Professor Robert Pynsent

Professor of Czech and Slovak Literature

Email
r.pynsent@ssees.ucl.ac.uk

Phone Number
020 7679 8808

Fax
020 7679 8770

I have been teaching Czech and Slovak literature since 1966 (at SSEES since 1972). I became a professor in 1991. I have published articles and books chiefly on Czech and Slovak literature from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, most on Decadence, Slovak Genitalism, fairies, anti-Semitism, and medieval nationalism. I have served on the Research Assessment Exercise sub-panel for Russian and Slavonic studies three times, and worked assessing research over much of western Europe. My most recent articles have been on Němcová, Mácha, Czech Legionary Literature, the penis in contemporary Slovak literature and the medieval and early modern Czech desire to cut off German noses.

Research Interests
14th-century Czech literature; Czech Renaissance prose; nationalism in literature; decadence; contemporary Slovak fiction; Czech women's writing

Teaching and supervision

Introduction to Czech Literature (BA)
This course deals with a few classic texts in such a way as to introduce the main literary streams of thought of the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Introduction to Slovak Literature (BA)
This course is analogous to the Introduction to Czech Literature.

Czech and Slovak Literature 2 and 3 (BA)
These courses build on the previous year's work, aim to cover classics, but also, especially in 3, cater for special interests of individual students.

Czech Literature to 1774, I and II (BA)
This course is normally taught in the second and third years. Part I deals with work covering the whole period, but avoids very long and linguistically particularly demanding works. These are covered in II. In Part II, the special interest of students are also catered for.

Czech Decadence and Symbolism (BA)
This course treats the beginning of Modernism in Czech Literature, roughly speaking 1890-1910.

Czech Fourteenth-Century Literature (MA)
For the purposes of this course, fourteenth-century means c. 1290 to c. 1408. The course covers all genres, and introduces students to the courtly code, the romance, wandering-student drama and verse, and theological texts that treat matters that were to become vital in the Bohemian Reformation.

Directed Reading Courses in Czech and Slovak Literature (MA)
The most popular courses, apart from the medieval, have been Czech Fiction since 1958, Slovak Fiction since 1954 and Czech Fin-de-siécle Literature. I have also taught directed reading courses on subjects like the Concept of Evil in Inter-War Czech Literature and the Portrayal of Jewry in Twentieth-Century Czech Literature.

Nationalism, Literature and Language (MA)
I am course coordinator of this departmental course, providing the sessions on nineteenth-century nationalist theory and, different each year, some aspects of Czech nationalism.

Recent Publications

This page last modified Thursday 1 October 2009.