
The dissertation thesis studies the changes in the production culture in the Czechoslovak cinema of the early 1990s. Drawing from the concept of filmmaking as a socio-cultural practice, it sees the film industry as a Bourdieuian field of cultural, social and economic relations. It elaborates on the idea that the production, institutional, aesthetic and reception changes in the Czechoslovak cinema 1990s should be seen in the context of the transformation of the entire contemporary socio-political discourse as one of its many manifestations. The project consists of qualitative research using semi-structured interviews with the witnesses of the studied period, processed in the analytical-synthetical part of the thesis with the use of the concepts of the mode of production formulated by Janet Staiger (Bordwell, 1988) and the idea of the production culture used by John Thornton Caldwell (2008). The project's goal is to translate the collected data by the methods of interpretive anthropology into a study of the change in the lifestyle and culture of the film industry community as one of the faces of the general transformation of the entire society during the studied historical period.
Supervisor: doc. Tomáš Jirsa, Ph.D.