Let’s Get Stuck In!, or Literature and Politics Today

Nothing is as it used to be. Does literature have any aesthetic autonomy left? 

Literary criteria in the Czech Republic (and not only in the Czech Republic) are undergoing a certain revision. It is as if it no longer matters how a work is written, what its aesthetic qualities are, to what extent a text can be a microcosm in its own right. In the public sphere, attention is afforded to works that meet notions of what is “supposed” to be written about today – above all, whether they fulfil the current notions of what is right and ethical; the word empathy is the incantation. Again, whether the creator is a good citizen, whether he/she does not say or do something “unacceptable” in public, is becoming crucial.

At the same time, we are witnessing yet another revision – and a more fundamental or far-reaching one. Literary history will never be the same again, simply because the era of strong male dominance is over and historical material is being reassessed.

However, the programme does not wish to be a conservative defender and apologist for the old order. Rather it is driven by an interest in the process of transformation of literary criteria as a picture of changing societal and political orders.

Ideally it could be a dialogue between those who “lived it here” and those who “will live it here”.