Natalia Palich

On Dynamism of Images. Primary Aesthetic Categories in Věra Linhartová’s
Concept of Image

The aim of this paper is to argue the thesis that the theory of art and literature postulated by Věra Linhartová, a Czech writer, art and literary theorist who has been living in exile in France since 1968, is based on two significant categories – spatiality and movement. While both notions are strictly entwined with each other, it is the movement that plays the role of the key denominator in Linhartová’s theoretical and literary works which is pointed out by the author herself in her essay For an Ontology of Exile (1994). Due to a twofold – expository and comparative – character of the study, it is structured as an open and complementary diptych. First of all, drawing on Linhartová’s interpretative and theoretical essays, the analysis strives to retrace her individual and peculiar vision of image. The exposition of Linhartová’s methodological approach serves as the starting point for the comparison and contrast between her theory and methodological concepts concerning the theory of image – mainly Georges Didi-Huberman’s idea of image. The paper concludes with an opening to further analysis and interpretation of Linhartová’s theoretical and literary texts.

The paper discusses the experience of space in Czech young prose (published after the year 2000 and written by authors born after the year 1968) that often locates the plot outside of Europe. The study argues that the sources of this new literary genre can be found in Aristotle’s category of wonder. Drawing on recent concepts of literary space, from Foucault’s heterotopias to the postcolonial idea of new cosmopolitism, and the idea of exoticism, the paper attempts to outline the tendencies to create spatial representations within the analyzed texts. The analysis concludes with an invitation to further interpretations of space representation in contemporary Czech prose.

Poetics of Violence in the Novel Vomito negro by Pavel Hak

The intention of this paper is to give a coherent, and possibly complete interpretation of violence representation in Pavel Hak’s novel Vomito negro, and to argue the thesis that the analysed text is an emblematic expression of a new vision of literature, namely “effective literature”. Drawing on the approach proposed by the postcolonial studies, the analysis conducted here aims to explore violence present in Hak’s novel in order to give a novel insight into the techniques of textualizing this phenomenon. The study is divided into two parts –expository that intends to present the author, his concept of literature, and features symptomatic for his literary texts; and analytical in which Vomito Negro is explored in the light of the main thesis argued in the paper. Finally, conclusive remarks introduce an opening to further interpretations of Hak’s literary texts.