Between Literature and Academia
- Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
- When: November 1, 2021, 19:00 – 20:00
Arnošt (Vilém) Kraus (1859–1943) and Otokar Fischer (1883–1938) were not just significant figures in Czech cultural life, to which they contributed as translators, critics, cultural intermediaries and literary and arts journalists; they also helped shape – each in his own specific manner – the profile of Czech literary-academic German Studies from the 1880s to the start of WWI. At the same time, their own life stories reflected the complicated Czech-
German-Jewish relations of the 19 th and 20 th centuries.
The collections of academic studies in the series Intellektuelles Prag im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, which are put out by the Böhlau publishing house, represent the first comprehensive exploration of their activities in the broader cultural and historical context. The idea behind the two volumes, their findings and the (possible) updating of the two personalities’ legacy for the present day will be discussed by Petr Brod and their editors Helena Březinová (Scandinavian Studies expert, Faculty of Arts, Charles University), Steffen Höhn (cultural historian and German Studies expert, Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar), Václav Petrbok (German and Bohemian Studies expert, Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences and Faculty of Arts, Charles University) Alice Stašková (German Studies and Romance Languages expert, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena) and Štěpán Zbytovský (German Studies expert, Faculty of Arts, Charles University).