Main fields of research

The Department of Musicology is preparing a collective monograph entitled Music in Olomouc 1945–2010 [Hudba v Olomouci v letech 1945–2010]. The research maps the development of music culture in Olomouc after World War II to the present day. Its focus is on the development of music institutions, ensembles, companies, music education, the heritage of prominent figures in music, and the position of music at the university. Regionalistic music research has given birth to a number of monographs at the Department of Musicology (J. Sehnal: Pavel Vejvanovský and the Kroměříž music collection, P. Lyko: Die Orgel im Gebiet von Jeseník, Olomouc, Prostějov und Šumperk in den Jahren 1860-1960). Investigations by Jan Vičar, focused on Czech music and aesthetics, such as the monograph Imprints: Essays on Czech Music and Aesthetics, have a broader scope.

A grant project approved by the Czech Science Foundation, dedicated to the German music theatre in Olomouc in the 19th century, is on the border between musicology and theatre. The Department of Theatre, Film and Media Studies under the guidance of J. Štefanides deals with the history of the theatre in Olomouc and Moravia. The department has been mapping the coexistence of the German and Czech theatres from the earliest times to 1944, with a focus on the German theatre in Moravia, only little explored to-date. In a broader context, the research team deals with other influences, especially the influences of Polish, Slovak and Russian theatre in the area of Moravia, and annually organises an international Theatre Studies conference “O divadle na Moravě a ve Slezsku” [Theatre in Moravia and Silesia]. The team also publishes the book series Divadlo [Theatre], in which a comprehensive, three-volume work, Německojazyčné divadlo na Moravě a ve Slezsku / Deutschsprachiges Theater in Mähren und Schlesien [German-language Theatre in Moravia and Silesia], will appear. Theatrical life in Moravia and Silesia is also a subject for the Department of Romance Studies, which deals with the reception of French and Italian drama. Previous publications in this field have been followed by a monograph by M. Voždová, French Vaudeville: Genesis and Transformations of the Genre [Francouzský vaudeville: Geneze a proměny žánru, 2009].

The Department of German Studies is conducting extensive institutional research of the Moravian German-language literature and culture at their workplace “Arbeitsstelle für deutschmährische Literatur” [Centre for Moravian German Literature]. They are providing a counterweight to the research of the German literature of Prague, enriching the Austrian and German literary canon with new discoveries, and filling gaps in the memory of the Czech public of the common Czech-German history of their homeland. The research has been supported by many grants in the past, such as the Czech Science Foundation, the Czech-German Future Fund, AKTION Austria–Czech Republic, and Franz Werfel Scholarships for doctoral students engaged in the research. It is worth mentioning the extensive monographs Edice míšeňské právní knihy a její jazykový rozbor [The Edition of the Meissen Law Book and its Linguistic Analysis], Lexikon regionálních dějin literatury německého středověku na českém území [A Lexicon of the Regional History of the German Medieval Literature in the Czech Lands], and Koncepty moderny v moravské německé kultuře 1871-1939 [Concepts of Modernism in Moravian German Culture 1871-1939]. The Arbeitsstelle has published more than ten books concerning the history of German-language literature in Moravia, and it filled the entire annual volume of the peer-reviewed journal Brücken (18/2010) with essays on this topic. For its activities in the field of popularisation of German language and culture, the Arbeitsstelle was awarded in 2010 with the prestigious prize “Kulturpreis Deutsche Sprache”—German Language Culture Award—by the Society for the German Language and Eberhard-Schöck-Stiftung.

The Centre of Jewish Studies focuses on the study of Moravian Hebrew manuscripts. The research is part of the research project “Books within Books: Hebrew Fragments in European Libraries”, coordinated by the École pratique des hautes études in Paris. So far, the researchers form Olomouc have identified about a hundred fragments of Hebrew texts in Moravia, which are now deposited in the international database of the project. The members of the research team of the Centre of Jewish Studies presented the interim results of their work in July 2011 at the project workshop at Wolfson College, Oxford.

Political scientists closely cooperate with the Department of Sociology, Andragogy and Cultural Anthropology. For example, they worked together on the project “Proměny městských zastupitelstev v evropské perspektivě” [Changes of Municipal Councils in the European Perspective, Czech Science Foundation, 2008–2010]. The output of this project was the publication Zastupitelé českých měst a obcí v evropské perspektivě [Representatives of Czech Towns and Communities in the European Perspective.Prague: Sociologické nakladatelství, 2011] by Dan Ryšavý and Pavel Šaradín. It is the first Czech monograph working with international quantitative research, based on polling representatives of communities. The authors detail the profile of Czech local politicians, analyse the willingness of the members to stand for election again, deal with the political careers of the representatives, etc. The project team also contributes to publications in prominent social science journals, such as Local Government Studies, Lex Localis, Sociologický časopis [Czech Sociological Review], Contemporary European Studies, and more.

Among the important research fields in Sociology and Andragogy is the issue of lifestyle and social stratification, migration and the sociology of religion, in which both researchers and doctoral students are taking part in the work of the Department of Sociology of Religion at the Masaryk Czech Sociological Association. The most significant achievements of the researchers in recent years are focused on the history of andragogic philosophy. This topic covered the Czech part of the international project “Advocacies for frail and incompetent elderly in Europe” (VolkswagenStiftung, 2008–2010).

The Department of Applied Economics contributes with research in the field of virtual identities, teamwork in the virtual environment, and the use of the virtual environment in the area of Education.

The Department of Applied Linguistics deals with the issue of management of working groups. In 2009, the department took part in the organisation of the international conference “Leadership for Transformation” in Prague.

One of the projects was directly connected to research of the academic environment (“Personality of a Scientist”, 2010). Its goal was to look for personality traits relating to creativity of the representatives of various scientific fields. “The Conditions of Work of School Psychologists in the Olomouc and Moravian-Silesian Regions” was a project aimed at lower education levels.

A Manual for Traffic Psychology Testing in the field of traffic psychology (funded from a Ministry of Transport grant) has been written, and also the monograph Aggressivity on the Road, which contains analyses of the effects and impulses of “road rage”, including the possibilities of its diagnostics.

The Department of Psychology also deals with the matter of qualitative approach in research in the Social Sciences. Each year, international conferences are held on this topic and specialised publications are published. The qualitative approach is methodologically used by Olomouc psychologists in the research of risk behaviour, drug use, and in economic and managerial psychology. The Department of Psychology also contributed to the history of Czechoslovak psychology by their project “The Life and Work of Vladimír Tardy” (Czech Science Foundation, 2008–2010), which was concerned with the work of this prominent twentieth-century Czech psychologist and signatory of Charter 77. In his unique life story within the context of two waves of political repression, it is possible to track the complicated development of Czechoslovak psychology as a whole.

The history of Classical antiquity’s legacy in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is also studied at other departments. Jan Stejskal from the Department of History published a monograph, The Greek Legacy in the West. Monasticism, Missions and Central Europe in the Middle Ages, within the auspices of a project approved by the Czech Science Foundation. The aim of this work is the Classical Greek tradition, and especially Byzantine culture, in the European West, mainly in Italy. The Byzantine tradition influenced the development of monastic life, which is observed on the history of the Camaldolese order. The author is following this topic by preparing an annotated edition of the travel diary of the Humanistic monk and translator from Greek, Ambrogio Traversari.

The Middle Ages and Humanist periods are also being continually explored by Olomouc’s Romance Studies Department. It observes the forms of the Medieval and humanistic dialogue and it prepares the works of Italian humanists for publication in the Czech Republic and the USA. However, its main research topic is the literary and philosophical work of Francesco Petrarch. Jiří Špička in particular shows that this key poet was not just a lyricist, but also an influential philologist, a moral philosopher, and as well, an example of the authentic relationship between the intellectual and political power. The results of his research have been published in the most prestigious Romance Studies journals (Lettere italiane, Studi petrarcheschi, Italian Quarterly, and others). The monograph Petrarca: Homo Politicus (Prague: Argo, 2010) by Jiří Špička has been awarded the Premio Flaiano Internazionale prize in 2011 for the best Italian monograph in the world published outside Italy. 

Part of the Modern Era culture research is the research of historical book funds, which were established mostly from the 17th century until the 19th century, and the reception of some foreign literatures in the Czech lands. Olomouc Romance scholars have made several research projects in the Archbishop’s Palace Library in Kroměříž, Czech Republic. The results of this research describe the characteristics and form an analysis of a set of French historical prints (mostly from the 17th century until the beginning of the 20th century) in the Archbishop’s Palace Library in the fields of “social science and other didactic literature” (history, political science, diplomacy and law, philosophy, ethics, linguistics, architecture and civil engineering), “popular contemporary genres” (lives, memoirs, letters and travels), “fiction” and “literature with spiritual themes”. These genres have been devoted attention in separate monographs published by the Palacký University Press, Olomouc in 2011–2012.

The Department of Dutch Studies has been researching the reception of Dutch and Flemish culture in Central Europe for the past decade. Among the most important projects is the mapping of the Dutch cultural heritage in Central Europe in the form of old prints of Dutch origin from the 16th to 18th century. An international project was launched in 2003, in cooperation with Dutch Studies students from Wrocław, Poland and from Charles University in Prague. The first phase of the project, between the years 2003–2009, focused on pilot studies of the academic research libraries in Brno, Olomouc, Prague and Wrocław. The results of this research were published in a collective monograph, Nederlandse oude drukken in Bohemen, Moravië en Silezië (1500–1800) / Netherlandish Old Prints in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia (1500–1800) (Wrocław: ATUT, 2010). Since 2010, the project has been continued by means of cataloguing and photo-copying old books of Netherlandish origin in the Clementinum Library (Prague), Academic Research Library (Olomouc) and the Biblioteka Uniwersytecka (Wrocław).

Since 2003, Petr Pořízka has led the continuous project “Olomouc Corpus of Spoken Czech”, focused on the collection and analysis of authentic language data from various dialectal regions of Bohemia and Moravia. A number of experts from various international academic institutions, such as universities in Bonn, Hamburg, and Mannheim, participate in the project. The partial results of the Corpus project include the development of a special transcription format called SVIFT and software tools (MorphCon, XML parser, etc.). A part of the project will be incorporated into the Czech National Corpus.

Since 2005, The Department of Bohemian Studies has been one of the three institutes participating in the project “Centre of the Research on the Development of Old and Medieval Czech (from Proto-Slavonic Roots to its Current State)” under the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic. This Centre coordinates systemic research in the area of Czech vocabulary development. Among the most acclaimed results were the monographs Localised Names in Czech Translations of the Old Testament (Místní jména v českých překladech Starého zákona, 2009) by Robert Dittmann and Miroslav Vepřek’s Czech Redaction of Old Church Slavonic in Terms of Lexical Analysis (Česká redakce církevní slovanštiny z hlediska lexikální analýzy, 2006).

Lexicographic research has also been conducted at the Department of Slavonic Studies, where the project Czech and Polish Centre for Lexicography was founded in 2012 and where the research team of Ludmila Stepanova, Alla Arkhanhelska, and Zdeňka Vychodilová has operated on a long-term basis. This team closely collaborates with the Phraseological Commission of the International Committee of Slavists, has broad international contacts, and participates in international research projects (e.g. a grant by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation). Team members have published a dozen dictionaries (for instance, their Russian-Czech Phraseological Dictionary was highly acclaimed at the Moscow International Book Fair in 2010). The Romance scholar Jiří Černý prepared the Spanish-Czech Dictionary of Americanisms (Španělsko-český slovník amerikanismů, Vol. 1, 2012), where he addresses the trend of the polycentric concept of Spanish language norms and takes into consideration the Latin American variations of Spanish.

The Department of English and American Studies has been building their Translation and Interpreting section for several years, and since 2011 also organising the conference “Translation and Interpreting Forum Olomouc”. It has become a platform for discussion of current research in the area of translation and  interpreting. 

A few projects view the phenomenon of Czech exile from several perspectives. In the very first research ever conducted on this theme, Lenka Zajícová examines the community of Czech exiles in Paraguay and the assimilation their language has undergone. The history of Czech exile is also researched by the Centre for Czechoslovak Exile Studies at the Department of History. It is a documentary project whose purpose is to build an archive and a library of literature of exile; at the same time, the researchers are involved in other academic and research projects on the theme of exile, under the Czech Science Foundation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. In 2012, the project “Czech Exile in Australia and its culture, 1948–1989” was launched.

Olomouc scholars in American Studies have participated in an international project mapping the work of an Olomouc native, the American film director Edgar G. Ulmer. Professor Marcel Arbeit has established a strong tradition in studies of contemporary American Southern Literature and has been taking part in the international projects of the Center for the Study of the American South. An extraordinary achievement is the essay by Prof. Josef Jařab in the prestigious publication A New Literary History of America, one of the most globally used resources for the academic study of American literature. The Department of English and American Studies also organises important meetings of the Colloquium of American Studies, attended by prominent authors, contributing to the great reception of Colloquium publications abroad.

The Department of Asian Studies is examining the cultural and social anthropology of East Asia. Since 2006, this has also been expressed in the theme of their annual international thematic interdisciplinary conferences (The “Disadvantaged” in South and East Asia; Integration of East Asian Minorities in the Czech  Republic; etc.). Since 2011, the department has been publishing their academic journal Far East, offering space for publication ranging from the research of classical Asian cultures to the current social and political situations. As for applied research, the department specialises in writing textbooks. Under the supervision of David Uher, A Textbook of Chinese Conversation was published, a unique project in the Czech context, later followed by further specialised handbooks on Business Chinese.

Empirical research conducted directly in Japan resulted in the publication of an original monograph by Ivona Barešová and Halina Zawiszová, The Spoken Language of Contemporary Japanese Youth (Současná hovorová řeč mladých Japonců, 2012). Philosophical Faculty researchers have also been active in the general theory of literature, especially Narratology, which is not related to a specific language. The last outcomes of this endeavour have been Jiří Hrabal’s Focalization: An Analysis of a Narratological Category (Fokalizace. Analýza naratologické kategorie, 2011) and a collective monograph, The Unreliable Narrator (Nespolehlivý vypravěč, 2012).